Ruben Amaro Jr.: Be Prepared For A Shocking Phillies Move This Offseason

Ruben Amaro Jr.: Be Prepared For A Shocking Phillies Move This Offseason

Welcome back. It’s time for office hours, our favorite segment of the week. Uh, and this is a big one. This is a doozy room. So, this segment is my headphones are acting all weird right now. If I sound a little distracted. Uh, so this uh segment, if you haven’t listened before, is where I asked former Phillies general manager Ruben Maro Jr. to put that GM cap back on, answer all of our most pressing questions when it comes to this Philadelphia Phillies lineup. Sure, we do. We sure do have a lot of questions uh on this Saturday morning. Rube, um I figured the easiest way to go about this is for me to just go down the line, and I want a quick answer from you, a yes or no, and then maybe like a quick little blurb as to why or why not these guys will be on the Philadelphia Phillies roster in 2026. You ready? I’m ready. Well, I want to start actually with the manager. Not that he’s, I guess, technically part of the roster. He does have a number. Uh but Rob Thompson, is he manager of the Philadelphia Phillies next year? He is. He is. And yeah, he is. And uh because I think he’s a great manager, number one, but number two, it’s not his fault that they did not hit. And the reason why they lost is because they could not hit. Is Kevin Long on the roster or a staff? I think so. Yes. Okay. I don’t think they’ll change him out. No. I think they may make some other changes though. Maybe the analytics folks maybe uh and maybe they should. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of information being tossed around and a lot of it ain’t working. Yeah, somebody might go down. All right. Well, let’s get to the players. Kyle Schwarber, I think he will be back. They will make every effort to bring him back. I don’t necessarily know that he will, but I my if I were going to put a percentage on it, I would say 77% that he’ll be back. Do you think it’ll come down to him and his decision if he wants to be back here? Oh, absolutely. It always is. He wants to be back here. I think he wants to be back, but he may have other options that uh that might be a little bit more appealing. More appealing maybe. Do you think that the postseason or I guess the last several postseasons have will affect his I think it’s going to be money and um geography. Okay. Always is. Okay. Money one, geography second. Next, JT. I think that the Phillies will bring him back and and I think it I’m hopeful that it’s like a shorter deal, like a two-year type of a deal. I wouldn’t got I would probably not go longer than that, but I think he is too important to the staff. One of the strengths, the biggest strength of this team now and in the future, in the immediate future, is their pitching staff and they have to get have somebody navigate that staff. JT’s the guy. I think they’ll bring him back on a reasonable two-year deal. Um, Suarez, he will not be back. Uh, will Andrew Payner be in the starting rotation to start 2026? Yes, he will. I believe he will. You feel confident in that? I feel very confident that he will. Okay. Uh, let’s talk about Nick Castanos. Yes. Is he on the roster in 2026? I do not think he will be. I do not think he will be. I do not think he will be. and I don’t think he wants to be, but there’s a $20 million decision to be made and that’s a very difficult decision. So, I don’t know that they will release him if they cannot move him and eat the money, but I don’t think he’ll be back in 2026. Harrison Bader, I do not think he will be back. I think they’ll try to bring him back, but I do not think he will be back. That’s a bummer. I like him. Uh if if if they can do something with Castiano, so the chances of him coming back are are greater because then you can put Justin Crawford in left, right, and you can put Martian right. Well, you just answered my next question and that is what does the starting outfield look like? I do not like Martian center field. I think he’s a much better corner outfielder. It’s pretty obvious that uh I think it also affects him offensively when he plays center field myself. Um I like him in left or right and I think he’s a very good corner outfielder and a solid player. Um, I’d like to see um him in the corner somewhere. And if it’s not Justin Crawford, who might be playing left field, I’d like to see him play right field. Have him go play right uh Marshian right Crawford in left um center and Bader and center. I’d take it. I like that outfield a lot. I like that outfield a lot. I like it a lot. Um lastly, Max Kepler. I don’t think he’ll be back, but I think Max ended up being a pretty useful piece of the team. He did. I think he did a good job. Obviously, I thought at some point he was going to get released maybe closer to the trade deadline. But, you know, I think when Rob Thompson decided to go into that platoon type situation in right field, I think that worked out really really well for the Phillies and I thought he was very useful. I think he’ll probably sign like a smaller deal