Oct. 29, 2008 — The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in Game 5 of the World Series. Picture the pandemonium in the streets — the Phillies had not won a title since 1980, when they were led by Hall-of-Famers Steve Carlton and Michael Jack Schmidt. The city of Philadelphia had not experienced a championship team since 1983, when the 76ers swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Fast forward to October 2012. Imagine that the Phillies — winners of 473 games and five National League East titles from 2007 through 2011 — are seven games removed from the playoffs and have absolutely no signs of a promising future. How does that make any sense?
The answer is simple: Rubén Amaro, Jr.
Amaro took over as Phillies General Manager on Nov. 1, 2008, the day after a parade celebrating the city’s beloved baseball heroes marched up and down Broad Street. Since Amaro took control as GM, the franchise has gone downhill faster than a speeding bullet.
Amaro’s regime did not start out poorly. In the offseason following the 2008 World Series Championship, the Phillies signed stud-starting pitcher Cliff Lee to bolster their rotation. Despite the fact that Lee would miss much of the regular season due to injury, the 2009 Phillies (93-69) were arguably much better than the 2008 Phillies (92-70).
Although the Phils were ultimately unable to defend their ’08 World Series Championship in 2009, when they lost to the New York Yankees in six games, the future was still bright on Broad Street. The Phillies were teeming with talent they had drafted and developed themselves, including Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. They had a smart coach in Charlie Manuel. They had a potent lineup and a field draped with Gold-Glovers. And, as if that weren’t enough, they would go on to acquire an abundance of other talent by a debatable series of trades.
On Dec. 15, 2009, the Phillies acquired Roy Halladay — arguably the best starting pitcher of the new millennium — from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Phils weren’t done yet, though. Later in the 2010 season, Philadelphia acquired pitcher Roy Oswalt from the Houston Astros. The Phillies boasted the MLB’s best record heading into the 2010 postseason, but endured an early elimination at the hand of the eventual World Series Champion San Francisco Giants.
At the start of the 2011 season, the Phillies were heralded to have one of the best starting rotations in league history. Consisting of 2010 NL Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay, Hamels, Lee and Oswalt (one of — if not the greatest — fourth starters of all time). Fans waited patiently for the Phillies to get back to the Fall Classic, but it simply was not meant to be. The Phils won over 100 regular season games that year, but were eliminated in the NL Divisional Series by the St. Louis Cardinals, who would eventually win the NL Pennant.
The Phillies organization saw an overabundance of raw talent from 2011 dissipate into a hodgepodge of failure in a matter of just two seasons. Between 2008 and 2011, each Phillies team had a better regular season than the year before. In 2012, however, the Phillies dropped off the face of the earth. They went 81-81 en route to a third place finish in the NL East and missed the postseason by a sizeable seven-game margin. The year before, they won 102 games, and held the best regular season record in baseball for the second year in a row.
Toward the middle of last season, Philly.com conducted a “Stay or Go” poll, predicting a fire sale that Amaro has opted not to conduct, and the results were extraordinary.
Over 88 percent of fans agreed that Howard, a former National League MVP, two-time home runs leader and five-time All-Star, should go. Howard’s low acceptance rate is obviously in part due to his dwindling productivity, even though he did drive in 95 runs last year. More importantly, though, he is no longer wanted because of his exorbitant $125-million contract through 2016.
Unsurprisingly, the same “Stay or Go” poll found that 93.6 percent of fans want Amaro out of Philadelphia. His reckless trading of prospects, combined with his even more reckless spending on contracts, has left the Phillies’ current roster aging and injured and their minor league rosters desolate.
Some of his trades — specifically Halladay — have been incredibly successful. Halladay threw a perfect game against the Florida Marlins in 2010. He also threw a no-hitter in his first career postseason game against the Cincinnati Reds that same season.
Others, such as the Hunter Pence trade in 2011, in which he shipped four promising prospects — Jarred Cosart, Josh Zeid, Jonathan Singleton and Domingo Santana — to the Houston Astros, have not been so successful. Pence only stayed with the team for the remainder of the 2011 season, before he was shipped off to the San Francisco Giants in July 2012. This past 2014 season, he would propel the Giants to their World Series title in three years with a prolific postseason effort.
Though his aggressive style arguably paid off in the short term, it has set up Philadelphia for a decade of misery in the basement of the NL East.
