Phillies Small Market Team

A priceless insight from the New York Times' baseball writer Murray Chass about the Abreu trade and plight of the Phillies. Phillies fans have known this truth for sometime, it’s just a revelation to see that the ownership group’s reputation is now nationally known.

 

 

“Sometimes, though, teams are grateful for the Yankees’ existence. The Philadelphia Phillies are the latest. They wanted to dump Abreu’s contract, which has a guaranteed $21,475,409 remaining for a season and a third, and they found a willing taker in the Yankees.

 

The Phillies are more disgraceful than the Yankees. They play in one of the largest markets in the country, and they act like a small-market team. Their payroll reached a high of $95 million on opening day last year, but they reduced it to $88 million this year.

 

That does not mean the Phillies have a small payroll — it was 13th among opening-day payrolls — but it demonstrated their mind-set. Last year their payroll was fourth, and they finished two games out of first in the division and one game behind the wild-card winner. So what do they do to try to make up that little bit of ground? They cut the payroll.

 

They stumble and bumble in other ways, too. Instead of hiring Jim Leyland as their manager before last season, they hired Charlie Manuel. Now Leyland has turned the Detroit Tigers into the best team in baseball, while the Phillies have faded from view in the face of the Mets’ demolition of the National League East.

 

Acknowledging their most recent futility, the Phillies decided to become more flexible. That’s a baseball euphemism for dumping salaries. It’s a popular game at this time of the season. Teams that have no chance to win a playoff spot trade players who can be free agents at the end of the season or whose salaries are higher than the teams want to keep paying.”