Ruben Amaro might kill this team

General Manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. took on a hell of a task after being named successor to Pat Gillick’s 2008 champion Phillies. His job? To win as many World Series before the window of opportunity closes.

He did well by agreeing to multi-year contracts with the likes of Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, Carlos Ruiz, Joe Blanton, Ryan Madson and Greg Dobbs. He traded for Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and improved the bench with Ben Francisco. Not too many negatives there.

Amaro’s instincts, much like the deception of arm speed on a pitcher’s changeup, seem to be largely based on feel. If Cole Hamels feels a bit off on a day he’s supposed to start, his cunning changeup will probably get hit around by the opposition. Now I’m not sure if Amaro sees something new in Danys Baez or if he just put some extra sugar on his Raisin Bran the morning of that signing, but I don’t see the sense of handing out a two-year contract to an aging, mildly-effective reliever. Amaro then dished out a three-year, $18M contract to Placido Polanco, which Tim Dierkes of MLBTradeRumors.com has called, “a candidate for the worst [signing] of the offseason.” Keep in mind that not only has Polanco not played an inning at third base since his last stint with the Phillies in 2005, but none of the other 29 teams in baseball were offering him a two year deal, let alone three. Amaro has lucked out with the Ibanez signing so far, but Rauuul is owed $23M between 2010 and 2011. He will almost certainly become untradeable, and won’t become a free agent until he’s 39 years old.

Amaro has stated in the past that he doesn’t believe in sabermetrics. Since many fans still believe that batting average, RBI and a pitcher’s win-loss record is indicative of a player’s true talent, I personally don’t feel that the more reliable sabermetrics stats like OPS+, FIP and WAR will become mainstream until the national sports media formally introduces newer metrics to the viewing public. But I wish that Amaro would at least acknowledge that these statistics exist and were created to help evaluate player performance and value; something that you would think he would be interested in as the captain of the Phillies ship.

But my biggest gripe with Amaro is the way he handled the Cliff Lee trade. Newly-appointed Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik has done an outstanding job with his new club this offseason, but how often does a GM get a top-five pitcher in baseball dropped on their doorstep? According to a Baltimore Sun article from Dec. 20, here’s how it went down:

“When Zduriencik headed to Indianapolis for the winter meetings two weeks ago, he hoped to come home with free agent pitcher Rich Harden on his roster. His focus changed after Amaro called.

“He said ‘Look, if I’m able to do Halladay, would you be able to do Cliff Lee?’ ” Zduriencik recalled after the trade went through.”

So once Amaro and Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulus agreed on the players for the Halladay trade, he immediately turned to Zduriencik instead of letting anyone else know that Lee was available. What resulted was a very underwhelming prospect package for an ace pitcher signed to a one-year, $9M contract. One could argue that the Brewers gave up roughly the same value in Matt LaPorta for just two months of CC Sabathia (also a free-agent-to-be signed for $9M in 2008). Lee’s value was already high, but holding onto him for even two more weeks would have driven up his price significantly as other teams prepared their offers for the ace.

Amaro continues to tap into the stink reservoir of Ed Wade, which festers about 1500 miles away at Minute Maid Park. We’ll find out how his decision-making will pan out as time goes on, but I’ll continue to secretly hope that Pat Gillick is still at the helm.

Let me breathe this in for a minute…

Looks like it really happened. He’ll speak to reporters on Friday.

photo courtesy Yong Kim.