Thursday morning, six-time All-Star and 2013 Philadelphia Phillies' Wall of Fame inductee Curt Schilling joined Mornings with Anthony Gargano on 97.5 The Fanatic.
Amongst the discussed topics were the current state of the franchise, the ever-so-growing impact of international, as well as young homegrown, talent in the game, the Cole Hamels trade market, Jonathan Papelbon, and Pete Rose at the All-Star Game on Tuesday.
The following is a transcription from most of the interview.
Gargano: When you got [dealt] in the hideous trade, were the Phillies at a lower point now or then? I thought we were bad then, and they were too bad to keep you. But you look at it now and they’re in way worse shape.
Schilling:
“I think now by a long shot. We were [bad then]. It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. That’s the problem. When I left here, Scott Rolen was here, and Cole Hamels was a prospect. This is a tough one.”
Gargano: It’s unbelievable where [the Phillies] are at. How does it get this bad?
Schilling:
“I think injuries, bad decisions and bad contracts. Usually, you don’t get all three. You’ll have a year of injuries, you’ll have a bad contract here [and there], and you make a bad decision every now and then. But, you generally don’t see all three pilling up on each other.”
Gargano: I had J.J. Picollo on, who’s the assistant GM for the Royals. He was talking about building the Royals, and about building a team particularly that fits well at Kauffman Stadium, and that ball park and how it plays bigger, and he wanted to go with speed.
You look at [the Phillies] and the way that it was built. I remember Charlie Manuel saying this in 2012 when those guys got hurt: ‘we have a bunch of leprechauns.’ He had nobody to hit out of the ballpark.
Schilling:
“Well, this team was built around five aces. This was built around really huge contracts for [Cliff] Lee and [Roy] Halladay. You had Hamels, and a monster rotation. Then you had the Howard contract and the other stuff. Once the injuries started, it just snowballed.
The hard part is, when you look at this thing, you look at the Chicago Cubs. Look what Theo [Epstein] did in three or four years. If you make good decisions and put good, young baseball players in a position to succeed, you can do it. You can get it done. You just have to make smart decisions and have really smart baseball people.”
Gargano: One of the things I thought [the Phillies] should have done was, go get Yasmany Tomas because they had no outfield whatsoever. You being out in Arizona sometimes, what do you think of Tomas?
Schilling:
“Well, I haven’t seen enough of him. So, there are guys I usually try to listen to and can trust.
That’s kind of a new frontier right now. You look at some of the contracts that they are putting out for those guys, watch them take batting practice and throw a little bit. It’s clearly there are guys, Cespedes and Puig, and other teams are getting teased by it.
I think that the thing that it does show is how healthy baseball is when you at the contracts. I don’t want to say ‘sight unseen’, but they are giving these guys $40, 50, 60, 70 million again, for really good batting practice. The game is in a good place.
When I keep going back and looking at Philly, that’s the hard part. They have the money. When I was there, it was always the money. If you look around the league, [its] parody right now is at an all-time high. If you had the healthy Phillies of a couple years ago, Lee, Halladay, Hamels, they’d be battling the Nats. Look at the Dodgers with [Zack] Greinke and [Clayton] Kershaw. They still have issues.”
Gargano: The game is healthy regionally, but nationally I look at a guy like Mike Trout and I go, ‘this kid should be everywhere. This kid should be an elite status of every great athlete, but he’s not.’
Schilling:
“Trout, [Bryce] Harper, Buster Posey. There’s a bunch of young players that should be bigger than they are. Baseball is always like that if the guys aren’t in the right market. Look at Vladimir Guerrero. He was kind of an under-the-radar kind of guy because of where he played. Giancarlo Stanton. Can you imagine if he was in New York?
The sport is healthy, and you are seeing right now the amount of young talent in the game. This was the conversation at the All-Star Game. It’s not just young, good talent. How many once-in-a-generation players are there in the game at the same time right now? I like the fact that, for the most part, they are good kids. I don’t foresee problems yet, and that’s a good thing.”
Gargano: Who do you think should make the play for Cole [Hamels]?
Schilling:
“This is a really weird situation because everybody is going to be a buyer. I’m not sure that that’s the smart play for a lot of teams because you are going to see a lot of [them] that are “buying” for a one-game playoff. I don’t know how you do that. I don’t know what’s the price you would pay to get nine innings of a Wild Card game. Last year the Giants and Royals both were the wild card, so that worked out okay, but I don’t know.
To me what it does, is that they are very few sellers. So, you’re going to see an extreme premium I think on pricing. The Phillies should get something monstrous for Cole, because the word that everybody uses now is “control”. Cole Hamels is on your team for a couple of years. Cueto is not.
I also think that Ruben’s going to have his legs cut-out from under him in a sense. He’s not going to be able to make any deals on his own. I think Andy [MacPhail] and Pat [Gillick] are going to completely be in control of how that plays out and how that works.
Somebody is going to pay huge if they move [Hamels], and rightfully so. This is one of the few times you are able to trade him and his entire contract. Given what the contracts they are stuck with right now, if you can do that you do it.”
Gargano: If you are the Cubs, would you make the play for Cole?
Schilling:
“Yea, he’s perfect for a lot of teams.
One of Theo [Epstein]’s strengths is that he’s able to assess honestly. They may be five out, but he might be looking at the roster going ‘there’s too many holes.’ What I don’t think you’ll see [Epstein] do, is make a desperate play, make a play that says ‘we’re in it to win it and we’re throwing it all against the wall.’ His strength is his ability to stick to the plan.”
Gargano: Is it right or wrong for Papelbon to use the All-Star Game pulpit to force the trade?
Schilling:
“I don’t know. Unfortunately, timing-wise I think there’s a little of me in him.
It’s going to happen. There’s no need to speed it up. I think he knows that he’s gone by the deadline. He just wants out. The unfortunate part is, it’s hard to do that without in a way disrespecting the fans, the city or the organization or certain people.
I never tried to do that, but in hindsight when you look at the way I said things, you can take it that way. [Papelbon] just needs to sit back and let it happen because it will.”
Gargano: What was the take around the All-Star Game with Pete [Rose]?
Schilling:
“Fatigue. It’s tiring. Turn the page already.
I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but I think that it was a lot more underwhelming than people had expected it to be. I just keep going back to the fact that I want Hall of Fame weekend to be about the guys getting inducted. I want the ceremonies, like the other day, to be about the guys that did do it, and did it right. But in Cincinnati, [Rose] will always be an icon.”
Matt Rappa (@mattrappasports) is managing editor of Philliedelphia.com.
