The Phillies made their first off season move by signing Charlie Manuel to a 2 year contract with the option for a third year. You can make an argument for both sides on this one on wether Manuel should be back or not. On one side you can say he does because the Phillies made the playoffs. On the other side you can say he shouldn’t because the only reason the Phillies made the playoffs was not due to anything Manuel did, but the fact that the Mets pulled off one of the biggest collapses in the history of baseball. Yes the Phillies did win 13 of their last 17 games but if the Mets don’t collapse the Phillies don’t win the division.

Another thing to remember about Charlie Manuel is this is the third time he has managed in the playoffs and the third time his team has been eliminated in the first series, the other two times were with the Cleveland Indians. If it sounds like The Sports Den is being too negative, were not these are just some facts. Its ok to be positive, just don’t be so positive that you ignore the facts. If there is any question about his managerial ability take a look at game 2 against the Rockies when he took out Kyle Kendrick.

This should be interesting next season when everyone is calling for Manuel’s head when the Phillies get off to another slow start, and everyone will be questioning his moves. You know its going to happen, and Phillies fans will be hoping for another collapse from whatever team is ahead of them in the standings at the time.

Then again the Phillies caught a break by winning the division now who could argue they were just being cheap by signing Manuel when Joe Torre and Tony Larrusa might become available. Think about this if the Mets don’t collapse and the Phillies don’t make the playoffs would they re-sign Manuel? Probably not, unless they wanted to be cheap. Maybe a one year contract would have been better? Then again all this complaining and arguing might be for nothing since this teams track record for making the playoffs under this ownership is every 10 to 14 years, so they may not get back to the playoffs until somewhere between 2017 and 2021.

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