The Phillies got smoked by the Mets for many reasons. Namely, they didn’t hit, the bullpen was dreadful, and the Mets are on an all-time heater.
But boy oh boy do I have takes as to what contributed to this mess.
In no particular order, let’s fire up them up.
I put out this Tweet after Game 3:
Stone cold loser stuff from the Phillies, starting with the manager, mid-summer.
Textbook case for how NOT to manage a team with a big divisional lead. So obviously wrongheaded that you were gaslit into thinking it made sense.
“Health is most important.”
So you don’t pinch…
Here it is in full:
Stone cold loser stuff from the Phillies, starting with the manager, mid-summer.
Textbook case for how NOT to manage a team with a big divisional lead. So obviously wrongheaded that you were gaslit into thinking it made sense.
“Health is most important.”
So you don’t pinch hit Bryce Harper in a big moment on his rest day.
So you don’t pinch hit JT Realmuto on his rest days.
So you don’t try for the #1 seed even though you have the best home field advantage in baseball.
The antithesis of one-game-at-time. With questionable decision making along the way.
Team played entitled for three months, turned it on for two weeks when the division got slightly less certain, and then coasted to the finish line.
All the while, bad habits crept in, team lost their edge, and played “situational baseball” for a grand total of 3 games in September to show they ostensibly still could.
“LOOK LOOK, we made Johan bunt. TWICE!”
“Trea Turner stole a base!”
Now you’re facing the multiverse version of yourself from 2022, and players have no idea how to compete.
The bullpen looks like they’ve never seen a one run game.
The hitters have just THE WORST at bats.
They can’t run the bases.
And somehow Austin Hays is on the TV screen.
This isn’t MLB’s fault. The Phillies have been unserious for months, and now they need to find the switch and flip it, or the most disappointing season since… the Eagles last year… is upon us.
I don’t have much to add here, but there are a few more examples.
Thomson waving the white flag against the A’s:
The moment that sticks with me is the last game before the ASB against the A's where they literally just punted the game. Topper said pregame they weren't gonna use any of their best bullpen arms. They called up Mercado just to eat up innings. They were never quite the same. https://t.co/GHYyMdzUgb
Waving Yunior Marte early and often in games:
Don’t forget sitting half of our lineup days into the season!!
Or throwing in a Marte when the Phils are only down 3 runs in the 6th & ends up blowing up the game.
I could keep going on — you already covered a lot — but Rob Thomson has no urgency to win!
Skip Schumaker
If you want to pick a game for where things changed for the Phillies, I’d go as early as the second game against the Mets in London.
The Phillies were 45-20 after that game, and finished the season a highly mediocre 50-47.
Two terrible series against the Red Sox and Orioles followed, and there were few highlights after that point save for their two series against the Dodgers.
Thomson managed the baseball equivalent of the prevent defense starting as early as June.
This week? All season. Topper is the king of the white flag. Team will get down 2 runs in the 7th and in comes Marte. Forbid they hit JT on an off day in the 9th inning down a run with a runner on base! Oh no! And Dombrowski mandating Walker pitch all season. Season-long theme.
What’s most frustrating is that every baseball fan knew the potential problem facing division winners with byes in October. The warning signs were there. Hell, the Phillies hung two of those signs when they beat the Braves the last two years.
Logic would dictate the only way to guard against the exact sort of complacency the Phillies exhibited down the stretch was to embrace the old cliché, one game at a time.
But all they could speak about was their health and World Series goals. It was like they read the dipshit version of Atomic Habits, and just sat around waiting for the end result, October.
"We were just hoping — we knew we weren't playing our best baseball coming into the postseason but we were hoping that once the lights turned on, we'd flip the switch and our offense would get back going. It just didn't happen for us."https://t.co/6wdAF0OZoX
That quote right there says it all. The Phillies knew a big lead, bye, and complacency were genuine worries, and yet they almost embraced all the bad habits prior division winners displayed. Absolutely baffling.
I blame the manager, the organization proper, and the leaders on the team, in that order, for allowing this to happen. They sauntered into October playing loser baseball.
It had been so long since the Phillies needed to win a game, or competed, that when they actually had to flip the switch, not only could they not do it, but they slapped their hand all over the wrong wall looking for it in a dark room.
Examples from just last night:
During the most important part of their season, the veteran catcher was unsure what to do on a flyout, and their best base stealer was frantically waving at the dugout as to whether he should steal. Embarrassing stuff.
Ugh.
