Another day, another story regarding the Phillies and their efforts to rebuild for the future. Last night, we found out the Kansas City Royals could be a potential landing spot for Ryan Howard and that the Phillies GM, Ruben Amaro Jr., had a sit down meeting with the agent for slugging Cuban outfielder, Yasmany Tomas.
Ruben Amaro Jr. and other general managers have their yearly meeting this week, through Thursday. In a recent story written by Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, Amaro preached what he had been for the past couple of weeks, claiming the Phillies will listen on anybody and everybody.
“We’re looking to improve in all areas,” Ruben Amaro Jr. said as he gathered with his counterparts for baseball’s annual general managers’ meetings Monday. “We’re looking to improve this year, but we’re more concerned with what we’re going to be doing down the road, improving down the road.
“Ultimately, you’d like to not have to take a step backward, but if that’s what we have to do for the longterm viability and sustainability of our club, that’s what we’ll try to do.
“Like I’ve said, we’re open to talk about anybody.”
Amaro's comments were confirmed by an anonymous rival executive, who also believes the Phillies will find a landing spot for Ryan Howard.
“They’re trying to blow the whole thing up,” the executive said. “Everyone is for sale.”
According to the rival executive, Cole Hamels and Ken Giles would net the biggest return for the Phillies, though the asking prices on both of them will be very high, as they should be. He also believes that their could be multiple trade partners for Marlon Byrd, who showed that he still has a lot of power at his age. Byrd is owed $8 million in 2015 and has an $8 million option for 2016. Hamels is owed a minimum of $96 million through the remainder of his deal.
With the meetings among the GM's ongoing, Ruben Amaro said that he has had some discussions, but doesn't anticipate anything happening quite this soon. The Phillies aquired Brad Lidge at these meetings in 2007 and Marlon Byrd last year.
“We had a lot of really good dialogue prior to these meetings,” Amaro said. “During the course of the trade deadline, we had a lot of good discussions and dialogues and sometimes you can move those things forward. We’ve continued that since the season’s been over.
“We’re trying to find out if we match needs with other clubs. We’ve done a lot of homework over the course of the last several months, and we’re looking forward to more face-to-face dialogue over the next few days. It will continue after this.
“I don’t necessarily anticipate us doing anything this time. These things are complicated. Signing players is complicated. There’s a lot of competition. So we view this as an opportunity to touch base with some of the clubs we’ve had dialogue with and continue those conversations.”
All this talk of a rebuild, but who will be the first to go? These meetings are normally the kick-off to baseball's offseason, so the coming weeks could be very telling for Ruben Amaro and the Phillies.
Brandon Apter, Publishing Editor for Philliedelphia.com
