It seems like most of the scouts are very loyal to him. This is a hard assignment for any new GM to walk into with all the arbitration players, Burrell, Moyer all after winning the Series. I would sure love to have Gillick back for one more year. I know that he is staying in as a consultant, but that doesn’t mean he will be making calls to his connections around the league. Amaro will make the calls and then ask Gillick what he thinks.

What scares me is that not only Arbuckle is leaving, but possibly most of his scouting staff along with him.  Apparently, his staff has very loyal ties to him and may leave right along with him. 

Yesterday I mentioned that Amaro had interviewed for a few GM jobs with other clubs and never got one.  Well, Arbuckle has interviewed for GM jobs as well and he wasn’t offered the job with anyone else either.  That is telling, don’t you think?  Amaro has been here for 10 years and Arbuckle for 15 years, yet no other club has stolen either one of them away from us.  Maybe neither one of them is the ideal candidate to be a GM.  It seems as though each of them brought something to the equation and the combination worked well for the Phils, but I don’t know that either one of them on their own is the right man for the job.

Here’s a quick recap of Amaro’s press conference from Scott Lauber of delawareonline.

The fact that Amaro was not promoted to GM at that time is telling.  It says to me that the Phils recognized that he was not ready for the job.  It also makes me want to believe that, while it may be a deciding factor with all else being relatively equal, loyalty is neither the sole, nor even the primary factor in the process.  This makes me think that Amaro is ready to handle the GM duties now.

As far as Arbuckle goes, yeah I hate to lose him.  The Phils had to know he would leave if he were passed over again, so they certainly should have had his replacement lined up before they gave Amaro the job.  Whoever it is, I hope he is as capable. 

The fact that the Phils, when pushed to choose between the two, chose Amaro is interesting as well.  At the risk of being labelled a cynic, I’ll say that the Phils chose the financial guy over the player evaluator.  I don’t think you need me to draw you a picture, right? 

Looking at this situation (Amaro being groomed for the job under Wade and Gillick) brings up a question.  Why spend all this time grooming Amaro for the job?  It has pretty much been an open secret for years that Amaro would eventually be awarded, or rewarded if you prefer, the GM job.  Why is that?  Why him?  I mean, he has interviewed for GM jobs with other clubs and has not been offered the position with them, so why do we value him so much?  By all appearances he wasn’t going anywhere even if we hired an outsider for the job, so why not have him learn a little more under someone else for the next few years?

I guess the Phils figure that the past three years under Gillick has give Amaro everything he needs to handle the job.  I hope they’re right because he’s got a lot on his plate.  With all the free agents and arbitration eligible players we have, Amaro has many pressing decisions to make that will impact the club in both the short and long term.  I wonder how much he has talked with Gillick about this offseason, either getting a sense from Gillick how he would prioritize and approach these decisions, or asking him outright how he would handle them.  Whatever the case, we are going to find out very quickly if the Phils made the right decision.