Thoughts on the Phillies Roster

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Well, it isn’t quite what I would have picked, but…

We now know who will be on the field with the 2026 Philadelphia Phillies this Thursday. The team does look a lot like the 2025 team that won 96 games, and the NL East by a lot, but lost to the Dodgers in the NLDS. It’s also not the same team. The bullpen is way different than last year’s opening day, and postseason versions. The rotation is substantially different than last year’s opening day. The lineup is mostly the same, but there are significant newcomers. The bench looks very similar to not only last year’s, but years gone by.

The Phillies pick their last few spots based on common themes. They want relievers who strike guys out and don’t walk too many guys, even if they’re in low leverage spots. Their last spots on the bench emphasize defensive versatility. Do I really like this? No, but there is logic to it. A team with a great every day Designated Hitter isn’t going to carry bench bats based on just their bats, unless those guys are in a platoon somewhere. A team with Kyle Schwarber doesn’t have a ton of games at DH to hand out, so there’s no point picking a guy just to hit. Hence, you get this team.

So yes, I would have picked Bryan De La Cruz over both Dylan Moore and Garrett Stubbs, but he would have sat a lot and wouldn’t have done a ton of good in extra innings games. Zach Pop and Tim Mayza weren’t amazing in camp, but Zach McCambley didn’t throw enough strikes to make a bullpen for a contender, even if I think he had more upside. Pop and Mayza are Major League pitchers, and as camp went on they showed some of their past swing-and-miss stuff. That’s kind of it.

So here’s my thoughts on who is on the team…

Catchers (2)- J.T. Realmuto and Rafael Marchan

I don’t think you’ll see much change from the same two guys that were here last year, but I do think Marchan needs to show he can handle a more active role this season. The team had a 2.6 WAR (according to Fangraphs) last season at this position, and the starter is entering his age 35 season. Now Realmuto is showing no signs of his arm slipping up, and the challenge system on balls and strikes should actually help with his alleged decline in pitch framing, so his defense may not slip up much at all this season (it might even improve), but he’s 35 and his bat is giving you a .250/.300/.400/.700 with 12-15 homers if everything goes well at this point. If Marchan can hit somewhere around .230 and give you a .650 OPS with solid defense, he’s at least not a steep drop from Realmuto, and it’s more plausible to give him at least a few more starts (and get J.T. a little more rest). The Phillies really could use developing a catcher that they don’t trade one of these years, but Marchan would solidify his future considerably more if he showed he could be a viable starter for 50 games a year. For this year’s team’s chances of going somewhere though, the expectation and hope has to be that J.T. does not go over a 35 year old cliff. If he’s basically what he was last year, and Marchan marginally improves, this position is stable for this year.

Infielders (6)- Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, Edmundo Sosa, Dylan Moore

Despite much of the dialogue around this team, this is still a really, really good infield, one of the best in the league. Is Bryce Harper elite? The answer is complex. Most players see the quality of their play decline fairly steeply when they start missing significant time. Harper missed 30 games last year and still popped out 27 homers and an .844 OPS. Assuming he remains that level of player, the question is simply how many games will he play this year, and in the six remaining years on his contract? A 140 plus game Harper at first probably hits 30 plus homers, and maybe more than that if his elbow and back (two recent injury spots) aren’t what bothers him. If he actually lays off of more pitches outside of the strike zone and walks more? Well, we’ll see. Trea Turner isn’t really answering questions about being elite this Spring. He won the NL Batting Title for the second time in his career last year and had one of his better defensive seasons. Yet, like Harper, Fangraphs and others aren’t being super kind with their projected WAR for this season (Harper comes only slightly up to 3.9, while Turner drops from 6.7 to 4.4 in their’s). That feels like a fairly arbitrary and steep decline from last year, but he will turn 33 this year, his fourth year in an 11 year deal. Even so, I expect a bit better year from Harper and Turner than a lot of the projections, and they really aren’t my worry here.

