Phillies Name Andy MacPhail New Team President

Andy MacPhail, new leader of the Phillies’ front office, is seen during spring training baseball practice, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)

The Phillies have a message for their fans: We care about sabermetrics. They used the word a bunch. John Middleton, the most prominent member of the Phillies’ silent partnership, said it. Interim president Pat Gillick, who put together the Phillies’ 2008 championship team, said it. Andy MacPhail, who will be the new Phillies president at the end of the season, said it many, many times.

Sabermetrics, a term coined from the acronym for the Society for American Baseball Research, is at its core the empirical analysis of baseball (as Wikipedia puts it). But it’s also code for a way of thinking that values statistics over scouting when putting together a baseball club. The Phillies have been chastised for doing the opposite, such as relying on 7-year-old scouting reports when signing outfielder Delmon Young in 2012.

“I don’t care about walks,” General Manager Ruben Amaro said in January 2013. “I care about production. To be frank with you, I’ve said this all along. All of the sabermatricians and all of the people who think they know exactly what makes a good club… to me, it’s more about run production and being able to score runs and drive in runs.”

The Phillies clearly attempted to make introduction of MacPhail as president a new start for the franchise. The Phillies say they plan to be more forward-thinking. Middleton said the Phillies were creating a “custom-made system” for evaluating players, and said the team would hire new analysts sometime this season if they needed to. MacPhail didn’t say what that meant for general manager Ruben Amaro, but said he was looking to use statistics.

“In Chicago, I was the president and CEO,” MacPhail said. “I had a GM who I loved that was not very saber-friendly, but I made him hire two kids to help him with that. We used to use it in Minnesota, for God’s sake. We don’t really advertise it, why would we? … Nobody’s got all the tools. You have to hire people around you.” All three brought this up before being asked about it.

MacPhail is the son and grandson of Baseball Hall of Famers. He was general manager of the Twins when they won two World Series in 1987 and 1991, and has been credited with the recent resurgence of the Baltimore Orioles.

Who knows yet if today’s press conference made fans feel better about the future of the Phillies. But it certainly made the Phillies’ front office a little more interesting. MacPhail joked with Jim Salisbury, who broke the story on MacPhail’s expected hiring. And when asked what he did out of baseball for the last three years, MacPhail gave a deep answer:

Why I was out was simple: My contract expired, my father had limited time left, I wasn’t having any fun. I didn’t want to go back. I was asked to go back, but I didn’t want to go back. You can’t be a dilettante in this business… If I didn’t feel I was all in, then I told [Orioles owner Peter Angelos] I wasn’t going to go back. Turns out they did pretty well without me.

I started to get resentful of the time that I spent at the ballpark. I have traveled all over the world… I think I’m better for it. It’s been a great experience. You only go through life once. You gotta do what you gotta do. Because you just don’t know what’s in the future. I am happy I did it.

MacPhail did say he’d need the next three months to “get up to speed.” Literally the first thing he said to the media after the Phillies announced him as team president was this: “I’m a little bit surprised you hired me considering I’ve been out of it for three years.” On CSN Philly after the press conference, Amaro said MacPhail is “well-versed in our plan” but he hadn’t talked with him much yet.

The Phillies are 27-50, the worst record in baseball. They have allowed 123 more runs than they’ve scored. Pat Gillick will remain president until the end of the season. John Middleton said Gillick has “full, complete… control” for now.