{"id":36573,"date":"2022-06-04T16:31:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T16:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/phillies-firing-of-joe-girardi-is-the-latest-chapter-in-same-old-story-as-embarrassing-era-drags-on\/"},"modified":"2022-06-04T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T16:31:39","slug":"phillies-firing-of-joe-girardi-is-the-latest-chapter-in-same-old-story-as-embarrassing-era-drags-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/phillies-firing-of-joe-girardi-is-the-latest-chapter-in-same-old-story-as-embarrassing-era-drags-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies’ firing of Joe Girardi is the latest chapter in same old story as embarrassing era drags on"},"content":{"rendered":"
Earlier this week, I got a text from a friend in Philadelphia, my childhood home. He asked something that has become a rite of passage, murmured across the Delaware Valley in the weeks after the Eagles wrap up the NFL Draft and the Sixers get bounced from the NBA playoffs. The question marks the arrival of summer. <\/span><\/p>\n “What’s wrong with the Phillies?” my pal said. <\/span><\/p>\n He wanted to blame the ownership group of John Middleton. I responded with the standard refrain: Middleton was trying to win – the Phillies went into the season with a franchise-record $ 233 million payroll, according to FanGraphs. The problem, as I outlined in the infinite wisdom of a seasoned ball scribe, was president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had built a disjointed team that treated fielding like an afterthought to an afterthought to an afterthought. An injury to Bryce Harper further weakened the defense, a unit that could not afford to be weakened. The intensity of manager Joe Girardi might not be the best fit for such a mistake-prone squad. <\/span><\/p>\n Really, I continued, this was part of a general problem with the franchise. Ruben Amaro Jr. ran the team aground after a marvelous run ended in 2011. His replacement of him, Matt Klentak, failed to resuscitate the franchise. Dombrowski, the next exec up, built Frankenstein’s Roster, ignoring what happened to the good doctor at the end of that story. All the while, the farm system sputtered and the fans suffered. <\/span><\/p>\n I thought I had made some good points. My friend wasn’t so sure. <\/span><\/p>\n “Shouldn’t ownership,” he replied, “hire the right people then?” <\/span><\/p>\n Well. Hard to argue with that. <\/span><\/p>\n A few days later, the Phillies reshuffled the deck chairs once more. Girardi was out. A temporary replacement, bench coach Rob Thomson, was in. The names on the back of the jerseys change. The story does not.<\/span><\/p>\n