Phillies Tank Talk Annoys Andy MacPhail 'Beyond Belief'

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Are the Phillies taking a page of the 76ers' book? The Phillies are entering the second-year of their rebuild, but of course, some folks are calling it a "tank."

New team president Andy MacPhail doesn't like that word.

"That annoys me beyond belief," MacPhail told CSNPhilly.com's Jim Salisbury. "I don't know why it's been annoying me, but it's a strategy that's been employed in other sports, not so much in baseball. Teams have been rebuilding in baseball for 100 years."

The Phillies have an MLB-most seven top-100 prospects, including the game's No. 4 overall youngster in shortstop J.P. Crawford. Coming off an abysmal 63-99 season and a couple of months after hiring new general manager Matt Klentak, the Phils traded their most valuable commodity in 25-year-old closer Ken Giles for a slew of prospects.

Klentak also acquire veteran pitchers Jeremy Hellickson and Charlie Morton.

"I don't know that Matt would have gone out and acquired Hellickson and Morton if he wanted to lose 120 games," MacPhail said. "He went through some effort to put stabilizers in the rotation. Yeah, we're trying to skew young, accrue as much young talent as we can, but we have zero interest in conceding anything when 7:05 [game time] rolls around."