Joe Girardi Fired
This morning the Philadelphia Phillies announced the firing of their third manager in the last four years. The 22-29 start in their first 51 games signals a slow start for an underperforming roster built with the foundation of large contracts and a lackluster farm system.
This is a team that was constructed to have decent starting pitching and an offense that might crack the liberty bell in centerfield. The city of Philadelphia was buzzing. The Sixers had traded for James Harden and were looking like a potential finals contender. The Phillies signed Kyle Schwarber to a four year contract worth $79 million, just a few days later Nick Castellanos came to town on a 5 year deal worth $100 million. That's enough to buy a lot of cheesesteaks if they're willing to wait in line for Tony Luke's on Ashburn Alley. They had signed a couple of arms in the bullpen. The roster was still not perfect but it was projected to be a good enough roster to snap their decade long postseason drought.
Fast-forward to now and everything that could've gone wrong has gone wrong. A bullpen that was made to only survive on life support has flat lined. The offense has been as inconsistent as the weather during the spring in Pennsylvania, and in a crowded division where the Mets spent like Elon Musk buying Twitter and the Atlanta Braves are the defending World Champions, it was important to not fall off a cliff the start.
The slow start can be attributed to a plethora of things. The fact that the two biggest signings in the offseason are off to slow starts, the lockdown closer who was meant to take off some stress at the end of ballgames has only added to the anxiety issues of Phillies fans all over the globe. A bullpen that is bad enough on it's own has been mismanaged by a manager who is a shell of his championship winning self who had the luxury of going to the great Mariano Rivera to close ballgames.
The problem does not lie solely on Joe Girardi. This team will not suddenly be the Moneyball Oakland Athletics and go on a 20-game winning streak. As Ken Rosenthal said: …”it goes deeper… “ Fans can only hope that this is the first step in modernizing a team that is a decade behind the rest and to help bring them back to Red October.
