Philly Front Office

The Phillies are not dead. The Phillies are not dying. The Phillies are not cheap. The Phillies are not stagnant. The Phillies are not broken. The Phillies are not not built for the playoffs. The Phillies are not too old. The Phillies are not too left-handed. The Phillies are not too emotional. The Phillies are not too unemotional. The Phillies are not any of the easy labels you want to put on them simply because they lost to the Mets last year. They are a good team, maybe even a great team.

This Phillies team is coming off a 95-win season where they were unquestionably the best team in baseball for half the season. They are better now. Other than the Dodgers, every team in contention got worse. Yes, even the Mets. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at things year over year.

Starting Pitching

Last season we had four good starters and then a sure ass-kicking every 5th day. If you take out the seven fantastic starts by Spencer Turnbull, that left 29 games started by Taijuan Walker, Tyler Phillips, Kolby Allard, Michael Mercado, and Seth Johnson (not including bullpen games). Do you want to know how these guys did in their 18% chunk of the season? 132.2 innings, 7.53 ERA, and a 1.70 WHIP. That is somehow worse collectively than Taijuan Walker alone. What a complete disaster.

This year’s team features the same 4 at the top, but now with Jesus Luzardo at #5 and Andrew Painter waiting in the wings. Despite the hot start by Ranger, none of the top 4 featured particularly outlier seasons that you wouldn’t expect them to duplicate. Zack Wheeler is still maybe the single best pitcher in all of baseball. The next four all slot in as #1 or #2 starters in damn near every other rotation. If we weren’t so blessed in the early 2010’s, this would be a rotation for the ages. With even a competent 5th starter last year, we would have had 100 wins.

We will be competitive in every single game.

Starting pitching was not what did us in last year in the playoffs. Still, you need about three (maybe four) starters come October. This means Wheeler in game 1, Nola in game 2, and Sanchez in game 3. Luzardo, Ranger, and Painter would be coming out of the bullpen! That fixes some problems, huh?

If you need a little pick me up, rank the top pitchers in the division. You’d probably have Wheeler, Sale, a healthy Strider, and a healthy Sandy Alcantara as 1-4 in some order. Are the next 4 all Phillies? Painter might make that the next 5. That’s pretty cool.

Lineup

For a large swath of last season we were running out black holes in centerfield and second base. We all love Bryson Stott, but he was bad at the plate last season to the tune of a .671 OPS. Rojas was even worse at .601. Whit Merrifield? Let’s not talk about Whit Merrifield. Combined they had 1000 at bats. Brutal.

That’s gone, hopefully. Instead, we are going to have traditional platoons in both left and center field. Max Kepler seems to work professional at bats and has a history of at least hitting adequately. Brandon Marsh is a Jekyll and Hyde player, but at least regularly produces against lefties. The Phillies are talking about them as everyday guys, but at the very least they will not be hitting against tough lefties. They will split time with righty mashers (and I do mean mashers, 1.025 and .861 OPS last year against lefties) Weston Wilson and Edmundo Sosa, leaving Johan Rojas to strictly defensive replacement duty. Just having this competence around should help prevent the slog games where we go in having no chance. You know the ones.

The hopefully part was for second base. Bryson Stott looked like a count-working, future .300 hitter in 2023 then fell off a cliff last year. If he can get himself corrected, now we have at least average hitters at all 9 spots in the lineup at all times. With our pitching staff, this is all we need to make it to the playoffs.

Oh yeah, we still have Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber. Both were pretty damn good last year. Did you know Schwarber hit .300 against lefties? It looks like their talents will be optimized this year with a lineup change that has Harper hitting second and Schwarber hitting 3rd or 4th. Expect monster years from both.

For as bad as everyone wants to label Alec Bohm’s season, he had a pretty great run in the first half. Unfortunately, he got hurt and never got it back in the second half. He has been easily our best hitter with runners in scoring position though. He was publicly embarrassed last year and dragged through trade rumors all summer. There is a strong chance that he just witnessed his baseball mortality and gets everything back on track. If not, he will be gone. It is simple as that.

The wildcards are, as always, Nick Castellanos and Trea Turner. Both turned in solid seasons if you just follow the numbers, but Turner looked like an MVP for half the season and half a player for the rest. Castellanos was surprisingly a consistent above average threat from June on, he was just unplayable (despite always playing) before that.

There are possible problems in the lineup, no doubt. But there will not be any Quez Watkins problems this year. I always think back to that 2022 Eagles season. I knew going in that he was bad and we had a hole at WR3, I just hoped it didn’t come back to hurt us. Sure enough, he dropped that pass in the Super Bowl and it meant everything. That’s why we traded for Jahan Dotson. Even if he was an overpay, he caught his ball in the Super Bowl. That’s why we went out and got Jesus Luzardo and Max Kepler. The 5th starter and outfield are not holes anymore.

Bullpen

Yes, we lost Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estevez. But we did gain Jordan Romano and it looks like Jose Alvarado is back to being Strike 1, Strike 2, and good luck. Last season was basically Hoffman, Matt Straham, and Orion Kerkering all season with Estevez at the end. Even though Hoffman was our best fireman last season, you can make an argument that this group does not have much of a drop off with the Romano exchange. Most teams only have one or two truly reliable arms in the pen. This group looks like it has four.

