By Mary Cunningham
If Phillies fans need any more evidence of the general incompetence of general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., consider his negotiations with the Seattle Mariners to unload outfielder Ben Revere.
Wednesday night, CSN Philly’s Jim Salisbury reported that the Mariners are “checking in” on Revere. This makes sense: Revere has been squeezed out of his natural left-field role, and despite a down year, is still miles better than what Seattle has been getting from its leftfielders this season.
Thursday morning, the Tacoma News Tribune’s Bob Dutton reported that trade talks are going nowhere because the Phillies are asking for either Taijuan Walker or James Paxton in exchange.
This does not make sense: Walker and Paxton are probably Seattle’s two best young pitchers, and Revere is kind of not good.
There is setting a high asking price to kick off negotiations, and then there is insulting the intelligence of anyone who’s ever met anyone who can even spell the word “baseball.”
Amaro, not content to let the world think him underqualified for his job, gave this statement to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal on the Revere-for-the-moon report:
“Typically we would not comment on rumors. But when they reach this level of ridiculousness, I can say unequivocally that what has been written is false.”
Boy, poor Amaro can’t win. Try to make a move that would make your team better, and you catch hell for it. Make a bunch of moves over six years that take your team from world champs to laughingstocks, and you catch hell for it. What’s a GM supposed to do?
