Jamie,
Before I get going here I just wanted to say I have all the respect in the world for what you’ve accomplished over your long career, and what you helped the Phillies do last season. That being said, there are times when silence is golden and this one of them. Anyone will tell you baseball is a business and if anyone should understand that it should be you.
Moyer should have figured out the way the game of baseball works by now.
You say you feel misled, that the Phillies told you something like this wouldn’t happen before the season started. Here’s the problem Jamie; in baseball things change. Could Ruben Amaro Jr. have predicted at the beginning of the season that he’d have a chance to add Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez to the starting rotation? Probably not, but if an opportunity arises to make your team better you do it. That is Ruben’s job, after all.
There’s no room for sentiment in the numbers-driven game of baseball, and in this case those numbers (5.47 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 0-2 with a 7.20 ERA in August) leave you as the odd man out in the rotation. Last season you allowed four or more earned runs in just seven out of 33 starts. This year, in just 22 starts you’ve allowed that many runs twelve times. You followed up an impressive regular season in ’08 with an 8.49 playoff ERA and you haven’t regained your form since then. The only consistent thing about your performance this season is that it has been radically inconsistent.
But keep in mind things do change in this fickle game. Martinez could struggle and you could go back to starting in a matter of weeks. That’s what makes your comments so confounding: you claim you don’t want to be a distraction, but that’s exactly what you’ve become. You say that this is a job and you’ll do what you’re told, yet you publically question your boss and directly contradict the very words that are coming out of your mouth.
Had the Phillies swept the Marlins and built a seemingly insurmountable lead in the NL East then you might have had a case for not losing your job, but the closeness of this divisional race makes your comments all the more inappropriate. The better thing to do would have been to accept your demotion with grace, continue to help the team any way you can, and stay prepared in case you were called upon to start again. Instead you ran your mouth, moped in the corner, and have generated a massive controversy this team didn’t need. This is the last thing I’d expect from a man who built his entire career and reputation with class.
And I’m disappointed in you.
Sincerely,
David Foley
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