End of an Era

The Phillies said good bye to Charlie after 9 years of wonderful service.  We wrote a while back that there had to be a way to let Charlie go with dignity.  In the end I believe Charlie went on his terms.  He obviously went to the front office and wanted to know, he wanted a decision to be made sooner rather than later.  He wanted to be let go and thus the Sandberg era began as the Manuel era ended.

Charlie will have his rightful place in Phillies History.  He will come back at some point in the near future and receive his Wall of Fame night.  No need to feel sorry for Chuck.  To those angry with the way he was let go I say be angry with his core players.  Injuries aside the guys that supposedly had his back put the nails to the cross.  The front office had every intention of letting him finish out the season provided the players did their part and played hard.

I believed in February and I believe now this 2013 team was designed to see if they could capture lightning in a bottle.  If it worked out great and if not we were left with openings in a few areas to get younger and evaluate what we have in young talent.  The future is not Utley, Rollins and Howard.  Yes they will be here for a while longer but the real future is in Dom Brown, Catcher, 3B and another OF.  A new core of players must rise from the ashes and create another era of winning baseball.

Guys like Asche, Ruf and Martin are getting long looks and all appear to be big league level players.  None appear to be star caliber players that win MVP's and carry a team on their backs to a WS title.  Amaro's job now is to identify those types and get them here.

Could it be Maikel Franco and J.P. Crawford?  Could it be the 2014 #1 pick?  Time will tell and we will have a better sense once we see what they do with Ruiz and the off season FA market and a possible trade of Lee.