The Phillies believed they were nearly good enough to win the World Series last year and didn’t need to make a big splash in free agency unless it was for a “difference maker.”
This is what John Middleton said this past offseason.
The Phillies viewed Yamamoto as a difference maker, and they offered him more money than the Dodgers did. But he ultimately chose LA.
Other than that, they were content to wait until the trade deadline to see who was available.
So the big offseason signing was No Hit Whit.
He was supposed to stabilize the lineup. Be the contact guy. Provide a stopgap for when the Phillies’ lineup initiated its randomized chase ball sequence.
Merrifield, obviously, for lack of a better description, sucked, pretty much in all facets of the game, and was cut midseason.
As a result, the Phillies found themselves searching for a suitable third outfielder all season— Hays, Marsh, Wilson, Clemens, all of whom, infuriatingly, had big at-bats this week and were completely out of their depth. None of them proved to be everyday players, with Marsh being the most disappointing of all.
Had Whit been as advertised, the Phillies would have had one less hole in their lineup, and probably more clearly-defined roles for bench players.
In nearly the identical number of games and plate appearances, here are Marsh’s 2023 and 2024 numbers:
2023: .277/.372/.458/.829
2024: .249/.328/.419/.747
He was 1 for 13 in the playoffs.
Stott? Worse.
2023: .280/.329/.419/.747
2024: .245/.315/.356/.671
Yuck!
And believe it or not, Bohm’s slash line was only marginally better than 2023, despite his hot start and All-Star appearance.
The Daycare still needs adult supervision.
The 2022 run was so fun because it was unexpected, and the vibe was truly organic.
It was so authentic when we all saw the Phillies sing Dancing On My Own after they beat the Cardinals in the Wild Card round.
What is this?!?!
This team is so fun! They like each other!! Why are they singing about another man?
The team (and fan base) became so obsessed with recreating that vibe that we all lovingly created the position of Chief Vibes Officer.
No one loved it more than me, by the way. So I’m assigning no blame.
But there was something about the vibe this year that felt so… manufactured.
Rather than spontaneous song and dance, we had a pre-planned playlist, which came with its own embargoed press coverage*, and even a t-shirt.**
*Inquirer beat reporter Alex Coffey was given the scoop about the playlist and published the story moments after the Phillies clinched the division.
**I bought 4 of them and am glad the proceeds are helping Schwarber’s charity.
In other words, the party so was expected that the Phillies planned for it to happen, early and often. But as we all know, the best parties are usually the spontaneous ones. Not the hyper-planned affairs with carefully curated playlists.
Stubbs seems like an awesome dude, but the board will now be eliminating the CVO position. We thank him for his service.
Listen to the players after losing last night, and you’ll hear a lot of “group of good guys” type talk.
They all like each other.
That’s great, I’m glad they do. I love this team. Truly, they brought me back to baseball in a way I didn’t think was possible. They’ve created such joy in my house watching baseball the last two summers.
But they are all so well inside their comfort zones that they’re not growing anymore. A change is a needed. They need to shake things up— a key guy, a Daycare guy, needs to be sacrificed, along with Stubbs.
Thomson was the perfect manager for the group in 2022. He was like the startup CEO, giving all these guys space to do their thing as they built the business-- the good cop to whatever the hell Girardi was.
But now we have a public company, which needs to win. It requires a different leader, a corporate, Ivy League CEO. They need a Tim Cook, a Bob Iger. The shareholders (fans, and the actual owner) are getting antsy.
The Phillies’ hitting problems are so obvious to anyone with a brain. Yes, it’s also a baseball problem in general. But this can’t go on.
If there’s one thing a hitting coach can impact on a team full of established players, it’s their approach at the plate. The league figured out how to pitch the Phillies in June, and they never adjusted:
well it’s a good thing this hasn’t been happening for [checks] about 10 weeks https://t.co/FPHJW2NFyb pic.twitter.com/yjeJXHSPIm
Fire the hitting coach, along with the manager. Caleb Cotham can stay.
This is not an excuse. The Phillies had a lot more problems than having a week off. But there is now ample evidence that the layoff, at a minimum, doesn’t help division winners when they play red hot Wild Card winners.
And since the league isn’t going to reduce the number of playoff teams, here’s a fun suggestion: let the top seed choose their opponent after the Wild Card round.
They’ll get a chance to look at potential pitching matchups, and perhaps avoid the obviously hot team.
Sure, that choice would’ve gone to the Dodgers this year… but it may have also incentivized Rob Thomson to give a shit about winning more games down the stretch.
That’s it. That’s the take.
