Open Letter to Phillies President Dave Montgomery From a Season Ticket Holder

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Sent via email to Mr. Montgomery for fear the no front-office changes take place. Please share if you agree. The louder we become the more they have to listen:

Dear Mr. Montgomery,

As a Philadelphia sports fan and as a Phillies season ticket holder, thank you for 2008 and ending the Championship drought in Philadelphia.  Thank you for the six-year run of fun and exciting baseball.  Those were some of the most enjoyable sports-watching years in my lifetime.  Thank you for creating one of the better ballparks in MLB.

The Phillies have seen much better days than the past few seasons, finishing 3rd in 2012, 4th in 2013 and most likely 5th this year.  The Phillies built themselves up from the being knocked as the losingest franchise in US pro sports history to being an MLB franchise that was admired throughout the league and became a desired destination among players.  Now, national journalists and analysts make fun of a plethora of vesting options, over-paid veterans and being a ballclub behind the times.

We all know that you and the Phillies are extremely loyal, perhaps to a fault.  Ed Wade comes to mind.  Ed Wade was a decent GM, but unable to win a World Series.  He fielded competitive teams, but couldn’t get over the proverbial hump.  We, as fans, recognized this inability a couple years prior to him finally being replaced.  Perhaps bringing in Pat Gillick a year or two earlier, while the core players were younger, may have brought another championship to the city.

I understand your loyalty to Ruben Amaro, Jr.  You’ve known him since he was a child.  He was a bat boy during some good Phillies years in the 1980’s. He has to be like family to you.  That’s the only way to justify making him Assistant General Manager the year that his MLB career ended–a career that wasn’t particularly special.  He did not spend any time learning the art of scouting or contract negotiations as Pat Burrell is currently doing in San Francisco or as Ron Hextall did with the Flyers/Kings.  He didn’t have to prove any capacity for front-office work.

I like Ruben as a person.  He’s a likable guy.  He doesn’t shy away from tough questions and still does his weekly call-in to WIP while the team flounders.  He has good taste in sunglasses.  He does great things in the community as a founding member of the Richie Asburn-Harry Kalas Foundation.  He’s just not a great GM and this city deserves a great GM.

He has proven an inability to build a bench, trade assets for good prospects (Lee, Pence, Victorino), or identify productive role players to support the veteran stars, which is often the difference between good General Managers and great General Managers (i.e. Francisco, Brown, Nix, Wigginton, Polanco, Qualls, Delmon, etc).  Again, we deserve great.

He’s overseen a scouting department that hasn’t been effective since Mike Arbuckle was promoted from the Phillies Director of Scouting.  Baseball America currently ranks the Phillies farm system 26th.  It’s true that Ruben has traded away a bunch of prospects for Pence and Halladay, but none of those prospects have panned out to be anything special.  That, again, speaks to the inability of the amateur scouting under Ruben’s leadership.  Any casual fan of baseball can target studs like Halladay and Lee.  It’s the little moves and good drafting that makes all the difference in the world and wins a World Series.

The Phillies negotiating skills under the current regime are also worrisome.  Executives and journalists around the league have said that the contracts of many current Phillies are not in line with their value, especially the vesting options.  Marlon Byrd has had a decent year, but better and cheaper options were out there.  Nelson Cruz signed for one year and eight million dollars and would not have cost the Phillies a first round pick since that pick was in the top 10.

The track records of Ruben and Marti Wolever (Amateur Scouting) speaks for themselves.  I imagine they are both good guys so there must be places for them within the organization, just not involved in front office decisions and scouting.  I realize that remaining a top tier team is difficult, but I’ve had to watch the Braves, Cardinals, Red Sox, A’s, Giants and others do just that.

You’ve been extremely loyal to Ed Wade, Ruben Amaro, Jr, Marti Wolever and others.  Perhaps it is time to be loyal to the fans.  We’ve earned that loyalty.  Taxpayers and fans paid $229M towards that beautiful ballpark.  We sold the ballpark out for 257 consecutive games.  The Phillies fanbase is consistently ranked in the top five by national publications.  The Phillies have consistently been one of the top five revenue earning franchises in MLB.  The TV ratings, which were the highest in the league in 2011, have been high enough to help you secure one of the most lucrative television deals in the league.  Again, we’ve earned some loyalty.

You’ve been on the record as being against rebuilding because you don’t want a drop in attendance.  Well, I have no hope in this franchise right now or the current management.  I’d much rather see some consensus top prospects with upside struggle and improve instead of a veteran team with little upside tread mediocre water and garner middle of the pack draft picks.  At this rate, I am seriously considering not renewing my season tickets.  I cannot be alone.  I cannot give away tickets for games that I am unable to attend.

We deserve someone like Gerry Hunsicker as President of Baseball Operations and a young General Manager who can incorporate good scouting with solid analytics like a Mike Hazen in Boston.   I’m sure there are many other qualified candidates out there that I don’t know about.  I’m just a fan, but an informed fan like most of the Phillies fanbase.

The fans have helped to increase the value of the Philadelphia Phillies and net wealth of you and the other owners.  The time has come to show loyalty to the fans and winning instead of your friends in the front office and on the field.

Someone with a different approach and perspective is needed to right this ship, if only to invoke hope.  After all, things worked out pretty well the last time the Phillies went outside the organization and hired a General Manager named Pat Gillick.

I wish you all the positive vibes possible in your private life and in world of the Phillies!

Sincerely

Violations Greg

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