Despite my complaints about the bench, I really don’t have any. Edmundo Sosa is a very useful player, especially when his playing time is managed right. He can play almost anywhere on the field close to league average defensively and give you a low .700’s OPS at the plate as your primary utility man getting starts. I know I kind of dumped on Moore making the team, but he’s basically exactly what a 13th offensive player on the roster is supposed to be- he’ll go play any position the team tells him to, won’t make a fool of himself in the field, and he’ll hit an occasional home run. Edmundo will probably give you about 1 WAR, which is fine, and Moore will be right around zero. If either does more than that, it’s a real treat for the Phillies. Also, we should hope that neither really matters overly much.

How this season is judged, and maybe how fast the team fast forwards to it’s future, really rides on Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott. Part of why the Phillies haven’t won a championship yet with this group is that while these guys are actually good players, they have not become good enough. Alec Bohm is in a walk year, he’ll turn 30 this Summer, and he’s a career .279 hitter with below average to average power. If he had more power, he’d have been extended with his ball-to-bat skills, but he hit 11 home runs last season. He’s likely to be their four hole hitter to start the season. Is he nearly as bad as the people who beat on him on the internet say? Absolutely not. He’s a 2 WAR to 3 WAR player at this point in his career, depending on health, and that’s okay. He’s not really as far worse than Max Muncy at this point as you might imagine, but Muncy’s eight years in LA produced a lot more 30 homer seasons than 10 home run seasons, and that’s why you think he is. As for Stott, the situation is similar, but not the same. Stott has an elite, not adequate glove at a very demanding defensive position, and so the Phillies have been more willing to put up with his growing pains. He’s 28 though now, and coming off of a very productive second half. Even so, the Phillies have not been able to rely on Stott’s bat any more than Bohm’s when they’ve needed to, and he didn’t pass the test when put in the leadoff spot last season. Again, Stott’s glove gets him a lot of room, and his spot in the order being at the bottom means he could end up getting extended if he even takes a mild leap forward offensively this season. As is, he’s been a roughly 3 WAR player that teases you that he has more. If these guys were to realize the potential that was seen in them when they were first round picks, this team *could* win the World Series based on that. That’s not as likely after five years in the league though and as you approach 30. You kind of are what you are, and in their cases, that’s a guy one and two seasons from free agency, looking for a pay day. The other obvious factor here is Aidan Miller, a 21 year old potential future 30/30 player who will probably begin playing in AAA with the IronPigs. He produced an .825 OPS and over 50 steals across AA and AAA last year, and if he is playing like that this Summer, he probably won’t be doing it in the minor leagues anymore. So frankly, the two starting infielders *not* named Harper and Turner probably will be a huge piece in determining this team’s fate.

Outfielders (4)- Adolis Garcia, Justin Crawford, Brandon Marsh, and Otto Kemp

A lot of fans are really down on this group and in my mind, I just can’t quite understand why. Are they elite? Definitely not on paper. You started Nick Castellanos, Johan Rojas, and Max Kepler an awful lot early last season, and Castellanos and Kepler were clogging up this outfield all the way to the end. Castellanos has had points in his career where he was a very good, even All-Star player, but that guy has been gone for at least the last two years in Philadelphia. He was one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball last season, if not the worst, and it’s mostly because he simply had little to no range anymore. He put up a -.6 WAR last season, meaning he was a liability in almost every way you can imagine a player being so, and that’s not getting into the issues in the locker room, allegedly. Max Kepler was brutally bad, and probably should have been dumped in favor of Crawford last year, but the Phillies decided to prioritize Crawford’s playing time and development and instead brought Bader in via trade and made Kepler share time with Castellanos. Kepler gave you a .6 WAR, and that was with a better finish offensively than his overall numbers, and above average defense. Even so, he’s below an average major league starting player. Both of these players are gone, and thanks to the MLB drug testing program, we won’t spend another half season starting out by trying to see if we can make Rojas into a useful offensive player. The new group may not look all that great to you, and maybe they’re not, but it would be very hard, if not impossible for them to be worse. The three guys who aren’t here put up .4 WAR between them and two of them have now tested positive for PED’s.

