Amaro says Phils want Werth and can re-sign him
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Amaro says Phils want Werth and can re-sign him
Daily News staff
Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. knew as soon as he sat down for his season-ending news conference where the initial questions were headed. “Shoot, ask whatever Werth questions.”
Amaro said the Phillies want Jayson Werth to return and have enough money to re-sign him, but said that will “depend on what the ask is” and “how it will affect other things.”
Werth figures to be the main attraction among position players on the free-agent market. Amaro said he will talk with agent Scott Boras within the next 48 hours.
The Phillies have exclusive negotiating rights until 5 days after the completion of the World Series, but Amaro said he expects “this will go deep into the offseason.”
“What is going to drive the bus is Jayson and Scott,” Amaro said of the time frame. “Typically these things don’t move particularly quickly.”
“Jayson had a good year. It wasn’t an extraordinary year,” Amaro said. “He had a tough time with men in scoring position. It wasn’t as productive a year as he had in the past. If he is not with us, there are players that we can acquire and or we have in our own organization that can help us be as consistent.”
On the question of payroll, Amaro said, “We haven’t talked budget and we haven’t gotten that far down the line. We are only two days into the offseason. We are going to have some money to do some things … I’m going to have to figure out with the rest of our baseball operations people the best way to utilize the money.”
Amaro said the Phillies, “have to be open-minded as to how to improve the club, whether it’s starting pitching or bullpen, offensively, we’ll try to address it.”
Amaro said the three biggest issues for the Phillies this offseason are addressing the team’s six free agents, the age of the team, with players “starting to move into and past their prime age of production” and the bullpen, which he said “could have been our Achille’s heel. It turned out they pitched very well.”
As for the possibility of breaking up the team’s core group as the players generally move into their 30s, Amaro said, “It’s my job to be creative but I’m pretty happy with our core players.”
Amaro said the Phillies are still evaluating their players and assessing their offseason targets. However, “we’re not going to feel comfortable on anything until we know where we stand on Werth and go from there.”
* Amaro called it a “successful season with a disappointing finish,” because they expected to be in the World Series. “I think this one stung pretty good. The players really believed they are World Series champions and they will be chomping at the bit come this spring.”
* On manager Charlie Manuel, who is entering the last year of his contract. “At some point, we will probably address Charlie,” Amaro said. “We have not [yet].” The Phillies also have asked the entire coaching staff to return and they are working on contracts.
* On the team’s free agents, other than Werth, including relievers Chad Durbin and J.C. Romero, lefthander Jamie Moyer, Mike Sweeney, “I’ve gotten indications that many of them want to come back. It depends on how much they want to come back.”
* On whether it is safe to say that starting pitching does not need to be addressed: “You can never not address things. We’re pretty pleased with our rotation as good and as it performed at the end of the year. When we acquired Roy [Oswalt], we did some pretty extraordinary things as far as wins … No question having those three guys in our rotation had a great impact … Joe Blanton pitched extremely well at the end of the year. Kyle as a fifth starter, threw 180 innings and had a pretty good performance. As far as addressing it, I don’t know where it is on the totem pole, but we’re pretty please where we are with that.”
* On productivity from the leadoff spot: “Both Shane and Jimmy were better players than they performed the last few years. We would like more out of the spot. Jimmy has done in it in the past. Shane is not as proven … There is not a reason [Jimmy] can’t get back to being as productive a player as he has been in the past.”
* On the offensive issues: “I don’t think they have to change their style of hitting. I think, though, we have to have a little more consistent approach as far as what we can expect from them. We asked [Greg Gross] back and I think he made some strides over the last couple of months of the season gaining their trust and their understanding of what he preaches and what Charlie preaches. I think we are on the right path.”
* On the offensive issues specifically in the playoffs: “This happens sometimes. There are blips in the screen where guys don’t have good years. We didn’t have in the course of the playoffs where one player was really hot. Cody Ross, obviously, was really hot for the Giants. We didn’t have that guy step up and really do it. That really hurt.”
