Neither David Bell, Bobby Abreau, Mike Lieberthal (who is hitting .319 in the last 30 days), nor Pat Burrell is singularly responsible for the Phils missing the playoffs this year. The blame is to be shared, though not equally, amoung the players, the manager, and the GM.
The manager is a terrible game day manager. Pulling pitchers too early, adhearing too much to the righty vs. lefty strategy, misusing his bullpen. His faults are many and have been well documented. He does, though, have the ability to keep his team happy and playing well. I couldn't imagine a Bowa managed team comming back from the disaster against Houston to make a run at the wild card and almost the division.
Ed Wade did sign Lieber, Lofton and Fultz, and traded for Urbina and Martinez (he's better that Perez). Many thought this team had enough talent to contend for the division lead. Wade has assembled a very good bullpen. On the other hand, he failed to make a mid-season move to improve the starting rotation after Wolf went down. He also signed Abreau, Lieberthal, and Burrell to deals in excess of their worth, making them almost impossible to move
The players? A bunch of non-clutch hitting clowns. Even the organization savior, Chase Utley, is hitting a lackluster .265 over the last 30 days. Who amoung us wants to see Burrell, Abreau, Bell, or Lieberthal up in a big situation late in the game.
The way I see it the blame for not making the post season again looks like this:
Manager 30%
GM 20%
Players 50% (Too many big contracts, to few big hits)
#
Posted by Larry on Sep 29
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.broadstreetblogger.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/27
