Ruben Amaro didn't sell Wednesday, but that didn't stop him from selling CBS Sports' Jon Heyman down the river Thursday morning.
The Phillies' GM was on the WIP Morning Show on Thursday, one day after what was expected to be a busy day of deadline moves. Of course, the Phillies stood pat up to 4 p.m., neither buying nor selling. So much for that two-month debate, huh?
As the deadline approached, Jonathan Papelbon and Cliff Lee seemed safe, but deals for Michael Young and Carlos Ruiz looked as if they could actually materialize, especially after Young became willing to waive his no-trade clause for certain suitors.
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Heyman reported late Wednesday night that Amaro was in talks with the Yankees about both Young and Ruiz, offering these specifics:
Yankees GM Brian Cashman and Phillies GM Ruben Amaro spoke on the phone around 3 p.m. ET Wednesday, an hour before the trade deadline, at which time Amaro confirmed what the Yankees had been reading in the media: Michael Young was willing to waive his no-trade clause to go to the Yankees.
So Cashman offered to send a prospect to Philly and pay the $5 million to go on Young's deal. And Amaro rejected the deal.
Then Cashman asked about Phillies veteran catcher Carlos Ruiz, and was told that Ruiz, who has one home run this year, is not available.
When asked about these details, you might expect a GM to say something like: We were in talks with a number of clubs about a number of different ways to improve our ball club yesterday, but we just couldn't come to terms on any deals that we felt would improve our team.
And that, more or less, is what Amaro said Thursday. And he did admit to having conversations with both the Yankees and the Red Sox. He just also added this bit, per HardballTalk:
News
Ruben Amaro didn’t exactly brush [Heyman's report] off, however, going on WIP in Philly this morning knocking Heyman’s report and saying that Heyman “is wrong a lot of times.” We’ll try to post the full interview when WIP makes it available later.
[Update: Here are the actual comments and audio:
"Both [the Young and Ruiz deals] are absolutely, unequivocally inaccurate, and John has been wrong quite a bit. I mean, John [Heyman] is a good reporter, but he's also been quite wrong on many occasions. You have to understand that some of things [reporters] hear are from one side only. I don't speak to John all that much, and I think that's one of the reasons, because I think a lot of the things that come out are actually very false. So it makes it difficult for us to have relationships with the reporters when the reporting is false.
About an hour after making his initial comments, Amaro called back into WIP to amend his stance, and then Heyman called in himself.]
While we're here, we might as well gauge the pulse of what "they're" saying about Amaro and the Phillies outside of Philly. Craig Calcaterra in that same HBT post offers:
It’s one thing for a sleazy little blogger boy to do it. It’s another thing for a GM to do it. Shouldn’t these sorts of reports just be chuckled off at most? More properly ignored?
And more to the point: Jon Heyman may be wrong sometimes, but I feel like he’s done his job way better than Amaro has in the past year or two. I mean, Heyman didn’t give that deal to Ryan Howard and make Delmon Young a major part of the 2013 business plan. Methinks Amaro is not in any position to go after people for their mistakes, real or imagined.
Ouch. In Amaro's defense, he's not totally out of time when it comes to selling off some pieces this season. Yesterday was just the non-waiver deadline, and you may remember that Joe Blanton wasn't shipped off to Los Angeles until Aug. 3 last season. Granted, trying to move guys after the deadline makes the entire proposition entirely more complicated, and you're best hope of landing a decent return now is probably a late-season injury somewhere around baseball.
Either way, this is the time of year that you'll see a lot of big names "waived" just to test the waters before those names are likely pulled back off waivers. Enrico's waived me the last four seasons in a row, and reportedly came close to accepting future considerations to ship me to Kansas City in 2011.
But that was just a report, and Jon Heyman is wrong a lot of times.