Mike's Mets - Phillies Won't Accept Dead Man in Return for Wheeler

 

By Mike Steffanos December 7, 2020 

I really wasn't going to try to post again until tomorrow, but this one was a little too good to pass up. Yesterday, ESPN's Buster Olney reported that the Phillies were listening to offers on former Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler. Needless to say, this started a veritable sh*tstorm of controversy. After all, the Phillies just signed the guy last year. Combined with earlier news that Philadelphia isn't considered a favorite to re-sign catcher J.T. Realmuto, fans of the team were not at all happy. After all, they lived through a period of tanking and rebuilding to get to this point, and it hasn't exactly paid off all that well. You would certainly expect ownership to reply in the usual formal manner, something to the effect that, while listening to all offers on any player, there were no plans to arbitrarily ship the righty out of town just for cost savings.

What we all got, instead, was a somewhat bizarre overreaction from the team's managing general partner John Middleton. As quoted in the New York Post:

"If they offered me Babe Ruth, I wouldn’t trade him," Middleton told ESPN, adding the names of Ted Williams and Mike Schmidt to stress the point. "I have authorized no one to have a conversation about trading him."

ESPN had reported earlier Sunday that high-ranking executives from other MLB teams said Philadelphia made it known that its second-highest-paid player was available.

They’re lying to you," Middleton said, per ESPN.

Of the three names mentioned by Middletown, Ruth and Williams no longer call this mortal coil home, while Schmidt just turned 71 in September. He looks great for his age, but it's probably safe to say that his days as a productive ballplayer are long gone.

Continue reading by clicking here.