Steve Carlton Coaches the Phillies: The Second Year, The Offseason

Can year two of the Steve Carlton project bring renown and fame? Can the Phillies field a respectable team for more than one month? Read the three parts of the first year here: Prelude, P1, and P2.

OCTOBER 23RD, 1989: Philadelphia pitching legend Steve Carlton strolls out of Philadelphia International Airport just as the first drops of sunlight begins to kiss the dark blue sky. He has been out of the country since the seventh, nearly a week after the regular season ended with a Phillie’s lost to Montreal. Mike Schmidt hit his final hit, his final home run, Philadelphia’s last run of the season, in that game. A day later, the legendary third baseman retired. Two days after that, the Philadelphia organization holds a ceremony to retire his number inside Veteran’s Stadium. After an hour of speeches, songs, and sobs, Ol’ Lefty himself presents Schmidt with a plaque, the number 20 embosses big and bold in the brass, and the two share their very last photo-op together. Mike Schmidt takes his last walk out of Veteran’s Stadium; in the after-party, he and Carlton get drunk as proper teammates, at a place called Paddy’s Pub, for old time’s sake before it is all well and truly over.

The pomp and circumstance puts Steve Carlton in a mood the following weekend. Staying in his home, in Philadelphia, in the country itself was making him restless.

Sunday night, his wife, Beverly, comes home after seeing a play with the girlfriends. Her husband has a pile of luggage stacked at the far corner of the living room. A small fight ensues in which she briefly believes he’s leaving her for that front office clerk he gets chummy with at the Phillie’s Christmas parties. No, he tells her — he is going somewhere far away to find himself. It won’t be for long. A couple of weeks at the most. But he must leave. If he is to face the challenges to come, he must leave. She asks him desperately, “What will I do? Where will I go? I’m seriously going to be all alone in Philadelphia for two weeks?” He responds, is his usual debonair manner, that he doesn’t give a freshly slaughtered rat’s ass what she does. Then he disappears into the night.

His destination: Japan. He arrives in the city of Ise in the southern part of the country and is led to a shrine dedicated to the sun goddess, Amaterasu. There he steeps himself in the Japanese Buddhist and Shinto traditions; he adopts an austere, monastic way of life. He critically studies the Kojiki with a cohort of monks and scholars. Each day, he consumes the exact same modest meal at the exact same hours, all accompanied with a teacup’s worth of sake. He learns the intricacies of a natural farming philosophy codified by Yoshikazu Kawaguchi. Steve Carlton is not sure he really understands everything (or, really, anything) that’s going on, but it’s a disarming feeling to be around people who don’t care and, in many cases, have no idea that the Phillies went 52–110 in the 1989 MLB season.

It’s not a bad life, at the end of the day. Carlton’s abrasive East-Coast American way of interacting and thinking does not make him close friends with anyone there. But it’s not like he’s making a whole lot of chums back home anyway. His acquaintances from the shrine give him a special parting gift: a factory-made plush doll from an airport gift shop. Carlton tells them he will treasure it forever. He wishes he could stay longer and truly absorb this culture, but something calls him back to America’s First City. Something greater than contractual obligation and financial necessity.

Just as he reclaims his bags and reaches the doors of the terminal, a security officer stops him. He’s sure what the problem is. The government has finally blacklisted him a subversive cultural terrorist, just as he always thought they would. Not this time. The guard smiles at him warmly and produces a pen and a battered, rolled up poster from his back pocket. “Phillies ALL-TIME GREATS” it reads at the top.

The guard tells him a story of his father, who passed away five years ago when he choked during a hot dog eating contest. His father was a lifelong Philly fan who even remembered the day Carlton was traded to the team. When the ’77 playoffs came around, he bet his son’s college tuition that the Phillies would win the NLCS 3–2 against the Dodgers. When they lost, he got so drunk he puked all over the neighbor’s cat then passed out on top of their Pinto. His wife took his son with her to live in Red Bank, New Jersey for about a year afterwards. Steve Carlton nods his head solemnly as he listens. It’s fans such as those who he’s truly working for. They represent the heart of this great city.

