Jimmy Rollins Is Right; Philadelphia Phillies Need Billionaire Owner To Speed Up Rebuild
By Mike Gibson
@papreps
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Since a quick demise from perennial divisional champions in 2011 to the basement of the division this season, chances are Philadelphia Phillies fans did not get a lot of team memorabilia under the tree this holiday season.
What they really need, though, is a gift in the form of a billionaire owner, and according to Jimmy Rollins, one of the the current Gang of 10 owners, John S. Middleton, is just the guy to turn a long and agonizing building process into a short and relatively painless one. On his way out the door after being traded, Rollins was quoted as saying Middleton, who currently owns a minority share, would be the guy with the vision and the deep pockets needed to turn the club around. He’s worth in excess of $2.8 billion, currently owns 48 percent of the team and could be on the verge of taking majority ownership.
That would be the best news Phillies fans have heard in a long time.
Rollins said Middleton’s vision is simply this: Spend money to make money. While the Phillies cannot be accused of being cheap — their payroll was $189 million last year and third in all of baseball behind the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers — they can be accused of a fortune ill-spent. GM Ruben Amaro Jr. fell into the trap of awarding large guaranteed contracts to guys who already had reached the north side of 30, where all available metric data pointed to a downward trend in production. What he did was reward the players for past performance, not projected future numbers. As a majority owner, any money Middleton spends on players and new management and paying off bad contracts would be returned in the form of pumping up sagging ticket sales.
Amaro is still with the Phillies, but a shakeup at the top that includes a new billionaire owner with deep pockets and a better vision for the future could mean he won’t be for long. That’s why they need Middleton to take control now.
Mike Gibson is a Phillies writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
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