Ruben Amaro has admitted that if the Phillies play badly enough, they will be selling at the trade deadline.
Apr 21, 2013; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr talks with media prior to playing the St. Louis Cardinals at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports
This is less of a Phillies thing and more of a universal baseball thing. Some teams middle out enough to make it more of a decision, but in the end, it’s a pretty global concept. They may not be quite bad enough to technically warrant a fire sale, but there’s very little chance that they’ll be good enough to start adding pieces to fill out a championship team. In fact, there’s no chance of that.
So yeah; the Phillies will probably trade a bunch of their players for prospects or John McDonald’s. One could by Chase Utley, one could be Carlos Ruiz, one could be Cliff Lee, and one could definitely be Michael Young. Ruben has said he doesn’t want to trade any of them specifically because he’s been asked about them specifically, and can’t say things like, “Yeah, definitely – we’re a really bad team, and these are the mainstays I will be trading to deal with it.”
It’s not like he’ll trade Utley and we’ll be able to throw his past quotes back at him in which he said he saw Utley as a “Phillie for life.”
“Oh right,” Ruben wouldn’t say. “I forgot I said that. Trade cancelled, happiness restored.”
While guys are on the team – popular guys – he’ll never say he doesn’t want them here. So yeah, this bad baseball team that we are will likely do the thing that bad teams do at the trade deadline. Especially as a bad team with a piece or two that people would want to grab onto for a playoff run of their own.