Ray Finkle
☠️ Banned ☠️
Phillips didnt lead that team anywhere. It was Valentine. All Valentine. And when the players rebeled against Valentine that was on him as well. But the success and failure was on Valentines ability to get the most out of his players.
All Phillips did was draft well. His Fa moves were awful. Kevin appier for 4/40? Awful in NY. Jeromy Burnitz? Bleh bad at best. Alomar deal? Gave up a 1st round pick (Billy Traber) who had value at the time and Alex Escobar (who was an elite prospect according to baseball America at the time). You could have done more. Mo Vaughn was so bad here it was laughable. Personal situations aside its the GM's responsibility whether it be Phillips or Minaya or anyone to account for those types of things and gauge the affect on said player.
He did bring in Piazza and Leiter but he gave a ton to do it when the Marlins were having a firesale. Preston Wilson, Aj Burnett, highly touted LHP Ed Yarnell...all those were guys teams really wanted and I had no problem giving something to get something. But then you have to account for things like bringing in Bordick for Mora (awful based on Mora's production and fact he had played SS at times for the Mets), bringing in Mel Rojas (thanks for bringing that memory back) and that alone deserves a D. Magnify it by the inability to resign Hampton who was an elite pitcher at the time and someone he basically emptied what was left of the farm for at the time and you can understand my ranking better. He never got the missing pieces needed to get by the braves. We needed an OF bat and the best he could do was Daryl Hamilton? Then signs him to a pretty nice (at the time contract extension? Ew.
I didnt misunderstand what you wrote initially...I just didnt agree with it bro. The mets are a big market team, act like it. Spend some frickin money. Minaya understands it, Steve Phillips did not. You dont have to be the Yankees but at the same time dont be afraid to use your resources. You CAN go out and sign a Pedro and Beltran when you need to not make up some excuse why you dont sign Vlad or Arod. You can do more then John Olerud (who dont get me wrong, I loved his time here) and Robin ventura but you dont back off big fish just because you got some medium sized ones. :hi5:
Fair enough.
Alright I'm done with this debate, no use going back and forth arguing about Steve Phillips, I mean seriously it's Steve Phillips. I understand where you're coming from though because I know what it's like trying to tell people just how bad Grady Little was as a manager