Phillies have a new General Manager

"We have somebody older than me, and that's good, too,"said manager Charlie Manuel, with a laugh. "He's going to do a good job for us. I think his experience speaks for itself."

This guy has the experience. He was the GM of the Blue Jays when they won the World Series in 1992 and 1993 and the team took 5 division titles when he was there. He was in charge in Seattle when they won 116 games in 2001.

I caught him on Daily News Live on Comcast last night and he actually answered the questions posed to him. The Phils have gone from being a bad team to being a pretty good team that just misses the playoffs. He said his first thing to do is re-sign Billy Wagner and reconized that he is a free agent and teams like Boston and the Mets are willing to throw a lot of money at him. He conceded the Phillies can't compete in a bidding war but said the club will make him a fair market offer. He also said the Thome/Howard situation is a good problem to have and conceded the solution will not come until spring training.

We have a veteran baseball guy running the show now.