Phillies Continue Purge of Useless World Champions

In their continued effort to purge their entire roster of useless world champions, the Phillies traded starter Joe Blanton to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

With Blanton now a member of the Dodgers, there are only five players left from the 2008 championship team… Utley, Howard, Rollins, Hamels and Kyle Kendrick. And Kendrick wasn’t even on the playoff roster.

I mean, how many championship players does one team really need?

First it was Pat Burrell, with his useless plate discipline and power bat, to get the heave-ho. Shortly thereafter, Jayson Werth’s productivity and solid defense was allowed to depart and Brett Myers’ goofy antics and practical joking nature was shipped out. Jamie Moyer, well, he’s dead now, isn’t he? Brad Lidge’s perfect season wasn’t perfect enough, I guess. J.C. Romero and Ryan Madson’s shut down set-up work clearly wasn’t good enough anymore. And really, Shane Victorino was pretty much a non-factor during the 2008 postseason anyway.

Of course, to be fair, the players from the 2008 team that are either retired or playing elsewhere are only former world champions. None of them won diddly-poo last year, and this is a “what have you done for me lately” business.

Slowly but surely, Ruben Amaro is attempting to wipe away any trace of Pat Gillick’s contributions to the franchise. That much is obvious.

And up until Friday, all of Amaro’s moves were OK with me. I was fine with it all.

That was until he traded away the man who single-handedly won Game 4 of the 2008 World Series.

That was until he traded away fan favorite Joe Blanton.

How could he do it? How could he trade Fat Joe to our arch-nemesis, the Dodgers, without even receiving a player back? And what exactly are “cash considerations?” Does that mean they’ll consider sending us cash, but only if we promise to send them more world champions?

I think Ruben got fleeced in this one.

Did Amaro not see Game 4? Does he not realize Blanton’s true value? I mean, how could he not at least get L.A.’s #1, 2 or 3 prospect? Or all three?

JOE BLANTON HIT A HOME RUN IN GAME 4!!! HELLOOOOOO???

Now the big question is, when will Amaro finally unload Utley, Howard and Rollins? Obviously, we’re all stuck with Cole Hamels for another six years. Nothing we can do about that now.

But perhaps the front office can figure out a way to pawn these former champions onto someone else’s roster. Perhaps the Dodgers would be interested. After all, it seems like they’re trying to acquire every other Philadelphia Phillie that beat them in the ’08 and ’09 National League Championship Series anyway.

So, if you’re a fan of the 2008 championship team, I have just one word of advice.

Shine up your World Champions DVD and have it on stand-by. Because pretty soon, that’s the only way you’ll ever be able to see any of these players again.

All thanks to Ruben Amaro’s desire to rid this team of all its useless world champions.

Sorry… FORMER world champions.