The Eagles season is disappointing and, frankly, quite boring. The Flyers do not even have a season to discuss, just one to simply ponder over whether it will be back or if we will lose our players to foreign leagues forever. The Sixers are there and decent, but I simply cannot keep up. But the Phillies 2013 season is something that I, and many many others, are both excited and anxious for. And revolving around the Phillies, is manager Charlie Manuel.
Phil Keidel has written an article discussing what Charlie must do in order to secure his job for the 2013 season after the poor performance of the squad last season.
“That the Phillies’ April of 2012 was the first time the club had a losing record in April since 2007 has been well documented. Sure, having a marginal or losing April is nothing like a death sentence for a baseball team. The season is six months long, after all. But Phillies fans have very short memories these days, and if the 2013 Phillies stagger out of the starting block again this season, the voices calling for a managerial change will start to gather and strengthen.”
It’s true, all Philadelphia sports fans have little patience for poor performance. If the Phils start the season on the wrong foot, there’s no guaranteeing Charlie will have a job nor that the Phils will keep their fans.
If Revere is not leading off, Manuel needs to figure out what to do with a player like Revere—74 career stolen bases, zero career home runs—in a lineup premised on the long ball. How Manuel deploys Revere will probably have a lot to do with how the Phillies finish in 2013. Manuel is a renowned hitting guru. Manuel’s tutelage and guaranteed playing time may restore Young’s status as a hitter who, if not feared, can at least be relied on to produce. If Young does not hit, though, it will be serious problem for the Phillies since as of this writing they have no other right-handed middle-of-the-order bats they can trust. Manuel needs to get Young fixed quickly.
Charlie needs to make sure that the new players are showing that they deserve the money their paid and that they can perform as well as they’re supposed to based on the trade.
