Monty sent me an email, plus some thoughts on the Phillies general manager vacancy...
...When I returned to the Balls, Sticks, & Stuff compound last night from an evening at Tony Luke's Beef and Beer Sports Bar, I checked my email/Gmail and found a new message with a subject line entitled "From the desk of David Montgomery". "Finally," I thought, "they will be contacting me about the GM job." Sadly, that was not the purpose of the email. But here it is, in its entirety, for your viewing pleasure [complete with the attatched picture of Monty]:
Dear Thomas:
On behalf of the entire Phillies organization, I want you to know that we appreciate your passion and loyalty. We know full well that without our fans there would be no Phillies baseball. I am writing to give you a brief update on ballclub matters.
As I am sure you are aware, a search for a new General Manager is underway. Our intent is to conduct a thorough and intensive search in order to select a General Manager who will get us to the postseason and bring a championship to Philadelphia.
We know that we have work to do this offseason. Getting the right person as the General Manager is step No. 1. From there, we need to make the necessary improvements to get our win total over 90 games, capture the division title, and play in the postseason.
Looking back on the 2005 season, although we didn't achieve our goals, we believe that there were very positive signs for the future. The players played hard to the very last day in Washington. They never gave up and battled to the end for a postseason spot. Some individual performances were outstanding. Jimmy Rollins' 36-game hitting streak during the pressure of a pennant race was a remarkable feat. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard -- two young players who excelled in clutch situations and fed off the energy of our passionate fans -- provided great excitement. Many other achievements and strengths could be mentioned, but we recognize there is more to do and we intend to do it.
Thank you for your support throughout the 2005 season and past seasons. Our entire organization is very appreciative of the dedication exhibited by Phillies fans. We will not take that for granted and we will work hard each and every day to earn and keep your support.
We look forward to providing you with further updates as we proceed during the offseason.
Sincerely,
David Montgomery
President
I don't know about you, but to me, that email reads like someone who fired their GM more because of pressure from the public than because of baseball reasons. I believe Monty was right to fire Wade, but I think he did it for the wrong reasons, which worries me that he may pick the new GM for the wrong reasons. PR rather than baseball.
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As you may recall, on Sunday, Randy Miller of the Courier-Times wrote a behind the scenes look at the real Ed Wade. It is interesting to think about negotiations and transactions in the Phillies past now that we know a little bit more about Ed Wade's behind the scenes persona, particularly in the case of Curt Schilling's availability prior to the 2004 season.
Schilling and his family wanted to return to Philadelphia, yet the Phillies were very lukewarm about the possibility. At one point, as Jon Heyman reported in Newsday, Ed Wade said of Schilling, "He's a horse every fifth day, and a horse's ass the other four."
Knowing what we know now about Ed Wade, we can only imagine what else he said about Schilling during the brief trade negotiations. There may be some truth to what Wade said, but he should have swallowed his little man's pride rather than bristling at another strong willed personality and instead, made more of an effort to acquire Schilling.
The 2004 Phillies finished near the bottom of the league in pitching and the offense towards the top of the league. Had Schilling been on that roster, the team's fortunes may have turned out differently.
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The more I think about it, the more I believe Brian Cashman is Monty's preference to replace Wade. Follow me on this: According to league sources [not mine, Marcus Hayes's], the Phillies have not officially contacted anyone about being a candidate. Also, Cashman is under contract to the Yankees for a few more weeks. In my mind, this adds up to Monty wanting to find out the availability of Cashman before making any kind of move on anyone else and trying to avoid a bidding war with Big Stein.
This could be a mistake. Other very qualified candidates [ <cough>Gerry Hunsicker</cough> ] may be snapped up by other teams before the Phillies make a move. The music might stop and the Phillies will be left without a chair at the general manager's table.
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A Lost-free Zone
As I stated above, last evening was spent at Tony Luke's, so I recorded Lost to my DVR, but I will not be able to watch it until Thursday evening. Therefore, I hereby declare this website a Lost-free zone until I can watch the episode. I'd like to avoid a well-intentioned reader spoiling any details. Thank you very much for your consideration in this matter.
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The Braves will rue the day they let Leo Mazzone go to the Orioles. If JC Bradbury of the excellent Sabernomics is correct, we can expect the Braves team ERA to increase by half a run in 2006.
