Please, Make It Stop

Lord what a mess.

I am off to Louisville tomorrow- and it will be nice to just escape the stink around this ball club. About a decade ago, Id had enough of semi-philandering Howard Eskin- who is the least classy, unamusing person Philadelphia has produced in about, well, forever. Charlie Manuel is unfortunately a perfect foil- not media savvy, a little too earnest, older- and he’s losing.

This move- switching Leiber and Myers- as far as I can see only has two things going for it. The first is while it is a move born of pure desperation; the Phillies are a desperate bunch. They clearly cannot go another dozen games with the bullpen as constructed- costing them two games in every ten. Frankly, they can’t win seventy games the way they are pitching from the fifth inning on right now. When you know the status quo is horrible, you normally don’t lose much just changing the status quo.

Second, Myers seems willing to take a hit for the club here. Yeah, yeah, I know he’s well-paid and all that and he hasn’t pitched well enough to be untouchable in the rotation. But he’s a young power arm, that some people couldn’t wait to throw huge sums at, who was penciled in by everyone to win fifteen just six weeks ago… and he’s told the manager- do what is best. We fans ought to remember that.

Other than that, it is a move born of desperation that probably isn’t going to work. In no sane way can you forecast that Leiber has the upside Myers brings every fifth day; Leiber probably won’t win ten, Myers would win that in a bad season. I’m almost sure the Phillies hope Leiber pitches well twice in a row- so they can get him the heck out of here, maybe for that back end of the bullpen relief pitcher they really need. They can’t trade him now- they need to showcase him the major leagues- and I imagine this is part and parcel of that.

Look, this is rapidly nearing rock bottom- the manager is gone by May if this goes on another two weeks. I guess "hoping to get undeservedly lucky" is better than "passively watching the season meltdown"- but let's not kid ourselves- it isn't better by much.