A double agent in our midst?

A recent article by Jayson Stark has me scared. He covers a few different subjects, including a list of available GMs (due to the opening in Seattle) and the Phillies ongoing search for additional starting pitching. Even though he doesn’t make any direct connections between the two stories, I don’t think it’s possible not to read between the lines.

He starts in Seattle with the question of who will replace Bill Bavasi as the Mariner’s new Mario (Get it? Nintendo owns the M’s! I’m so clever I could just kill myself). This is where my terror begins…

Ghost of Mariners past: [Pat] Gillick [current GM of the Phillies] has already announced he’s retiring after this season. But it’s hard not to notice that he’s been hedging just enough lately to leave his options open. And he’s long had a soft spot for his previous destination, plus he has a home near Seattle and an unusually high level of interest in the state of the franchise. So don’t count out a return to some sort of high-ranking position, even though the official title might not read ‘general manager.’

Yeah, sure. I can’t blame a guy in a high-power position for suddenly realizing that retirement may be boring. But the line “an unusually high level of interest in the state of the franchise” kinda creeped me out after I read the part about the Phillies looking for starting pitching…

Phretting in Philly: With the help of a number of clubs that have spoken with the Phillies, we’ve assembled this shopping list of starting pitchers it appears they’ve at least kicked tires on: Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Bronson Arroyo and (surprisingly) Jarrod Washburn. Bedard just hit the market, so you can add his name any minute now.

Except for CC Sabathia, all of these names should send a shiver down out spines. However is there any particular name in that paragraph that gives you pause? That’s right: Jarrod Washburn?!?!?! He’s currently in a pitcher friendly stadium, and his ERA is near 6.00; can you imagine that in the Bank? If the Phillies were to pick him up for anything more than a box of baseballs, I would have no other choice then to think that Gillick was trying to ingratiate himself with the M’s front office – probably with an eye on a 2009 “Special Assistant” position.

Besides destroying my faith in the Phillie’s GM, Stark continues to depress me with the rest of the story:

[T]he Phillies might have the hardest decisions to make of just about any team with win-the-World Series upside. If they go for it now — and decimate their still-thin system to deal for a big-name rent-a-pitcher like Sabathia or Burnett — this might be the only year they’d be capable of contending.

To make a trade like that, they’d probably have to give up both of their two most advanced starting-pitching prospects, Carlos Carrasco and Antonio Bastardo. So if they lose Brad Lidge and their rent-a-starter to free agency, and Jamie Moyer retires, Brett Myers doesn’t rebound and Adam Eaton’s first half turns out to be a mirage, the Phillies’ pitching staff next year would essentially consist of Cole Hamels, Kyle Kendrick, J.C. Romero, Ryan Madson, an uncertain Myers and seven question marks.

“So that’s a tough call,” said one NL executive. “Do you say, ‘Go for it, and the hell with next year’? Or do you think big picture, but maybe not have enough [pitching] to win this year? It’s a scary choice to have to make.”

Hey, I’m all for making it to the postseason this year, but I don’t want to destroy the future either. It was a real long time between ‘93 and ‘07 and I don’t want to have to deal with that again.

Besides, as a Phillies fan, I demand the opportunity to cheer/jeer a home-town player named “Bastardo.”