The only two fears you can have are that Marsh doesn’t match a very good 2025 overall and that Crawford falls short of the season he had in AAA and isn’t an upgrade on Bader. Both of those things could credibly happen. Even so, Fangraphs pegs Marsh for a steep drop from 2.4 WAR to 1.6, from a .280 batting average to .256, and only a mild upswing in power from 11 to 14. They project Crawford, who hit .334, with an .863 OPS, and 34 XBH’s to produce just a .276 average, .714 OPS, and 33 XBH’s, coming out to a 1.9 WAR. I’d be surprised if both of them don’t exceed those projections easily, even while falling short of their 2025 numbers overall. That leads us to Adolis Garcia, a signing that a lot of fans have whined and complained about all Winter. Yes, Garcia is another one year, $10 million signing, like Kepler. And yes, he might just be that kind of player. His .274 OBP last year is simply unacceptable, especially if he’s *only* hitting 19 homers again. Garcia is a really good defensive player and posted .7 WAR last year largely on that alone. He’s also kind of playing for his career. So for him to be better than he was, we’re talking about beating a .227/.271/.394/.665 slash line, hit at least 20 homers, and continue playing elite defense. If he does that, he’s already better than Kepler was, regardless of what the actual result is. The bar is pretty low here. Fangraphs is projecting him to hit 28 homers and post a .241/.298/.442/.740 season, coming out to 1.5 WAR, and while I would hold my horses a bit on this, it’s plausible. Like I said, I’d take a 1 WAR season here, and I kind of expect we’ll get it. This leaves us with Otto Kemp, who debuted last year and was probably over exposed a little bit. He was a -.2 WAR that posted 8 homers and a .709 OPS. If he gets the bulk of his at-bats this season, no, damn near all of his at-bats against left-handed pitching, I think he can be better than that, and his AAA time suggests that. Fangraphs pegs him for a .3 WAR season, which again, I think he can beat if he’s just used to wear out lefties. I’ll concede the worst case scenario though in my mind- Marsh and Crawford combining to just be 3.5 WAR together, a 1 WAR season from Garcia, and a zero for Kemp. Last year’s outfield, even with Bader having 1/3 of a career year here, only posted about a 3.8 WAR, and I would have this year’s at 4.5 in the doomsday scenario. Obviously there’s room for all four of them to be better than that. They’d almost have to try to be as bad as last year’s crew. And obviously, there’s still the trade deadline.

Designated Hitter (1)- Kyle Schwarber

Kyle Schwarber has been consistently between really good and great in each of his four years as a Phillie. He hasn’t hit less than 38 homers here. He has hit less than 30 homers one time (excluding 2020) in his eight real seasons in the league (he missed basically all of 2016 before the playoffs and came up later in 2015). His walk rate is consistently around 13% or higher, his strikeout rate has stayed steady and even dropped a little in the past two years. His OPS has stayed over .800 in every year other than 2020 since 2018, his second full season. Even his batting average has improved the last two years. What I’m saying to you is that Schwarber is a consistently elite power hitter and you shouldn’t worry much about him this season.

With that said, last season was clearly the best season of his career, and it wouldn’t be normal to start having your uptick at 32, even with the DH coming into his career a little later. Fangraphs has him dropping from 4.9 WAR to 3 WAR, and while that’s a little steep, it’s believable. I tend to think it will be more like 3.5-4, which is still incredible for a one way player. Even so, I’m saying you shouldn’t expect him to top 2025 this year.