with some other team. Yeah, agreed. Um, Justin, what do you have for Rub? Yeah. So, obviously they have a pretty complete roster when you just look top to bottom, but is there a priority this offseason that sort of jumps out at you to say they need this type of guy to be able to, you know, make this roster even a little deeper and better in some areas? Um, you know, I don’t know that there’s a a single priority. Priority for me always becomes pitching. And if they can get somebody who can get the baseball to Duron, who they feel a little bit more comfortable with, maybe it’s an eighth inning guy, right-handed. Um, you know, I thought Kirking had a decent year. Didn’t have as good a year as I thought. I thought he would advance more. Um, and he did struggle with runners and scoring position or with inherited runners. I’d like to see maybe another right-handed, you know, a couple of options that you might have for uh for Rob Thompson getting the baseball to Don, but um that would probably be one of my bigger priorities. And the other one was obviously get Zach Wheeler healthy somehow somehow someway and make sure that in the off season uh Painter gets, you know, gets his confidence back and and uh and is prepared to be a number five starter for this team. Is that all I got? Yeah. Last thing I’ll ask you is it felt like this series kind of came down to the little details that the Dodgers fundamentally did some of those things better than the Phillies. Is there I guess any moves you can make in an offseason to be able to fix that or is that just a philosophy type of thing with the organization and it takes years to kind of get that going? I’ll be honest with you. I mean it’s something that starts from the bottom and I knew that they that the people in in their organization they uh more than any most other organizations they really do stress on fundamentals. I’ve talked to some people in the organization and and they do, you know, the actual fundamentals of the game and running the bases, bunting, all those little things that are important, I think are important to the organization. So, that’s a good thing and I think that they’re trying to create that. Um, but I mean, it’s something that you also have to continue to work on and get better at. I don’t think that they ran the bases very well at all. I think that they were reckless in their uh ability to run the bases. I think that they have to do a little bit better of situational hitting and I think that it’s got to be continued to be stressed. base running means a lot because a little you that extra 90 ft or the extra 90 ft you don’t get balls in the dirt advancing all those things that that they make a really huge difference especially in tight games when you’re in the playoffs and you don’t notice that stuff during 62 game schedule but um but I think it’s a really important part of it and when you want to nitpick I mean you got to be able to do those things well you watch you know the teams that don’t have big payrolls and guess what they do the Milwaukee Brewers, they run the base as well. Kansas City Royals years ago when they won the World Series in 2015, they ran the base as well. They made made things happen and those little things mean a lot during the course of especially during the course of uh of the playoffs. All right, I have one more uh overall question for you, Rub and then we’ll get to the phones. You guys can ask Rub uh all your questions for office hours. Uh, and that is I mean is there a move that you think Dumbrossski, this Philly’s front office has up their sleeve that will shock Phillies fans? Not necessarily in a a bad way, but good, bad, you know, maybe it’s a move that no one’s expecting. You may see one of the big contracts moved. You may be someone there see one of their big contracts moved. I’m I’m not saying who and I know there’s a lot of no trade clauses, but you may see one of those big contracts get moved somehow someway. Okay, that would be scandalous. That would be scandalous. And I think like a Trey Turner type contract. I’m just telling you the big contracts. That’s all I’ll say. I have a feeling that they may be exploring that. Okay. If you wanted to make like a like a paradigm shift in your organization, do some different things. You never know. I got to say I would not be mad at that. I wouldn’t depending on who it was, but I don’t think I would be upset. I mean, that’s a bold prediction, but and I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I think it’s something we’ll be explored. Yeah. Okay. Um, well, I mean, good, cuz it feels like they they clearly need a change and uh we’ll see if they’re willing to part with uh this core that, you know, John Middleton, Dave Dumbrosski, they they seem to love and uh wanted to keep together as long as possible, but clearly that’s not working

Former Philadelphia Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. joins Devan Kaney to discuss what he thinks the Phils can do this offseason to improve their chances to win the World Series in 2026.

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