He signs the guard’s poster and heads for home. His wife is waiting, but, more importantly, a city’s future rests on his shoulders. He knows what he must do.

The Off-season: Filling out the Personnel

Steve Carlton returns to the office as the only member of the coaching staff and front office. Those whose contracts expired were not extended, and those who still had a year on were fired. The resulting environment is eerie, like an old mining town after the mine closes. It’s Steve Carlton’s world now, and the rest of the Phillies are just living in it. The time for sitting back and seeing is over; the ’90 Phillies will be no one else’s creation but Carlton’s.

His first order of business is to hire a bench coach and a scouting director. He’s seen what’s happened without a bench coach to help relate to the players, and, without a scouting director, he has only the OSA to provide him scouting reports. And, as we all know, the OSA is severely underfunded and overworked. Carlton already has some ideas for the new bench coach: Sparky Anderson, a day after the World Series ended, has been fired by the Detroit Tigers after a 55–107 season. It’s less than a compelling resume for the position, even if it is a future HoF manager, but Sparky has one distinct advantage over most of the other candidates: Steve Carlton actually knows who he is.

But Ol’ Sparks does not take too kindly to the invitation. “You think I’m gonna be the underling to some snot-nosed pitcher I worked over back in the 70's?”he angrily and rhetorically asks Carlton. “Hmph! I still have some dignity left!” A bemused Carlton hangs up the phone. Apparently, there is still a lot he has to learn about corporate culture. His shortlist hasn’t run dry, though. A divisional rival of his is on the market, the Pirates’ manager Jim Leyland. He wasn’t exactly fired, but Pittsburgh evidently did not feel their future included him when his contract ran out. They’re not aware that, in another universe, Leyland is supposed to take the Pirates to three straight NLCS’s starting in 1990. Instead, Leyland will take some of that magic to the Steve Carlton Project as the new bench coach.

As for scouting director, Carlton snaps up the 42 year-old Dave Moates. Moates was once a player, an outfielder who played for the Rangers in the late-70’s for about two years. Carlton starts telling him he remembers pitching against him before Moates explains that the Rangers are in the American League. His biggest media footprint will one day having the world’s tiniest Wikipedia article about a former player. Maybe he can have a little more success as a front office man.

Eventually, Philadelphia has a full coaching staff and front office again. Outside of Moates and Leyland, Carlton has also hired Ed Phillips to be the Assistant GM. Phillips was a relief pitcher who played one major league season, with the Red Sox in 1970. He starts telling Phillips he remembers throwing a pitch or two against him back in ’70 until Phillips explains that the Red Sox are in the American League. Justin Collins comes over from the Cubs to coach what will be a totally revamped pitching staff (as you will see). Jordon Parese seems to manifest out of thin air as a 40 year-old man to coach the hitters. Bobby “Baby” Boomer takes over as the team trainer. They’re all on similar five-year deals. In press conferences, Carlton starts talking about this new era in Phillies baseball as “The Five-Year Plan.” He speaks glowingly about the Phillies making a “great leap forward” in the next year or so. The PR department of the ball-club tries to get him to stop saying those things, but Steve Carlton has never let any corporate suit tell him what to say. He’s an American, goddamit.

While Carlton did his hiring, the yearly awards were being given out. The Mets’ Davey Johnson wins Manager of the Year. His starting ace David Cone, who I spotlighted last article, wins the Cy Young handily. Cone, however, misses out on the MVP award to Eric Davis, the Reds’ home run king who I also highlighted last time. Overall, three of the Reds’ starting nine get Platinum Sticks. The Cubs’ Dwight Smith wins Rookie of the Year. In the AL, California’s Jim Abbott wins the ROTY over Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. (lol). Kansas City’s manager, John Wathan, and starting ace, Bret Saberhagen, win the appropriate AL awards. Unlike Cone, though, Saberhagen also wins AL MVP. Eight different teams get a player on the Platinum Stick winners list; only the 81–81 Texas Rangers get two, Julio Franco and Ruben Sierra

Free Agency, The Draft, and a Shocking Development

When salary arbitration rolls around, Carlton only makes an offer to two eligible players: starter Ken Howell and reliever Jeff Parrett, the only good pitchers on last year’s staff. He low-balls them, and the committee quickly sides with the players. Not a rousing start to the free agency period, and there is a mountain of work to do. Once arbitration is settled, there are only ten players left across the entire 25-man roster, including Mickey “The Mick” Morandini, who spent all last season in the Phillies’ AAA affiliate.

