The Phillies announced today, to the surprise of no one, that Ruben Amaro Jr. is the new general managerand that Pat Gillick will stay on as an adviser. It’s a good move. Amaro, 43, is considered a rising star in baseball front-office circles and it doesn’t hurt that he has strong ties to the organization, after working as a bat boy for the 1980 championship team, playing for the ’93 pennant winners, and working as Assistant GM for this year’s World Champs. It’s great to have a guy in charge that is talented, experienced, and will have strong loyalty to the organization.
In another unsurprising announcement, Phils President David Montgomery said that Assistant GM Mike Arbuckle will not return to the team, after being passed over in favor of Amaro. This is sad news, but Arbuckle can’t be blamed for wanting to go in search of other opportunities. Arbuckle took over as Head of Scouting for the Phillies in the early-90’s and has been the main decision-maker on draft picks ever since.
As the Phillies rolled to a title over the past couple of weeks, it became fashionable for people in the organization, in the media, and for fans to give a lot of credit to former GM Ed Wade. After all, the logic goes, most of the key players on this year’s team were drafted during Wade’s tenure. That may be true, but Arbuckle had much more to do with those picks than Wade did. At the end-of-the-parade celebration on Friday, Arbuckle was driven out on the back of one of those convertibles, just like Gillick, Amaro, and the players, but it still feels like he has been under-appreciated.
Arbuckle brought a specific philosophy to scouting and drafting: take the players with the potential to be great, the ones with the highest ceiling. At a time when a lot of organizations were following the Billy Beane path of taking college pitchers and sub-par athletes that get on-base a ton, Arbuckle and his staff were looking for top-flight athletes (Rollins), pure power hitters (Howard, Burrell), and high-school pitchers with live arms (Hamels, Myers, Madson, Gavin Floyd). While this strategy may end up with some misses (Reggie Taylor, Adam Eaton), when it works, you don’t end up with solid major-leaguers, you end up with All-Stars and potential Hall-of-Famers. You end up with a championship.
Arbuckle’s draft highlights include: Picking a 5 foot nothing high school shortstop in the second-round that everyone said was too small and ended up being Jimmy Rollins, whose resume reads MVP and Leader of the ’08 Champs. Another second-rounder was Scott Rolen, a 5-time All-Star. In 2001, Arbuckle’s staff took a chance on a 5th-rounder coming off a horrible season at his no-name college in Missouri. That guy ended up being Ryan Howard, who’s only hit 177 home runs in 3 1/2 seasons, won Rookie of the Year, and may be about to take his second MVP award. Somehow Chase Utley fell to the mid-first round in 2000, and the Phillies were there to scoop him up with the 15th pick, and he looks headed to Cooperstown as hands-down the best second baseman of this generation. In 2002, Arbuckle made what may go down as his best pick of all, taking a high school pitcher coming off a major arm injury with the 17th pick in the draft. That pitcher, of course, now owns NLCS and World Series MVP trophies, at the age of 24.
As a Major League Director of Scouting, you can put those accomplishments up against anybody’s. Baseball America had Arbuckle listed as the #3 GM prospect five yearsago. This guy deserves a shot. So, congratulations go out to Ruben Amaro. But, also, thank you, Mike Arbuckle, and good luck.
You nailed it with this article, man.
well said, my friend, well said. i hope he does well and i’m really sad to see him go