No More ‘Wade-ing’ For An Exciting Hot Stove Season For Phillies Fans

By: Jon Morrill   

If you’re feeling like new Phillies GM Pat Gillick has done more in the past month that he’s been in office than former GM Ed Wade did in the past eight years, you certainly have good reason. In the four weeks since Gillick replaced Wade in South Philly, he’s made some shrewd moves that seemingly already outshine what his predecessor accomplished in close to a decade in charge.  Let’s recap, shall we? In the past week alone, Gillick has…    Signed a quality utility infielder in Abraham Nunez.

Nunez creates an array of options for skipper Charlie Manuel should injuries arise or slumps emerge. Nunez, who can play third base, second base and shortstop, filled in nicely for the Cardinals last year when former Phillie third baseman Scott Rolen went down; hitting with a .285 batting average with 44 RBI and five homers in 139 games. He also helps remedy the fact that David Bell was anemic against right-handed pitching in 2005, hitting only .199. It is expected that the two will platoon third base duties; and is speculated that Nunez could see up to 300 at bats this season.

    Signed reliever Julio Santana.

This should help replenish the back end of a bullpen that was virtually hollowed out thanks to Ryan Madson’s apparent move to the starting rotation, Ugueth Urbina’s affinity for machetes, and the Billy Wagner sweepstakes. While the Santana signing hasn’t set the world on fire, it certainly was necessary, and I don’t think that the man sitting in the big chair before Pat Gillick would have felt the need or had the know how to going about making it happen. And let’s face it, Santana’s numbers are… solid? But it’s hard to complain when you look at the alternative which was doing nothing at all. Beggars can’t be choosers and you can’t fault a starving boy for picking thru the trash in hopes of finding some table scraps to munch on. Hopefully Santana’s stay in Philadelphia will lead to more than just a bad table scraps analogy, and word on the street is that this starving boy may just be on his way to a three course home cooked meal, as supposedly Gillick is hot on the heels on Tom Gordon. Plus, anything’s better than Rheal Cormier at this point.

    Found a way to move Jim Thome.

Lest we forget? Gillick masterminded the miraculous deal sending reeling superstar slugger James Howard Thome to the South Side of Chicago for defensive stud centerfielder Aaron Rowand. I know you know all the details and circumstance surrounding this deal, and if I were to reiterate all that again to you, this is what it would probably sound like: Blah blah blah logjam blah Ryan Howard blah blah NL Rookie of the Year blah blah cash blah blah prospects. But redundancies aside, this deal was HUGE for the Phillies for a number of reasons. First, it was The Artist Formerly Known as “Stand” Pat’s first big splash in Philadelphia; and it came just as the finishing touches were being put on www.FirePatGillick.com. Second, not only did it free up the holdup at first base; but it also frees up $24 million in payroll and added to the Philly farm system two pitching prospects who could be ready to help them within the next few years. And lastly, it was the first time in a long, long, LONG time that the Philadelphia Phillies have traded a superstar player and actually received even close to equal value for him. Let me say that again, received EQUAL value for the aforementioned superstar. While it’s inarguable that the signing of Jim Thome in December of 2002 revitalized a ghost town of a once great baseball city, the combination of Thome’s departure and Gillick’s proven track record have gotten the Philly faithful’s eyes and ears glued to every MLB update to hear what Gillick’s done next.

And honestly, if it were Ed Wade who had made this trade for Rowand rather than Pat Gillick, there’d be cause for concern. Why? Because of what wool White Sox GM Kenny Williams might have been pulling over on the Phillies eyes because, and this is as nicely as I can put it, Williams is a much, much shrewder businessman than Wade could ever hallucinate to be. And I’m talking about not having eaten for 3 weeks, 103 degree fever, being weaned off of heroin hallucinating. But I was always raised to look at the bright side to everything and Wade certainly did have a few glimmers of hope. Here are some names which came up through the farm system under his watch: Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell, Jimmy Rollins, Brett Myers, Randy Wolf. Conversely, the two biggest names that the Phillies have had to trade away during Ed Wade’s tenure were Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen, and here are the names in which they got in return for them:

–    Omar Daal
–    Nelson Figueroa
–    Travis Lee
–    Vicente Padilla*
–    Bud Smith
–    Placido Polanco
–    Mike Timlin

You’ll notice the asterisk by Padilla–that signifies the fact that he’s the only remaining player from either of those trades. So, yeah, there would have been plausible cause for alarm had it been Ed Wade making the Thome/Rowand trade. Although, again in Wade’s defense, some of his more astute moves came in his final year when he traded for starter and innings eater Cory Lidle, now journeyman centerfielder Kenny Lofton, and the machete-weilding set up man Ugueth Urbina.

But the good news for Phillies fans is that the Ed Wade nightmare is over. It took just under a decade to wake up and shake the cobwebs out, but you may want to get out of bed, grab a cup of coffee and sit down at the 2006 Philadelphia Phillies breakfast table; because Pat Gillick’s in the kitchen now, and he’s cooking up one hell of an omelet on this year’s Hot Stove.