Carpe Diem

by E. James Beale

Late last fall, Ruben Amaro Jr., who had recently been promoted to general manager of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, faced his first hard decision in his new post: what do to with his inherited outfield. His first option was to simply maintain the status quo. This would mean bringing back Pat Burrell, the Phillies' beloved left fielder, who had established himself as a team leader, and, as one of Philadelphia's longest-tenured athletes, openly admitted that he would offer the team a hometown discount. It was the rare moment in professional sports where an organization could make a decision that was uncomplicated, popular and cheap. This was the easy choice.

It wasn't Amaro's only option, of course. The free-agent market was filled with corner outfielders like Adam Dunn, Milton Bradley, Bobby Abreu and Raul Ibañez. None had led the Phillies down Broad Street in their championship parade, and all would be more expensive than the man who did, but perhaps, on the diamond, one of these men would make more sense. This would not be the easy choice.

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Phillies Raul Ibañez is a Phillie because the team wasn't afraid to take a risk. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Too often, the only real reward of the easy path is that it's easy. For professional sports franchises, though, this is no small reward. If the popular decision is made, the fans don't complain, and if the fans don't complain, executives making decisions don't get fired. Last year's Phillies proved good enough to win it all. If that same group failed this year, no one could reasonably or seriously assign blame.

But, as Amaro realized, the Phillies do not play in a vacuum. Even if they maintain a certain level of play, their opponents will either get better or worse. Not making a decision doesn't mean that a decision isn't made; it only means that someone else has made your call for you. In a zero-sum game like baseball, this is a problem. If we assume that every year the best team wins the championship, it's telling that throughout this decade that best team has yet to repeat. In baseball, complacency is deadly for winning teams. But it's also easy. Thus, often, winning begets losing.

With this in mind, and in the face of criticism, the Phillies didn't listen to the fans. They targeted their man, 36-year-old Raul Ibañez, and signed him to a long, fat contract. It was substantially more than Burrell got. The fans cried foul, and national pundits viciously attacked the move. Thus far, it's worked.

The main complaints about the deal that it was too much money for too many years for a replaceable player all missed a key point: Amaro and the Phillies were not looking for just any corner outfielder. They were looking for the right guy. They believed Ibañez was it, so they went and got him: If they hadn't "overpaid" Ibañez, Chicago would have (they did, in the end, end up giving the oft-injured and reliably crazy Milton Bradley a relatively similar deal). >

To date, Ibañez has been the right guy. Not only has he hit the cover off the ball (as of press time he leads the Phillies in every major statistical category save steals, where he is second) but his über-intense clubhouse attitude has helped keep a team that spent its off-season on the cover of every magazine from SI to Playboy focused. Ibañez is famous for his film study, and even in the supposedly crowded free-agent field, this trait was unique to the new Phil. As much as Burrell was a team leader, he was never accused of being an absurdly hard worker (neither was Abreu, who is afraid of walls, nor Adam Dunn, who Blue Jays' GM J.P. Ricciardi once told a radio audience "doesn't like baseball very much"). Pundits looked at the numbers and believed the players to be replaceable. So far, Ibañez has not been.

All of that said, it should be mentioned that the Phillies haven't been perfect. A recent hot streak has only managed to bring them close to last year's slow start. The rest of the way, the team will suffer from failings of talent, natural regression and luck. It should also be said that, if you're being reasonable, you aren't completely sold on the Ibañez deal yet. The year Ibañez finishes his three-year deal, he'll turn 40; this year, no position player that old made an active major league roster. There is a risk that the judgment call the Phillies made could backfire two, three years down the road. The hard path involves risk.

There's an old saying that, though we're free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. The consequences of the Phillies actions might not end up being the desired ones. But if they aren't, at least the Phillies will have made decisions that backfired, instead of having their destiny decided for them.

E. James Beale makes the hard choices every other week in Naked City. Reach him at e.james.beale@citypaper.net.