Amaro: Phils Better Off Without Howard

Former superstar Ryan Howard appears to be on his way out

With the Jimmy Rollins trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers a fait accompli, waiting only on the exact particulars of a return price, Ruben Amaro took to a local radio station on Friday afternoon and related a conversation that he had with Ryan Howard.

“I told him that in our situation it would probably bode better for the organization not with him but without him.”

That would seem to be a bit disrespectful for a man who was such a huge piece, The Big Piece, of all the Phillies success in the last decade. 

Howard was the 2005 NL Rookie of the Year, the 2006 National League MVP and Silver Slugger winner, the runner-up in 2008 NL MVP voting, and
 a 3x NL All-Star. His 334 homeruns are 2nd only to Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt on the team’s all-time list, and he is 4th on the club’s all-time RBI list.

“With that said, if he’s with us, then we’ll work around him. We’ll hope he puts up the kind of numbers that we hope he can and we’ll see where it goes from there” said the Phillies GM.

What the heck does “we’ll work around him” even mean?

I think that we are all resigned to what the team is doing now, even accepting that it may be necessary. But let’s not disrespect these men who deserve to be treated like heroes by the organization. 

And we certainly don’t want to be publicly diminishing any trade value they may have, even if that isn’t very much to begin with.

This kind of public statement just seems like more irresponsible handling of this difficult roster situation by a man who daily seems overwhelmed by the job. Get smart, Ruben. Good grief.