For those who want to blame the bullpen for our recent post season collapses, take a look at who gave up the losing runs. Last year it was Estevez and a gassed Hoffman. The year before it was almost entirely Craig Kimbral (who had no business pitching against Arizona). The year before that it was going to the Jose Alvarado well one time too many against Yordan Alvarez. These were not meltdowns like in previous years.

The Minors

Were there any rookies on the team last year? I was at the Cal Stevenson game and we’ll never forget Buddy Kennedy, but those were only fleeting moments not serious contributors (Kerkering doesn’t count since he had already pitched in the playoffs). This year, we have Andrew Painter, the best pitching prospect in baseball, pacing down in Clearwater, ready to rage on hitters for the second half of the season.

For a brief moment before last trade deadline, the Phillies had apparently put both Aiden Miller and JP Crawford on the table for Garrett Crochet. The White Sox held out for Painter. It’s a good thing that didn’t happen because Miller broke out big the rest of the way and climbed prospect lists. He looks special.

Are they ready right now? No. Are they on the radar and a breakout/injury away from a call up? Yes. They are that close and that good. They even have the kind of upside that could be used for a major trade if we need it.

The Plan

John Middleton is running out a $300m+ payroll this year. It is one of the highest in baseball. Due to baseball luxury tax rules, any additional spending will come with a 110% tax. Is whoever you want worth double their value? That’s tough. There is a certain contingent of fans out there who yell “it’s not my money” whenever their team doesn’t get the player they want. While I’m with them for almost every other team, save it when it comes to the Phillies. Unlike some bullshit franchises in Baltimore, Miami, and I guess Sacramento for the time being, the Phillies are not run to make a profit to the detriment of performance. Middleton has made it clear that he is always willing to spend if the investment is worth it. They had $300m+ on the table for Yoshinobu Yamamoto last year. He was ready to blow his budget out of the water for a difference maker. That investment idea is still in the back pocket.

What I mean by a plan is not just money. The 2007-2011 golden era died on the final at-bat of Game 5 when Ryan Howard ruptured his Achillies tendon. It was already on the way down though. When Domonic Brown failed to become a star, there was nothing left in the farm system to bridge the gap from one era to the next. The next few years were tough to say the least. Things didn’t change until they spent their way back to contention. This era is different. We finally have some blue-chip prospects who it seems are pegged for big league jobs rather than just trade fodder. Painter isn’t going anywhere. Miller looks like he could be a star and a two-way team engine. Same with Crawford. The Phillies will look for these guys to lead the next generation while Harper, Turner, and Nola take a backseat. All 3 will be cheap production for the next SEVEN YEARS! Even when they were being dangled for Garrett Crochet, he had 3 years of control left. You can tell with all of their moves and non-moves, the Phillies are trying to build a sustainable team, not a typical Dombrowski built-for-right-now championship or bust. I don’t know about you, but I like the possibility of having a perpetual renaissance rather than a dark age.

The Playoffs

No one wants to hear it, but the playoffs are a crapshoot. We had no business making it to the World Series in 2022 and all the business making it the last two seasons. Same with the Dodgers. They probably should have won it the previous 2 years, but it was their worst iteration that finally got the job done. Same with the Braves. Their World Series team was neck and neck with the Phillies, shooting themselves in the foot almost all of 2021 before getting hot at the end. You are telling me they haven’t been considerably better every year since then? Same with the…Phillies??? Yup, the 2008 team was probably the worst of that era and it was the one that won the title. It’s just the way it happens. If it makes you feel any better, the Mets probably blew their shot last season. Ask any Mets fan, they know it. They know they caught lightning in a bottle but couldn’t finish the job. A run like that for that team isn’t happening again this season. Also, their pitching sucks. The Phillies have shown in the past that they can perform in the playoffs. They just didn’t last year. With the playoffs, you just have to get in, get hot, and see what happens. People want a cure all, but baseball doesn’t work that way.

Yes, the Dodgers signed everyone and are the clear-cut favorites. No amount of spending by the Phillies was going to change that. Crazy as it might sound, our rotation might be better than theirs. Our guys go deep into games, their guys get Tommy John surgery. The Mets got Juan Soto, and decided pitching wasn’t necessary. I have no idea why they didn’t go buy Corbin Burnes and Tanner Scott, but I’m happy they put the wallet away. The Braves are still the Braves, but if there is one team we aren’t scared of, it’s the talkers in Atlanta who are banking on 36-year-old Chris Sale and his bad back to stay healthy for another season. Arizona is the only other team I’m worried about. They have a very good rotation but some streaky hitters. I’m sorry, but the Padres are a sinking ship with their ownership situation.

The American League is seriously down this season with Boston as probably the best team. The Yankees are already in crisis and the Orioles have no pitching. The Astros traded their best player and the Mariners refused to spend. The World Series will come down to the Phillies and the Dodgers because the AL isn’t trying.

The Phillies are going to be good this year. Possibly even 100 wins good. Enjoy it. Then we will see what happens.