John Middleton says he told the Phillies that he'll be disappointed if this club wins just one World Series.
"You have short term goals and you have long term goals," Middleton said on Monday's 94WIP Morning Show live in Clearwater. "I spoke to them in the locker room on the first day of full practice...I started out by saying, 'I don't want to win a World Series.' And people kind of looked at me. And then I said, 'The reason I don't want to win a World Series is, if the people in this room only win one World Series, I'm going to be really disappointed.'
"My goal—doesn't mean I am going to get there—is to create a team that 50 to 100 years from now, when people ask the question, 'What are the greatest teams to ever play baseball?' A Phillies team is in that conversation. Now that goal has to then translate down into shorter goals, so the goal this year is to win the World Series. I am not saying that is the expectation. I am not saying people should take that to the bank. I am not arrogant about it. But that's the goal."
Middleton was asked if the next couple of years will just be bonanza of spending.
"I think the vision is to have really great players playing here, however you acquire them," Middleton explained. "One of the problems we've had historically, with the Phillies, is we haven't had a consistently good program in terms of scouting and player development. I don't mean the last five years. I mean the last 75 years.
"If you could find people like Chase [Utley] and Ryan [Howard] and Cole [Hamels] and Jimmy [Rollins] and those guys that's fine...But if you're not doing it that way you have to find some other way to do it. And so we've took that only path that we could take and it requires a commitment. We've signed some really special players...these guys have really performed at elite levels. And I think their character is such that they'll continue to perform. The money is not an issue for them. They're here to win. They want to be paid fairly, they want to be paid reasonably, but what drives these people is to win."
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