MacPhail’s luxury-tax IOUs not a welcome non-spending strategy
In baseball, fans are asked to believe in two things that are not true.
There is no reason to believe an at-bat that ends in a strikeout was productive.
And there is no reason to believe an ownership group when it says it will spend money some other time.
As for the Phillies this offseason, they were 1-for-2. They did show the marketing sense to rid themselves of a manager prone to insulting the customers with claims of glorious Strike 3 swings. But there was Andy MacPhail his own self the other day in Clearwater brandishing fistfuls of IOUs.
That luxury tax the Phillies haven’t gone near since October?
Well, any day now …
“Speaking for the Phillies and ownership, we’re not reluctant to go over it,” MacPhail said. “It’s my hope, and frankly my expectation, that we’re going to exceed it this year.”
John Middleton has some credibility, having spent his self-described “stupid” money on Bryce Harper, who will be the best player in franchise history. But the Phillies had multiple chances to ram right through the tax ceiling during the offseason, yet settled for two above-average free agents.
Zack Wheeler is a strikeout pitcher and an ideal fit between Aaron Nola and a healthy Jake Arrieta at the top of the rotation. Didi Gregorius is known as a winner and a positive clubhouse influence, which makes him a two-ply infield upgrade over departed loser Cesar Hernandez.
But after the Harper hullabaloo last summer, the Phillies seemed worthy of a chair at any baseball poker table. Then Gerrit Cole became available and the Phillies ate the Yankees’ dust.
Then again, they did bring back Tommy Hunter.
MacPhail has had his share of cuts as the Phillies’ president. But as swings and misses go, that was as unsightly as any.
• Baseball is considering increasing the number of playoff teams to 14. The purists are yelling. It’s what they do.
But until there is a better way to repel that disease infecting all major pro sports, one commonly known as tanking, then incentivizing more teams to take the regular season games seriously by dangling more postseason opportunities is a welcome sedative.
• Even the greatest athletes, coaches and managers make mistakes. The idea is not to allow them to become chronic. Gabe Kapler missed that in all of his metrics study.
Granted a second chance to manage in the bigs after trying to fool Phillies fans with cockamamie platitudes, the new Giants leader said exactly this the other day: “We know that we may not win two out of three in a three-game series, but we know that we’re going to exhaust our opponents.”
Had G-Kappy learned anything in Philadelphia, he would have said this instead: “We plan to win two out of three games no matter how much we exhaust ourselves.”
Maybe he’ll figure it out by his third job.
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••• Former Eagles coach Buddy Ryan had as many flawed coaching ideas as anybody. But he did nail one idea: Skipping the postgame handshake rigmarole.
As he told the story, he just spent the afternoon trying to beat the other coach (and vice-versa), so he naturally would be in no mood, win or lose, for an immediate made-for-TV bro-hug. Unfortunately, Ryan’s wisdom was not only rejected, but post-game handshake lines essentially would go on to become obligatory in every sporting event from the Super Bowl on down.
Literally a minute Roman defeated Bonner-Prendergast at the buzzer in a tense Catholic League elimination basketball game Friday, the players were made to line up for handshakes, pretending they hadn’t just spent the last two hours elbowing one another in the solar plexus. As it happened, a scuffle ensued and police needed to help keep peace.
The flare-up lasted all of
15 seconds, no one appeared injured and, afterward, both teams were ready just to go home. But why doesn’t any grown-up recognize that the risk of confrontation is more dangerous than whatever feel-goods the selfimportant administrators might enjoy by mandating such an unnatural display of fake sportsmanship?
Other than at the end of a Stanley Cup playoff series, for that tradition is grandfathered in, stop the madness before someone is hurt. Follow the Buddy Ryan plan: Compete hard and then retreat to the locker room to show that all of that spent effort was sincere.
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Who in the universe would be interested in any basketball game played by two random teams of players with no natural affiliation with one another, with the score being re-set after every quarter, and with a fourth quarter that would not be timed at all?
The people who will be wrangled into watching the NBA All-Star Game Sunday, that’s who.
• The Phillies will retire Roy Halladay’s No. 34, thus maintaining a tradition of only bestowing that honor on Hall of Fame players. Excellent idea. But if reaching Cooperstown while only having played briefly in Philadelphia is to be so celebrated, then No. 25 should be retired in honor of Hall of Famer Jim Thome.
• Coaches and managers are often fired for results that are not entirely their fault. Players are routinely dragged out of games or cut, often for simple ingame bad breaks.
Once again recently, in what has become a trend, the Eagles reportedly reworked their medical staff. It’s unlikely that their tragic run of injuries was due to anything but bad football fortune. But at that level, it’s OK to keep trying new faces until everything turns out right. Indeed, it’s mandatory.
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