Link: ESPN.com - MLB - Report: Phillies settle on Gillick for GM post.
The Phillies will name Pat Gillick as general manager, major-league sources told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday.
The choice of Gillick makes Dave Montgomery's plan for the future quite clear: Hire a man with a great resume to become part-time general manager "slash" Ruben Amaro, Jr.'s mentor, and let Amaro take over many of the day to day duties.
For the most part, I am OK with this strategy, but I think the Phillies could have done better. Gerry Hunsicker was probably the best and safest choice.
What would spice this decision up a bit would be to hire Theo Epstein as a part-time consultant to the organization, possibly directly to Monty. That way, he could counter-balance Dallas Green's reverberations. In other words, picture a miniature Theo and a miniature Dallas on each of Montgomery's shoulders whispering their own versions of words of wisdom to the team CEO.
Update: More from Ken Mandel at Phillies.com:
Another source close to the situation confirmed that the choice was Gillick, who last week said he believed the Phillies didn't need a whole lot of tinkering to get to the next level.
Again, this confirms what we've suspected all along, Monty isn't interested in rocking the boat too much.
Update: David Pinto of Baseball Musings brings up some interesting points regarding Gillick [his comments were in light of the speculation that the Dodgers were also interested in Gillick]:
If the Dodgers hire Gillick, I expect Pat to do very well. While Gillick paints himself as the anti-Moneyball GM, he's not. Gillick does with his head what DePodesta does with a computer. Look at the teams he created in Toronto and Seattle. His offenses were built around players with great OBAs. He knew when to replace high priced stars with cheaper ones who also had talent. His trade of Fernandez and McGriff for Alomar and Carter made the team younger and better, especially as he was able to move Olerud into the first base slot. It was a great Moneyball deal.
