Gillick (left), Amaro and Montgomery, the Mt. Rushmore of Citizens Bank Park.
By Sarah Berkowitz
If you’re a Phillies fan hoping against hope that their awful general manager, Ruben Amaro Jr., will replaced anytime soon, you may want to sit down.
Team chairman David Montgomery, in an interview with MLB Radio Network, says Amaro isn’t going anywhere.
“We think we have a pretty quality guy in that role,”Montgomery said of Amaro. “At the same time, I have a partnership group where they are looking at this closely as well. And the reality is we have a GM that we think is effective and we have a Hall Of Fame GM in our midst as well. And if Pat [Gillick] spends an entire year or two close with Ruben [Amaro], I think he’ll have a very good idea as to how effective Ruben is and collectively a decision will be made.”
The Phillies are coming off of back-to-back 73-win seasons with Amaro at the helm, and he has begun systematically disassembling an aging roster that has steadily declined since the Phillies most recent playoff appearance in 2011.
Jimmy Rollins was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Marlon Byrd was shipped off to the Cincinnati Reds. Trade rumors persistently swirl around Jonathan Papelbon, Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard.
“We really had a period of time there when we were good we wanted to take advantage of it and deliver,” Montgomery said. “And we got to the World Series twice, we won one, we won 102 games one year and St. Louis knocked us out in that first series. The reality is, that I believe if you can be one of those eight anything can happen. And our goal is to get back to the point where we can be one of those eight. And I think if we do that, we’ll probably be there for a few years once we do that.”
