A really good manager isn’t as important to his team as The Best Player in Baseball is to his, but like Albert Pujols, Charlie Manuel has set a deadline for negotiations to extend his expiring contract: Opening Day. After that, he doesn’t want it to be a distraction.
I wouldn’t exactly view this as dire. Indeed, I’ll be shocked if Manuel wasn’t locked up to an extension within the next couple of weeks. I mean really: someone identify a single knock on the guy. You can’t. That is, unless you count him getting that restraining order against me because my man-crush on him is getting a bit too uncomfortable. But that’s more my issue than the Phillies’.