The Rotation (5)- Cristopher Sanchez, Jesus Luzardo, Aaron Nola, Taijuan Walker, and Andrew Painter

Elite. Elite. You heard me right. The Phillies won the NL East in a runaway last year basically because of three offensive players, two very nice deadline trades, and the best rotation in the sport. In no other way were they spectacular. For close to four months, Zack Wheeler was the third best pitcher in the sport, then obviously he had a life threatening condition. Cristopher Sanchez was legitimately a top five pitcher in the sport for the season. Jesus Luzardo finished 7th in the Cy Young Vote, had the 3rd highest WAR of any NL starter, and set career highs in innings and strikeouts. Ranger Suarez gave them 26 starts and 157.1 innings of 3.20 baseball. Aaron Nola had the worst year of his career, and it didn’t really even hurt them. Taijuan Walker even produced a 123.1 inning, 4.08 season in 21 starts. Even with Andrew Painter not helping last year, the Phillies starting was simply elite.

To hear some tell it, the Phillies may fall off substantially this year. Wheeler is lucky he survived with his health and you shouldn’t expect him to be back. Suarez is gone. Sanchez and Luzardo had the best seasons of their lives and shouldn’t be expected to repeat them. Nola looked shot. Walker overachieved. Painter had a concerning season in AAA. It is fascinating that like the lineup, a lot of worst case scenarios are being expected. Wheeler is ahead of schedule in his recovery and will make his first real start next Saturday in AAA Lehigh Valley. Sanchez and Luzardo both look healthy and ready to go. Nola and Walker had outstanding Springs. Painter showed good signs of better command this Spring and just had his best start in his last one. All of a sudden you start hearing a few voices predicting a repeat of last Summer.

Pitching is fickle though and the truth is probably somewhere in between, even if it is probable that they are again a top three to five rotation. It will be hard for Sanchez or Luzardo to match 2025. Fangraphs has Sanchez going from a 6.4 WAR season to a 4.8 year, despite another 200 innings, mostly because they think his strikeout rate will fall a little bit and his walk rate will increase a bit. I’m not sure why they think a 29 year old coming off of a breakout season will regress as much as they do, but it’s reasonable to say he may not match a Cy Young runner-up performance. They are not projecting a very different season for Luzardo, putting him back around 180 innings and a slightly lower ERA actually, but projecting a slight drop in his strikeout rate and a drop in WAR from 5.3 to 3.5. Again, that feels steep to me. My guess with both is a very small decline is possible (but not inevitable), but not as far as they are guessing.

How good this group is probably rides heavily on Wheeler and Nola and what they are at this point. In the case of Wheeler, this is kind of hard to project. I mean, the guy could have died from a blood clot. But he didn’t. And by all accounts his rehab is ahead of schedule and he could be pitching in April. That would mean maybe as many as 30 starts and 5.5 months of Wheeler. Last year he missed the last two months of the season and only made 24 starts. Is he going to come back though and be a top three to five pitcher on the planet this season? They are projecting him to drop from a 4 WAR to 3.5 WAR season. That doesn’t seem insane to me, unless he’s 90% or more of who he was healthy last year. He really may be though, and the track record on guys coming back from this is mixed, but improving in recent years. If he is basically himself by May, I think he’ll probably end up giving the Phillies considerably more value than 2025. We’re just going to have to see how he performs live though. As for Nola, I think at least some bounce back is likely. From 2018 through 2024, with the exception of the shortened 2020 season, Nola surpassed 180 innings every season and had an ERA below four in all but two seasons. Last season he made just 17 starts, threw just 94.1 innings, and had a 6.01 ERA. He’s either totally shot and this contract is a literal albatross on the team, or last year really was caused at least in part by an ankle/leg injury and better health alone will make him better. His Spring and World Baseball Classic suggest we’re going to get a much more normal Nola. Even if Nola is a bit more hittable now than a few years back, there’s no reason he can’t be a low four’s ERA, 30 start, 175 inning fourth starter. If Wheeler is a healthy two and Nola is a dependable four, and Sanchez and Luzardo are close to last year, this is a really good rotation. Not as good as last year, but really good. If Wheeler is Wheeler and Nola gives you a more career normal Nola, this is an elite rotation that will be as good as anyone in baseball. Yes, really.

