Philadelphia Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. told Mike & Ike's midday show Monday on 94 WIP that the Phillies are highly interested in retaining the services of Jimmy Rollins.
"What we really want to do is sign Jimmy," Amaro said. "Whether that happens or not kind of depends on if we can get to the place where we're all comfortable. Everybody knows what we want to do; no secret that we'd like to bring Jimmy back. Whether it's three, four, five, eight years, that's up to us to decide and hopefully with the help of Jimmy make the right decision to be able to keep him here."
Admitting the Rollins contract discussion hinges on both years and money, Amaro said he is "going to have to be passively aggressive" as the Phillies look to keep Rollins and closer Ryan Madson while also improving the roster elsewhere.
"I'm going to have to be be passively aggressive because our priority is to try and bring Madson back and to bring Rollins back," Amaro said. "I don't know how long that's going to play out. I have a feeling it may play out for a while. I like to be aggressive typically but I think in this situation because of the nature of these particular players' situations and where our payroll is, I'm going to have to be passively aggressive. At the same time, be ready to strike if there's a deal to be made either signing somebody or trading somebody. I don't want to preclude us from doing things with Jimmy or Ryan. That kind of ties us up a little bit in terms of timing, but that doesn't mean we don't have contingency plans and we work on those with agents and other clubs. I've already had several discussions with several teams about possible trades and I've also obviously talked to all the agents that our two players have to keep those lines of communication open."
The Phillies fell to St. Louis in the first round of the playoffs, but Amaro is convinced there were no better teams in baseball. He hasn't watched much of the World Series because he's still sore Philadelphia didn't win.
"I can't watch it either," he said. "I do not watch. I watched a little bit of the game yesterday because it was a nice performance by the kid [Derek Holland]. I bet you I've watched maybe 12 innings. Because I still think we're the best team in baseball."
In the aftermath of the Boston Red Sox drinking controversy, Amaro admitted the Philles also have beer in their clubhouse, but not hard liquor. He cited his team's responsibility in regards to drinking, saying that during his 14 years in the Philadelphia front office, "we've literally had like zero issues."
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