Ryan Madson and Phillies Still Apparently Friends After All This Time

It really is that time of year when all of my posts include Ruben Amaro in some capacity, and he becomes this protagonist of the Phillies’ offseason chronicles.  Its warm imagery like Ruben staring at some prospect across the table menacingly or throwing coffee in some uppity agent’s face that keeps us from the tightening grasp of winter madness.

And now, we see that Ruben has begun this offseason with the signature complete lack of patience and willingness to compromise that has defined the past few years.  In a good way.

Ruben recognizes the immediacy of his actions are critical, and that spending much of the season staring wistfully out windows would be a waste of everyone’s time, including the window’s.  So he’s moving forward with both Jimmy and Ryan’s extensions, if only making progress in one of them.  The less important one.

Things are moving positively for Ryan Madson and the Phillies, as numerous people from the internet are claiming that a deal has been reached, or a deal is being reached for, or Ryan and Ruben have spat into their hands and are merely waiting for the go-ahead from their posses to slap them together.

Something like that is happening, and while it isn’t the best thing, it is one of the good things.  Obviously we’d rather have the proven closer from our own organization than spend the winter scrambling for unemployed strangers to fill the void.

However, it is still uplifting to know that Ruben isn’t prepared to let too many seconds tick by before moving on to the top free agents in the shortstop and closer markets.  The hope is that he doesn’t have to.  In that vein, everybody seems pretty receptive to Jose Reyes.  I still feel like seeing him in a Phils uniform would feel like being poisoned, but we don’t have to talk about that yet so let’s just force it down into denial.

The next update on the Madson meetings will come when Ruben Amaro accidentally drops a morsel of a hint of a thing.