Which leads me to the subject of Taijuan Walker and Andrew Painter, both of whom are going to be talked about a lot more this week than they really need to be. If the four guys I talked about above basically hit their benchmarks, these two are only being asked to be a league average fifth starter or swing man in an elite rotation. If those four are as good as they can be, all these two are really being asked to do is be a footnote. Now, we know the situation with both of them. Walker was maybe the worst pitcher on the planet in 2024 and his four year deal looked like a complete disaster, and then last year he came back and gave them a very professional, well above league average fifth starter kind of season. I don’t think we should expect better than that, but much like with Adolis Garcia, this guy is literally pitching for his future this year. A solid season from Walker will get him at least another season of Major League money. A dud might end his time in the league. With Painter, obviously the ceiling and hopes are quite a bit higher. He was the top young right handed starter in some prospect rankings at the time of his 2023 elbow injury. He sat for two years, then he had struggles last season in his first season back, facing AAA hitters for the first time. His velocity mostly returned, but his command didn’t, and some folks have thought out loud about both his arm angle and the “shape” of his fastball. The truth of the matter is that Painter is still a work in progress, and fans dreaming of him coming in and being an ace next week are living in a fantasy. The point of last season for him was pitching near a complete season and staying healthy, and he did that. The Phillies are now working on fixing his flaws. By all accounts, they have his arm slot back where it was pre-Tommy John, which is an incredibly good sign, and probably at least in part explained his good Spring. Now they need to get back some combination of his triple digit velocity, ride on his fastball, and the natural cut he had on it. Yes, his last start was his best so far, but it’s probably unfair to think they got everything fixed in four starts. A lot of people aren’t going to like this, but the odds are strong that Painter will be the guy sent to AAA in a couple of weeks when Wheeler comes off the IL, regardless of whether or not he out pitches Walker. There is still work to be done on him, and it’s much better to do that work in AAA than the majors. With that said, let’s compare the situation the Phillies are in with say, everyone else. While other teams are asking their top pitching prospects to step in and be say, a number two (Nolan McLean in New York), the Phillies really only need Painter to be a reliable five this season, as they work on him. The pressure, if our damned talk radio crowd would quiet down, should be very low. If they can bring back the movement and “life” on Painter’s fastball, yes, he can absolutely slot very high in this rotation. That could happen at any point, and it has for plenty of pitchers who had Tommy John. It also may not, and well, he may have to learn to pitch crafty enough to just survive as a back end starter. I’m not saying that will happen, just that it could. The point is I’d be thrilled if we get 20 starts that grade out to league average, and the starts late in the Summer start looking like a top ten prospect in the game type again. Hell, I’d be fine if he pitches 25 plus starts and is simply better than the league average fifth starter. This kid is 23 and here on a league minimum deal. With Sanchez and Luzardo locked up for a while, Painter doesn’t need to be a number one or two starter this Summer for this team to win, and can get his stuff back to where it was over the course of this season and just show us it’s still there.

The Bullpen (8)- Jhoan Duran, Brad Keller, Jose Alvarado, Tanner Banks, Jonathan Bowlan, Zach Pop, Kyle Backhus, and Tim Mayza

Be careful here- this group actually looks elite. Jordan Romano and Joe Ross are gone. David Robertson and Matt Strahm have been replaced by Keller and Alvarado. You get a full season of Duran. While the ending of the season was unfortunate and he will start the season on the IL with a hamstring issue, Orion Kerkering showed signs of his stuff starting to play up in the postseason last year. The Phillies probably have five or six arms that grade out somewhere between elite and durable and steady. Then there are three basic wild cards out there behind them. Pop and Mayza have had past success in the majors, and have also bombed in the past. Both showed signs they might be able to reclaim some of their higher strikeout rates at times this Spring, and really you’re just hoping that one of them, or both, does it. Backhus is a long, weird left-hander, and he has shown some ability to be really tough on lefties. If he does that, he’s fine as the third lefty in the pen. Any one of these three could blow up and be a problem, and the odds are that one will. Even more so, the odds are strong that one of those six “steady” guys I talked about will either face an injury or struggle at some point this season. This bullpen looks elite. As long as Duran, Keller, and Alvarado are healthy and performing at their expected levels, it is elite. That’s even more true if Kerkering, Banks, or Bowlan show something. But history tells us that won’t probably all happen at once. History also tells us that the nine guys I’m mentioning won’t be anywhere near all the guys who end up playing a role here. Max Lazar pitched a lot for last year’s team. Lou Trivino was actually fairly impressive to me last year at times in both AAA and the majors for us. Seth Johnson’s fastball really had me intrigued this Spring, as he seems to have gained a little something on it. There are others, such as Griff McGarry, Chase Shugart, Yoniel Curet, Bryse Wilson, and Nolan Hoffman who could surprise you at some point.