* On the Giants: Amaro said he thought the “Giants were getting slighted here” and that “the Giants played better baseball.”
Werth is going to look good in Yankee pinstripes but he has to shave his gotee. That's a no no if you play for the greatest franchise in sports.— tonyftony- Keep Howard away from Barry Bonds this off-season, please.— BLH
- ive been a werth hater for sometime. however, ive come to my senses and id like to see him stay now. while he maybe terrible with RISP, he made two unbelievable plays in the outfield this series, the cannon of a throw to nail ross at 3rd and his sliding catch into the gate the other night. to keep him money has to be freed up. if i were RAJ and the opportunities presented themselves, id consider moving any of 4 players. raul and rollins are clearly showing their age. given his recent string of injuries, utley is starting to show wear and tear and i think he may be heading down that injury after injury path. also, just when i thought he couldnt get any dumber, shane continues to make one mistake after another. so, any of those 4 could be moved to free up money for a werth signing. should be an interesting winter to say the least.— theeducator
- Phils need a leadoff hitter. JRoll is not it.... No more Mr. Firstpitchpopup in the leadoff spot!!— downtheshore
- shutup about lee Leron, get over it already he's not coming back, it didn't matter if you had Lee or not, he'd still be watching the world series with us being eliminated as our OFFENSE WAS GARBAGE!— jballiet04
Comment removed.- RAJ made some very revealing and succinct points here: 1)He wants Werth 2) He thinks they can afford Werth 3)He needs an answer on Werth before he can make any other move. I interpret this as good news that they are prepared to spend the money to take this run as far as it can go and not start back peddling just yet. He's right of course that everything starts with Werth but it sounds like he has plan "B" in place if needed. I would like to think that would would include the possibility of a guy named Lee. I like their chances of returning to the WS again with Werth in the lineup and H2O leading the way. On the other hand,they wouldn't need much offense if they had H2OL...— stan the man too
- At least Casey swung at the pitch.— rwwhit
- @6thman, the operative phrase in your sentence is "in private." You don't air a players deficiencies in the media. he's done this before with players and with coaches. Remember when he said to the press that Davey Lopes wasn't a doctor when he admitted Chase had some leg pain? He's snarky, smug jerk and if I were Werth, i wouldn't want to play for him either.
bill20 -- you give me a good laugh everyday. thank you. and i guess you call going with the better qb a jock sniffer? haha. you're just mad that your crush on kolb isnt shared by real football fans. get a clue loser- Howard isn't trade-able with that contract anymore. No way.
- Jay Werth ? Good Luck. What do you think he will do on another team. Bat 265, 21hrs, 88rbi. For 5 million a year.— joedig22
- A smart move was is to bring back Milt Thompson. Greg Gross?? Come on. He's not a players coach,.— joedig22
Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates would make a great leadoff hitter and he bats right and knows how to play center. Vic could move to right and Werth could sign with the Yankees and spend the rest of his life counting money as the Yanks miss the playoffs each year. Give Benny Fran the left field job and release Raul. They've eaten big salary mistake dollars before {Thome, Eaton and Jenkins). Francisco has already proven he can hit on an everyday basis. The hardest part will be building a bullpen that can get the job done. The Giants know the benefits of that--a lot of the other "issues" just magically fall into place. And Ruben, you can't even be giving the idea of signing Jamie Moyer a chance-unless it's signing up for his Medicare card.- these comments keep getting greater and greater. It's not MLB 2k whatever, where you can force teams to acquire these players to free up salary to sign Werth. Trade Ibanez - Um yeah that will cost the Phillies probably $5-6 million of his salary that they will have to eat up to make it an attractive deal. Trade Rollins - yeah $8 mil a year for a shortstop with decent range, but a bad bat the last few years. Um that would cost them at least half of his salary that they would have to eat up. Trade Blanton - I think all the other GMs will laugh at any offer they are given unless it is the Phillies will trade Blanton and his whole salary for a Jack in the Box milk shake (so good). Yeah keep it up— wolfburn
