Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Veteran manager reportedly could make up to $4 million under terms of the new deal.
Manuel
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Just before the start of spring training, the MLB Network did a countdown of the 10 best current managers in baseball, and the Phillies’ Charlie Manuel checked in at fourth on the list.
Now, for the first time since he was hired in 2005, the Phillies manager is being paid like one of the best in the game.
After prolonged negotiations, the team announced Thursday that Manuel had received a two-year extension that will keep the manager in the Phillies dugout through the 2013 season, when he will be 69 years old. Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. disputed his team’s own news release and said Manuel’s new deal is actually for three years because the Phillies gave Manuel a raise over the $2.4 million he was supposed to make this season.
A league source said that Manuel’s 2011 salary would jump to $3.75 million and that he would make between $3.8 million and $4 million in the final two years of the deal. Those figures would place Manuel right in the same neighborhood as Boston’s Terry Francona, who topped the MLB Network list of best managers. According to reports out of Boston, Francona is in the middle of a contract that could pay him $20 million over five seasons.
Six years ago, if you had told a Phillies fan that Francona and Manuel would rank among the best managers in the game, you would have been greeted by a sideways stare or challenged to a fistfight. Now, they are considered elite.
Manuel, 67, was truly in a good place late Thursday afternoon after Roy Halladay pitched six dominating innings in a 7-0 exhibition win over the New York Yankees at Bright House Field.
He had said earlier in the day that he never made more than $19,000 as a big-league player, but he received some substantial pay days during his career in Japan.
More important, Manuel said, was the life experience he got in Japan.
“I would have never been a big-league player or coach if I didn’t go to Japan,” he said. “I used to whine, make excuses, and feel sorry for myself before I went to Japan. When I went over there, I learned that the world wasn’t all about me.”