LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Lots of activity at the winter meetings; none so far for the Phillies. That could be the case for the duration of these meetings, Ruben Amaro Jr. said.
Of course, he may or may not be telling the truth. But here's what he said:
(Is Chad Durbin still in play?)
"We're keeping our minds open on all the possibilities. If we had our druthers, we'd probably lean more toward the left side if we could. But we haven't closed any doors on anybody."
"I think we do. I'd like to open it up to a competition, which would be good. I would like to get some young players onto our major-league club who could help us. We're going to create a situation where two or three spots may be up for grabs. I like that flexibility and competition."
"We're still trying to assess if a platoon situation would be as productive.While it doesn't sound on paper as ideal, a platoon of Ross Gload and Ben Francisco may very well produce enough offense for us to continue to be a championship-caliber club. We're still assessing if that's the route we want to take. The issue in that scenario is if we get the same type of defense, and that's a concern.
"It's one of those situations, you just don't know when a guy is going to be ready."
"That's the trick. Are any of these guys better than Francisco? There's no reason for us to go outside if we believe we have better internally."