Finding fifteen more ballplayers won’t be a simple task. The Phillies have slightly over $7 million in available space for free agents this off-season — the Mets and the Cards have more than double that amount. But Steve Carlton has to do more than simply call up a bunch of minor-leaguers to fill in the gaps. Doing so will simply guarantee another sub-60 win season, something that won’t bode well for his job security, much less the spiritual health of the city of Philadelphia. No, Carlton must be aggressive. He must do something he hasn’t done since he took the job: act like a General Manager.

The first true Steve Carlton transaction comes on Halloween’s Eve. This is his favorite time of year — without fail, he has spent every 31st of October building a complicated Rube Goldberg machine to steal the candy of the children who approach his door. He stores the candy away in a special safe in his room until Christmas Eve, when he eats all the candy as part of Christmas dinner. But he suspends his usual plans for the day as he ties the ribbon on trade negotiations with the Expos. Somehow, with help from his trademark Carlton charisma, he is able to package Mike “Not That One” Maddox with a handful of prospects to Montreal in exchange the President of Baseball. 34 year-old Dennis Martinez looks like he will be ending his career at the back-end of the Phillies’ rotation, but he is enjoying something of a resurgence in his old age with three straight years of ERA+’s of over 100. Carlton is hoping he can give them one or two years more of quality pitching before he hangs it up.

It’s an impressive feat for the neophyte GM, but things are only about to get better. Brett Saberhagen, AL Cy Young winner and MVP, files for free agency as soon as the 13th of November comes around. Even with the bump from being a World Series-competing team, the Royals simply do not have the purchasing power to keep him around with everyone else they owe money to. Saberhagen is immediately the jewel of the free agency class and is pounced on by a crush of teams. Steve Carlton throws his hat into the ring. From the outside looking in, it’s a long shot for Philly — there’s really nothing else they can offer him besides money, something other teams have a lot more off. But Carlton and Saberhagen are about to shock the baseball world.

Scarcely more than a week after free agency starts, Saberhagen announces that he will be taking his Cy Young-winning ass to Philadelphia. It’s a huge upset for Carlton, though one that comes at a price. At $3.8 million a year, Saberhagen is immediately made the highest-paid player in the league. He will make $600K more than the next highest player, the Yankees’ Rickey Henderson. This has cut Carlton’s available money by more than half. But it isn’t all about money for Saberhagen, though. In the press conference, he tells the media that he simply could not pass up the chance to work with someone who was one of his idols growing up. “Everyone likes to talk about Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry and whoever for the 70's,” he tells everybody. “But, for me, Steve Carlton was the man. He was cool and silent, a real enigma. I thought that was so badass when I was a kid. I’m sure he has a lot of things to teach me.”

Steve Carlton is flattered, even if he suspects Saberhagen is laying on a little thick to be in his good graces. Weeks later, it still seems worth it to him. The former Royal is only 25 years-old and has another solid decade of pitching ahead of him. Carlton has newfound confidence and he’ll need it for the next round of negotiations. The Mets’ Sid Fernandez is on the market. He’s not nearly as well-known as his former teammate David Cone, but he’s been a steady above-average starter for years now. Just the kinda guy Steve Carlton needs — he starts negotiations. Unlike with Saberhagen, though, Fernandez will drag this process out for a whole month, right up until New Year’s Eve, before he and the Phillies come to terms. Carlton has to fend off the Astros, the Cards, the Dodgers, and the Reds until he is victorious; once again, it comes at a price. Fernandez’s total contract checks in at over $16 million dollars over six years, which Philadelphia can only afford by convincing Fernandez to make a modest $2 million for ’90. In the subsequent years, his price tag will start taking big jumps.

