If I owned the Phillies…
- Resign Aaron Rowand…he personifies Philadelphia.
- Take Freddie Garcia to a remote spot in the old Navy Yard and shot him.
- Sign a real 3rd Baseman…Mike Lowell would probably cost a ton, maybe Pedro Feliz…you just need a stop gap until that kid Costanzo is ready. If you can’t get a real one, just keep increasing the paycheck for Iguchi until he is willing to play it himself.
- Hire the scouts from the Red Soxs and Athletics.
- Fire all the pitching coaches.
- Increase the scouting and player development budgets by 10 fold.
There is no quick way to solve this team. You need pitchers to win, and no pitchers want to pitch in Citizens Bank Park. So my theory: draft them into slavery, and ride them hard through the arbitration years.
But if you going to do that strategy, you have to have great scouts and player development, something which the Phils don’t exactly have. They aren’t bad at producing the batters, mainly Rollins, Utley, and Howard.
However on the pitching side of things, they are abysmal. Hamels is the only notable stud in recent years, and Myers is just good at best. And while we are talking about Hamels, get him to divorce his bat shit crazy wife, then get him to hook up with a hot doctor on the rebound. Hopefully she will get him to forget that crazy holistic healing crap and talk up the qualities of percocet and oxycontin.
Back on point…no sense over paying for crap, Guillermo Mota got a 50 million dollar contract. 50 million dollars, for what!?! There are no studs out there and pitching in such demand that you’re going to pay for it. Save it and use it for some short term batting while you rebuild your pitching staff through the draft.
That’s what I would do.