One year ago, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. was ranked the worst general manager in all of baseball by Sports Illustrated. Today the newest rankings have been released, and Amaro has improved. Well, not by much, but it is improvement, none the less. Amaro ranked 29 out of 30 general managers in this year's poll.
Here is what Sporting News has to say about the Phillies' GM:
Waiting to trade Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, and Jonathan Papelbon keeps looking better and better, because there are going to be enough contenders with needs to initiate actual bidding wars. There is no excuse this time if Amaro does not pull the trigger on deals, though. He already shipped out Jimmy Rollins. There's no more waiting around. While we're at it, signing Aaron Harang and maybe flipping him at the deadline is a pretty good piece of business. Of course, all the years leading up to this, leading to the Phillies being a laughingstock, still count.
So, who is now worse than Amaro? That would be Alex Anthopoulous of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Despite landing superstar third baseman Josh Donaldson in a trade, Anthopoulous was slammed for not acquiring pitching this offseason. Anthopoulous would have lost decision-making ability had Dan Duquette been allowed to become the Blue Jays president this offseason. Duquette's current employer, the Baltimore Orioles, wanted significant compensation for Duquette to accept the promotion. So, current president Paul Beeston stayed on another year while the club searches for a president. That president probably will want a new general manager.
The same is true for whoever succeeds Pat Gillick, perhaps as soon as this offseason. At least Amaro is showing improvement.
Read the full rankings here on SportingNews.com.