The future is definitely being mortgaged in Pennsylvania, an odd move by a team with a depleted farm system like the Phillies, even if the team is objectively better in the short run. Even after the draft passes and Carlton, Phillips, and Moates have felt as though they’ve picked the best players they could, it will take more than one off-season to fix this problem. But there is one significant step forward made on draft day: another pitching victory. After the White Sox take a 17 year-old outfielder named Tony Clark first overall, Steve Carlton is on the clock. The draft is filled with potential talent, but most of the players are high-schoolers who will demand too much of a bonus for the Phillies’ blood. It’s starting to seem to Carlton that no one will be worth this high a draft pick, but Phillips and Moates are pushing hard for this one prospect. A teenager, a foreigner, but they’re confident that he will take a team-friendly bonus. His potential is through the roof. Slowly, Carlton is convinced he will be worth the wait. He makes the pick.

Pedro J Martinez goes second overall to the Phillies.

It caps off a whirlwind of a winter for Steve Carlton. What was their worst attribute — pitching — now seems their greatest strength going into ’90 and beyond. A buzz starts to spread across America’s First City as the calendar approaches the pre-season. But there’s still a problem — with all the transactions, the wheeling-and-dealing, the draft, the changes, there are still only sixteen players on the active roster. The offense has gotten little attention throughout the last handful of months, and, with only twenty-thousand dollars left over for free agents, lineup options get slimmer by the day.

On a cold New Year’s day, 1990, second-baseman Tom Herr, the second-best hitter from last year, walks into Steve Carlton’s office, his head low and his face long. At 34 years-old, Herr is only ten years Carlton’s junior. He’s played in the league since 1979, mostly for Carlton’s lifelong nemesis St. Louis. Carlton has pitched against him more than a couple of times, but Carlton doesn’t remember that.

Herr tells his Skipper that he has a problem. The last couple of nights have been awful. He’s restless, and his mind is heavy. Carlton stops him right there. He knows what’s up: the power lines above Herr’s house have been transmitting brainwashing vibrations through his neighborhood at night, disrupting his sleep. The government has been doing this since the late-50’s. Carlton has felt the same way lately.

“What? No,” Herr responds. “That’s not it at all. I just haven’t felt like myself this whole past year, sir.”

“Well, the vibrations will do that to ya’,” Carlton says. “All you gotta do is drink this special protein shake I came up with, and — “

“It’s not that, Carlton, I’m telling you. It’s my heart, sir. It’s just not in the game anymore. It hasn’t been since, like, May, if I’m being totally honest with you. After, God, ten, eleven years, I just don’t think I can do it anymore. My whole life has been about baseball since I was kid. I’m surrounded by ballplayers, coaches, fans, bats and balls and butts in the locker room. I think it’s enough. I haven’t spent enough time with my family. My church. I think I really need to rediscover Christ, sir. He’s not in Veteran’s Stadium, I’m telling you.”

“Discover Christ? Tom, they found his body all the way back in ’73, for crying out loud. Where do you think he is?”

“I didn’t mean physically try and find — look, sir. What I’m sayin’ is, I need to make a spiritual journey with my family. I’m thinking becoming a missionary. Going to Africa to spread the Gospel. That’s where my head is right now.”

“Africa? Why would you go to shithole country like Africa for?”

“Africa’s not a cou — “

“Look, Tom, the President or King or whatever-they-have of Africa won’t need you as much as Philadelphia needs you. Have you looked at the lineup lately? We’re desperate, man. We ain’t got much else.”

But as much as Carlton begs, Tom Herr’s mind is made up. 1989 was his last season. He’s hanging it up.

Just like that, the Phillies have one less batter.

Will the Phillies recover from this stunner in time for the regular season? Find out what happens in the first part of the 1990 season here!