Still, I do expect this group to be much stronger than others. Fangraphs likes Duran (2.1 WAR projected), likes Jose Alvarado (1.2 WAR), and for some reason hates Keller (.2 WAR). They are higher on Banks (.5 WAR) and Kerkering (.4 WAR) and less excited about Bowlan (.1 WAR). They put Mayza in the same spot as Bowlan, and expect a net zero from Pop and Backhus. I’m not going to quibble with them on Mayza, Pop, and Backhus, all of whom will be pitching in low leverage spots at least at the start. Duran and Alvarado being that good would loom large, and if they’re healthy they should be. I’m hoping for a bit of a breakout from Kerkering, but it’s hard to argue with the numbers for him and Banks they give either, based on usage. I’m really only in real disagreement on Keller and Bowlan. Keller obviously had a really good year with the Cubs last year, but they are projecting quite a drop-off this season. Bowlan could be a bit hard to project, as he was a late bloomer, making his debut at age 28, and also potentially swinging between mid-to-low level leverage spots and long relief duty. Even so, he did a good job avoiding hard contact last season, which is in and of itself a bit of a skill. I definitely both of them will be a bit better than the projections here.

I tend to think that bullpens with fairly defined roles do pretty well. This doesn’t mean only one guy closes, but it means someone is the primary guy there and then there are other very good relievers who tend to get the eighth inning, and you slide back from there based on situations and the score. If Keller excels like I think from having a set 7th or 8th inning role, and Alvarado pitches to his potential as the main lefty counterpart to him, this team isn’t going to blow many leads. That’s really asking for three guys to have very good to elite seasons though. It happened for the team in 2008, but it’s a lot more rare than normal. Still, look for this to be one of the top units in baseball.

Who else might help?

Ok, I could say Aidan Miller here, and I believe that, but that’s too easy. At some point this summer the top prospect the club has had in years will be hot and the fans will want him called up, and he probably will be. There’s a really strong shot that Miller, Crawford, and Painter all contribute positively this season to a team that contends for a title, and that’s a huge credit to the player development folks, as for that matter would a positive contribution from Otto Kemp or Marchan. They developed these guys, and to the clubs credit they weren’t willing to part with them. There’s a good chance three rookie top prospects end up rewarding them to varying levels this year.

Now that that’s done, I named you a bunch of bullpen arms. If you put a gun to my head and said narrow that list, I’d say Seth Johnson and Lou Trivino are my candidates to really surprise, and Bryse Wilson is a guy I could see giving them durable (not great) innings later. You want a real dark horse? It’s McGarry. I think the Nationals messed up not just holding onto him and working on him. He showed some signs of late blooming in 2025, and they’re going nowhere anyway. Look, maybe this guy never figures out how to throw enough strikes, and maybe he does. Time will tell. The other guy with enough talent to break out is Curet, but he looked like a serious work in progress this Spring.

Bryan De La Cruz was the last guy off the team and maybe that means he gets a chance. History tells us that can cut either way. Gabriel Rincones had a tough Spring with injuries, but I wouldn’t be stunned if he hit his way back into the picture later this Summer in Allentown, the power is there. If I had to give you two kind of odd ball names to play a role at some point, I’d say Bryan Rincon (probably Reading’s opening day shortstop) and Felix Reyes. Both guys turned some heads in camp. Rincon does have Miller in his way and Reyes kind of lacks a position if he can’t play corner outfield, but both showed some game. Reyes hits the ball hard, and that does tend to play on any team.

