Phillies consider extensions

May 12, 2008 · Paul Raymond · Jump to comments

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The Philadelphia Phillies have preferred to avoid contract negotiations in the season for quite some time now. A lot of this can be directly related to General Manger Pat Gillick, he prefers to avoid the talks as he feels it could become a distraction to the player and team as a whole. Most Phillies fans will tell you thats also a reason why Aaron Rowand isn’t roaming center field at the bank this year. The Phillies currently have multiple contracts running out at the end of this year thou, mainly Pat Burrell and Brad Lidge. So what’s changed?

Gillick is leaving the team at the end of this season and would like to leave the team in good standing for the future. So with him leaving the team might be willing to fore go this unofficial policy. At the moment, the final word comes down to Gillick, he’s still the official General Manager. So if he decides he’d like to lock up Burrell and Lidge he can go right ahead and do so. There are problems that could arise thou, what if others in the front office DON’T want to negotiate?

He says that’s not a problem. It’s been speculated ever since Ed Wade left the team, that Ruben Amaro Jr would soon be the team’s GM, and those thoughts have not subsided. There’s a lot of talk that the team would like to keep this position in house and promote from within. So if Amaro says NO, and Gillick says YES, what happens??? “If I’m not going to be back and the organization thinks that they would like to move ahead, then it would be something that we would have to consider,” Gillick said

Granted there have been no official talks yet, with the superb season both players are having it’s definitely something to consider. Personally, I think Burrell is a fluke and its just because its a contract year. Lidge on the other hand is someone this team needs to keep. “I’d say at this point they’re both having above-average seasons,” Gillick said. “They probably would be somebody we would have to consider retaining.”

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