I'd argue that only one manager in the history of baseball was a true miracle worker: Billy Martin. He took over a 79-win Twins team and won 97 games (he got fired anyway, primarily because he punched two of his own players). He took over a 79-win Tigers team and won 91 games, won a division title and then got fired. He took over a 57-105 Rangers club and finished over .500. He won a World Series with the Yankees. The 1979 A's lost 108 games, hired Martin and won 84, then made the playoffs in 1981.

Ryne Sandberg, who resigned Friday as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, wasn't a miracle worker. Heck, I don't know if Martin could have won with this Phillies squad, a group of past-their-prime vets, never-had-a-prime vets, young guys without power, failed former All-Stars and a bad rotation after Cole Hamels and Aaron Harang. The Phillies are last in the National League in runs and last in runs allowed. They're on pace for 105 losses as the Ruben Amaro era finally hits rock bottom.

What's next for the Phillies? The news that leaked the other day that Andy MacPhail -- who won a World Series as the Twins' general manager in 1987 and 1991 -- will be hired as team president probably seals the fate of Amaro, the Phillies' general manager since 2009. Amaro inherited a World Series champion with a talented roster at its peak and reached the World Series his first season, and the team won 97 and 102 games, respectively, the following two years. But he was unable to rebuild on the fly, inherited a farm system that Pat Gillick had failed to cultivate after the Jimmy Rollins/Chase Utley/Hamels/Ryan Howard group, and proceeded to make some bad decisions (trading away Cliff Lee for nothing, signing Howard to an ill-advised extension).

Most troublesome was the Phillies fell behind the analytic curve and became widely known as the last team to start considering advanced metrics in evaluating players and developing front office strategies. As Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports wrote today: "The Phillies, in the words of one club official, recognize that they were 'tardy' on analytics, waiting too long to incorporate data in their evaluations and develop their own proprietary information system. They now have three full-time analysts and two interns, according to major-league sources -- significantly less than many other clubs, but a step in the right direction."

We'll see what direction MacPhail goes. Will he be a hands-on president, working on inside baseball stuff, or will he be a guy who hires an analytical-type GM, works with the business side and lets baseball operations make the decisions? Though MacPhail had success with the Twins, his tenures with the Cubs and Orioles were far less successful. In 13 years as Cubs president/CEO (including three in which he also served as GM), the club had just five winning seasons, made the playoffs twice and won 90 games one time. In his four full seasons in Baltimore, the team lost at least 90 games each year.

To be fair, both teams had some success after his departure, so you can argue he at least built some foundation for winning. Still, it's not a résumé that suggests he has some secret formula that will turn around the Phillies.

No, that will have to come from ownership. From better drafting and player development. From hiring the right general manager and the right manager to replace Sandberg.

The Phillies are awful and probably several years from winning. But it is a large-market franchise, so money shouldn't be an issue.

As for Sandberg, he's 55, and it's possible this is the only chance he'll get to manage. He didn't have the talent in Philly, but he certainly didn't do anything that suggests another team will be hot to hire him, his fate perhaps sealed when Utley questioned the decision to let outfielder Jeff Francoeur pitch two innings in a blowout loss.