The good news is that the Phillies won their eighth game in a row by sweeping out the Diamondbacks. This meant that the Phils swept a seven game homestand from two admittedly inferior teams but you have to win these games in order to be an elite team. In the past, the Phillies had a habit of playing down to their opponents’ level and lost too many games. It helps to be a good home team as well. If you’re going to play your best in one stadium, it should be the one where you play half your games.

The bad news is that Ruben Amaro couldn’t resist doing it again. He just had to go out and make another deal for a starting pitcher. I might have been okay with a deal that added a starter to the team but this one leaves us breaking even. If you count the ghost town that Amaro has made of our minor league system, this was a dumb move. Ed Wade just swindled Amaro out of our top prospect who also happens to have proven himself on the big team.

J.A. Happ has the chance to dominate National League hitters for the next ten years or more. Roy Oswalt may have a good year or two left in him. It’s no coincidence that the Phillies acquired him after he started having injury problems. It was a while ago when people wondered if Oswalt would be the “next Nolan Ryan” and the answer was no.

The farm system has to resemble one of those “ghost towns” I hear about out west. They grew up with the gold boom and then everyone just left. Our farm system has tumbleweeds blowing through the street at this point. Kyle Drabek is long gone. One of the eerily creaking swinging doors on the saloon is starting to fall off. Cody Ransom has become pretty much an every day player with the Phillies due to injuries. You can hear footsteps in the empty buildings. Domonic Brown has just been called up after starting the year in Double-A. I don’t have enough ghost town images to cover all the resources the team no longer has.

The only good thing about this trade is that it is not a rental like Cliff Lee. When being interviewed (interupting the game, of course), Amaro used my exact term, “rental.” I’m not vain enough to think that he read it here but it does show that Amaro is aware of the criticism. Like Lee, Oswalt did not want to come to Philadelphia. Oswalt had to be coaxed into waiving his “no trade” clause because he didn’t want to face the Philadelphia area media. Did he think that would help his cause?

Let’s just say that we (the Phillies front office) happen to know that Jesse Biddle, our first round draft pick, would be ready for the majors in under three years. It could be any other name but that would alleviate the problem of being empty handed in a few years. I would be wary of this trade anyway for the simple fact that the team has pitched well already.

There’s this thing they call chemistry in baseball even though it’s not an exact science. Right now, the Phillies pitching staff has it. When Oswalt and the rest of the team get together for the first time tomorrow, who knows what happens to it? What if Oswalt has some stupid habit that annoys all the other pitchers? What if he insists on buying his very own shower attachment and doesn’t let anyone else use it? What if there’s something even my imagination can’t invent that divides the team?

Ruben Amaro Jr. is like one of those old fashioned stay-at-home wives on TV who couldn’t be trusted with money. As soon as Amaro sees a trade for a starting pitcher, he can’t help but make it. As the assistant GM, this was an okay thing. He would go to Pat Gillick or Ed Wade and get a yes or no. With the team improving over the past week or so, I was willing to quiet down.

That time is over. Amaro must go. If nothing else, he needs to be fired for booking TV time for himself to prattle on during games. Fire Amaro now!

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