Are you ready for this? I’ve decided to defend Charlie Manuel, which isn’t as hard as being defense counsel for Lee Harvey Oswald, but in Philadelphia, it’s a close call.
First, a few caveats (that’s Latin for don’t take this too seriously). If given the choice, I would have hired Jim Leyland when we had the chance. Charlie would not have made my top-10 list of people I’d like to see manage the Phillies. (I had Rhea Hughes ahead of him. She’s smarter and I know the players would have responded to her, if you know what I mean.)
That said, Manuel isn’t among the top three things wrong with the Phillies. I don’t care how much Eskin and Cataldi whine about his decisions. Charlie is a very convenient scapegoat for what has replaced Phillies Fever. It’s called Phillies Frustration. The main reasons why the team is mediocre are ownership, the front office and the farm system.
The Phillies ended last season needing to solve problems in left field, at third base and in the bullpen. A third of the way through the year, the Phillies’ problems are — you guessed it — left field, third base and the bullpen. That’s not Manuel’s fault. He is playing from a thin deck dealt by his general manager, Pat "you-can-find-me-in-Toronto" Gillick. Gillick himself is on a short leash by the guy in charge — Dave "white-bread" Montgomery. When Manuel sends his opening-day pitcher to the bullpen, that’s because he has no closer. (Note: During offseason, the Phillies were about to sign Joe Borowski as their closer, but he failed their physical. Last time I looked, Borowski is closing for the first-place Cleveland Indians.) When Manuel has to choose between a third baseman who can field but not hit and one who is not fielding or hitting, who’s to blame? When his left-fielder makes $14 million a year, but can’t run, field or hit consistently, who’s to blame?
This is not to say Manuel is a master strategist, but his general manager added two coaches to help this year — Jimy Williams and Davey Lopes — yet the team is still as fundamentally poor as any. They have no idea how to run the bases or advance base-runners.
Each night at the park, the squad invents new ways to lose, not so much because of Charlie but because the Phillies’ farm system doesn’t prepare its players for smart baseball at the big-league level. Rod Barajas should know how to block home plate when the team spends a couple of million bucks to sign him as a free agent. A young player like Michael Bourn should know how to run the bases by the time his minor-league team sends him up.
By the way, the Phillies’ AAA minor-league team (Ottawa), at the time of this writing, had hit a total of six home runs for the season. Maybe they can play hockey, instead. The Phillies failed to take advantage of the Caribbean explosion while others attracted great Latin talent. This is in the grand tradition of an organization that was among the last in baseball to sign an African-American player. Now, as other teams keep adding Asian talent, the Phillies don’t have one on the team or a top prospect. They could have competed for the rights to that third baseman who has five Gold Gloves to his credit in Japan (Tampa Bay signed him at a comparatively modest price), but instead chose Wes Helms, whose instincts at third base would keep him off most softball teams in a beer league.
But we’re too busy ragging Charlie Manuel to notice. After all, he’s got a potbelly and talks like a country bumpkin. Eskin dubbed him "Charlie of Mayberry." Of course, Eskin didn’t like Fregosi and he managed the team to its last pennant. He thought Francona was a joke, but Tito was just stupid enough to win a championship with Boston, and hey, how are the Sox doing this year? We all loved Bowa, but I don’t remember Larry getting us to the playoffs.
Be my guest, fire Charlie, but stop pretending that would change anything. Accumulated baseball wisdom says the manager can affect the results in about five or six games out of 162. Check the standings and tell me how Tony La Russa is doing this year now that his cheapo ownership failed to sign three-fifths of his starting pitchers from last year’s World Champions. How is high-priced Lou Piniella doing with those lovable Cubbies? Gee, not even as good as Charlie.
Boo Charlie if you want. After all, we never get to boo Montgomery or Gillick. But when the inevitable happens and Manuel is fired, it won’t be long before we’ll be booing the next guy. We love a good scapegoat.
