Philadelphia Daily News: Ruben Amaro Jr. May be G.M. Frontrunner

by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 10, 2007 9:03 PM EDT in News

The Philly Daily News reports that Phillies assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. may be the leading candidate for the Pirates' GM job:

Days after the Phillies assistant general manager interviewed in Houston to become the Astros' next general manager, multiple baseball sources indicated that Amaro may also be the front-runner to replace the fired Dave Littlefield in Pittsburgh.

Word leaked out over the weekend that Frank Coonelly, Major League Baseball's senior vice president and general counsel of labor relations, will shortly be announced as the Pirates' new CEO.

That was followed almost immediately by strong speculation that Amaro is Coonelly's first choice to become the Pirates' next general manager.

This is consistent with the Post-Gazette's report that two of the four leading candidates for the Pirates job are assistant GMs, and with the timing of Dave Littlefield's firing. Owner Bob Nutting had previously said that he would wait until after the season to evaluate Littlefield's status, so Amaro's interviewing with the Astros could be the reason Nutting fired Littlefield early.

Maybe Amaro's a smart guy. I don't really know. Vlad knows a lot more about these things than I do. But I can't find anything really impressive about him, and the Phillies' chief accomplishments since Amaro took his post in 1998 have been finishing with 84 wins over and over, grabbing every washed-up, 30-something reliever available, and spending loads of money.

The Phillies got a very good player in each draft from 1999 to 2002 (Brett Myers, then Chase Utley, then Ryan Howard, then Cole Hamels). That's nothing to sneeze at but, as we all know, they then tried to trade Howard to the Pirates for Kris Benson. (The Pirates refused, in what proved to be a bonanza of godawful player evaluation by both teams.) The best trade the Phillies have made since Amaro was hired was in 2005, when they got Aaron Rowand and prospects for Jim Thome, finally making room for Howard. After that, their trades have been decidedly uninspiring. The Phils retained Larry Bowa long past the point where it should have been obvious that he was hurting their team, and they haven't won more than 88 games since 1993, even though they've had plenty of money.

Maybe Amaro wasn't responsible for any of those things. But if he's going to be the Bucs' GM, I'd prefer to see some evidence that he knows how to run a team, and right now I don't see any.

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Not particularly encouraging

:-\

by matskralc on Sep 10, 2007 9:17 PM EDT reply actions

Heh.

What a coincidence... just finished writing him up.

In the short version, I pretty much agree with your take. The other two rumored choices I've heard haven't seemed too impressive, either. It kind of feels like they asked Coonelly who he enjoyed interacting with during his bonus-enforcer duties, and then decided to interview those guys.

by Vlad on Sep 10, 2007 9:22 PM EDT reply actions

From media reports:

The four guys who have been mentioned in print as candidates are Tony LaCava, Ruben Amaro, Rick Hahn, and Peter Woodfork. One I had on my second tier, two that I'm VERY skeptical about, and one who wasn't on my radar at all (in fairness, he seems OK now that I've researched him a bit). If all those names are accurate, then that's the whole set...

In order of preference, I was most interested in were Logan White, Mike Rizzo, Chris Antonetti, Gerry Hunsicker, and Kim Ng. Looks like none of 'em are even going to get a sniff.

by Vlad on Sep 10, 2007 9:34 PM EDT up reply actions

Dan Duquette.

I guess the rumors about Dan Duquette were just wishful thinking? For a second I thought Nutting wasn't going to be as disappointing as the Pirates record.

by bigshotbob on Sep 10, 2007 9:35 PM EDT reply actions

If they want

the guy responsible for the state of the Phillies, they could just hire our old buddy Ed Wade. I presume he's available to get us to that 84-win plateau.

by bucdaddy on Sep 10, 2007 11:01 PM EDT reply actions

Not encouraging at all ...

Good write-up on Amaro. I am very skeptical of him. I'd rather see them at least interview somebody from the Dodgers' organization (either White or Ng), or I'd be interested in learning more about potential candidates who work in other organizations with strong farm systems (the Angels come to mind, and the Padres).

by bern1 on Sep 11, 2007 10:34 AM EDT reply actions