Losing The Good Phight.

The Philadelphia Phillies are one of baseball's most frustrating franchises as of late. Since a run of dominance that saw them make the postseason for 5 straight seasons (2007-11), including a World Series title and two straight WS appearances, the Phils have been mismanaged at every single level. They don't perform well on the field, they don't draft well, and they don't make smart trades or free agent signings. A rotten fish stinks from the head, but it appears the dorsal fin gets cut first: Ryne Sandberg, the Hall of Fame second baseman who has managed the Phillies since Charlie Manuel stepped down halfway through 2013, resigned this morning. Sandberg compiled a 119-159 record (.428 winning percentage) during his time at the helm, although the bulk of the blame for the dismal state of things in Philadelphia should be placed on GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

Courtesy Bill Streicher, USA Today Sports

It's not surprising to see Sandberg resign while Amaro Jr. remains in power. The field manager is often the first person to take on the role of sacrificial lamb when a team is going badly, while the general manager gets more rope as the architect of the roster. While this makes absolutely no sense, it's simply the way of the baseball world. But how much can Sandberg or anybody do with a lineup that still bats Ryan Howard fourth? What do you do with a rotation that hosts Cole Hamels and four belly-itchers? Seriously, you could replace the entire Phillies outfield with mannequins wearing gloves and nobody would notice a difference. They're even trying their level best to ship their closer (the much-maligned Jonathan Papelbon) out of town when he's one of the few pitchers on the roster with an ERA below 4. Their farm system, outside of Aaron Nola and J.P. Crawford, is scorched earth. This is a team without direction or reinforcements. There is little to look forward to in the Phillies' future.

None of this, mind you, is Sandberg's fault. He is simply an extension of the front office, just like every other manager in the game. He's handed 25 players at the beginning of the year and told to draw every ounce of talent out of them. That much is under his control: the manager is really supposed to balance personalities, to make sure the clubhouse stays loose. Chemistry between teammates has become a vital part of successful franchises, and successful managers should perpetuate a mentality that every player is important, respected and treated fairly. In this regard, Sandberg's failures are myriad and troubling: his clashes last season with longtime Philadelphia shortstop Jimmy Rollins (now of the Los Angeles Dodgers) brought to light the tension between Sandberg and his players; his decision to have outfielder Jeff Francoeur throw 45 pitches in a blowout loss to the Orioles last week drew harsh criticisms from second baseman Chase Utley, among others; his tendency to leave pitchers in too long has been an overall point of contention. It's upsetting when a manager calls out his own players, something Sandberg did with extreme prejudice during his time in Philadelphia. Simply put, he was thrown into a bad situation, and all he did was make things worse.

That being said, Amaro Jr. is still the biggest detriment to the Phillies. His trade demands for Hamels and Cliff Lee over the past few years have been incorrigible. His comments about the discrepancy between Rollins and team legend Mike Schmidt's batting averages when the former tied the latter for the franchise's all-time hit record were dumbfounding. It's no secret that the Phillies are one of the least analytically-inclined teams in the game, but if your GM doesn't understand the correlation between hits and at-bats, he isn't even fit to watch a major league team, much less run one. Amaro Jr. is in the last year of his contract, and with the imminent regime change (rumors have been flying that Andy MacPhail will be replacing Pat Gillick as team president soon), it seems very likely that Ruben will be jobless come 2016. I'm not saying that this will immediately improve the sorry state of the team, but it would be the definition of "addition by subtraction".

Buy Me Some Peanuts And Computer Hacks.

I have to say, for as well acquainted as I am with baseball history, I don't think anything quite like this has happened before: the St. Louis Cardinals, or at least certain employees within the organization, are currently under investigation by the FBI for last year's hacking of the Houston Astros' database. The database, named Ground Control, was compromised last summer when trade discussions, scouting reports and other internal communications were released on the Internet, many of which described GM Jeff Luhnow's (who had worked in a similar capacity with the Cards before his tenure in Houston) machinations during his massive rebuild of the team.

While little has been confirmed in terms of the main suspect(s), it's been speculated that the culprit(s) carried out the hack to get back at Luhnow. This would make a little more sense if the Astros were still in the same division as the Cardinals, but they jumped from the NL Central to the AL West almost a full calendar year before Luhnow joined the team. There's further speculation that the hack, regardless of who carried it out, was also in retaliation for Luhnow supposedly taking "proprietary information" with him from St. Louis. Luhnow, for his part, has yet to comment on the investigation.

Courtesy Sports Talk Florida

Whatever the motivation, this is a huge blemish on an otherwise immaculate franchise. The Cardinals, both on and off the field, have been the game's most respected team over the past decade: they won 2 World Series in that span, played for the pennant 6 times (including the last 4 seasons), and did so both with and without the legendary Albert Pujols. They draft well, develop those draftees efficiently, and turn them into major league All-Stars and MVP candidates. So why undertake such a destructive action against another team? Why kick the Astros when they're down, as they were at the time of the leak? This goes beyond disgruntled employees or basic pettiness; this is a clear, organizational act of aggression. It's a truly ugly incident, one that will undoubtedly tarnish the reputation of everyone involved.

Dave Cameron pointed out on Twitter the shift in perception of the Astros, especially in light of this investigation:

A year ago, Astros were terrible team, botched draft, didn’t protect their servers. Now? Good team, right about Aiken, robbery victims.

— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) June 16, 2015

If those who perpetuated the hack were trying to destroy Luhnow, it appears that they've done quite the opposite. Like Cameron said, the Astros are actually contending ahead of schedule, and Luhnow's much-ballyhooed process seems to finally be paying dividends. In other words, he's starting to deliver on his promise, turning the team in Houston into a reasonable facsimile of the one he constructed in St. Louis.

It's likely that we won't get many details on the identities of the hackers anytime soon, if ever. Major League Baseball can always choose to handle the matter clandestinely once the federal investigation concludes, although if previous scandals are any indication, we'll know the names soon enough. If it turns out that current GM John Mozeliak, owner Bill DeWitt Jr. or any other executive had knowledge of the hack or, worse, approved the actions of those who did the deed, heads are sure to roll with a rapidity we haven't seen since Rickey on the basepaths. Either way, this is corporate espionage of a caliber we've never seen in the game, and baseball must make an example out of the person(s) responsible.