Expectations?

As I said at the top, this team went 96-66 and ran away with the division last year. I really don’t buy that they got considerably worse. The division could be better though. Miami played as well as anyone after June 1st last year. I don’t buy that the Mets got much better this off-season, but they didn’t get worse either, they’re adding a few premium prospects as the season goes, and they badly underachieved last year anyway. Atlanta’s camp was dreadful, sure. They will get a full season of Ronald Acuna Jr., and he could be the best player in any given season. Only Washington stinks really. It’s a tough division.

The question is basically did anyone make up at least 13 games? Sure, if you take the view that every Phillies star and top end pitcher has a worse 2026 than 2025, and literally everyone is better in New York or Atlanta, which is basically the view of some folks. I don’t buy that. Fangraphs projects at least .5 WAR improvement at five of nine spots in the Mets lineup this season. They project six starters to have over 1 WAR, which would actually be pretty impressive. They consider their bullpen to really be their weakest link, which again, is probably true. They give the very injured Braves rotation a very similar six guys over 1 WAR projected, which would again impress me, behind a top two who actually should be better if they can stay on the mound healthy. They are projecting healthy bounce back seasons for all of Austin Riley, Michael Harris II, Matt Olson, and Ozzie Albies. I’d be pretty impressed by that. Even so, do I think both of those teams are better? Yes. I just don’t think they’re so much better, the Phillies so much worse, or a combination of the two that we shouldn’t win this division.

Ultimately, I think the Phillies pitching, both starting and relieving, wear out the competition. I think they get a very good Bryce Harper bounce back season, Turner and Schwarber don’t really regress enough to matter, Crawford has a very solid, dynamic rookie year, Garcia bounces back a bit, Marsh is solid, and either Bohm or Stott step up. I think Wheeler returns to ace status, Nola bounces back very solidly, Sanchez and Luzardo are approximate to last season, and the rotation is fine. The bullpen is one of the best in the league. There will be injuries obviously, and I’m not thinking there will be many career years in the lineup, but no one can pitch down to four or five with the Phillies in this division. I don’t think they win 96 again right now, but that’s from improvement in the division. The only team I think for sure wins more games in the National League is the Dodgers (more on them the next few days) and possibly the Cubs. The Phillies should still be a 90 plus win team.

Understanding the Modern Democratic Party

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment
Bill Clinton speaking in front of an American flag at the Hotel Bethlehem during the 2008 Presidential Primary season.
I guess Bill and I saw the same thing?

If you want to know where you’re going, you need to know how you got there. The Democratic Party is in a seeming civil war right now. This week it was Illinois, last week it was Texas. On one side, the Biden/Clinton coalition of voters from 2016/2020 and on the other, the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing. The actual policy differences in the two are only marginal, really. Both favor expanding health care access, fighting climate change, funding things like public education, and access to reproductive health care. The disagreement is largely based on details and how far to go, from a policy standpoint. Philosophically they are different though. The Bernie/Warren wing of the party wants to build a Democratic Party that resembles a European Green/Social Democratic Party, or British Labour under Corbyn. The Clinton/Biden voter wants a more center-left party. How did we get here and how do you square the two?

To understand the modern Democratic Party I think you need to go backwards and start at there different dates- 1966, 1992, and 2006. They are actually not similar elections at all. Two are midterms, one a Presidential. Democrats won in 2006, while 1966 and 1992 are a mixed bag in many ways. So why these years? I’ll start with 1966, because to me it’s the beginning of all modern politics (not that nothing mattered before that, but nothing should really be viewed as modern). 1966 was the first election after the passage of LBJ’s Civil Rights agenda in Congress. It was the beginning of Democrats decline among white voters that truly culminates in the Reagan years, then relatively stabilizes with Clinton. Democrats started to see some losses in 1966. Many folks like to attribute Johnson’s fall in popularity with Vietnam, but any honest analysis tells you it was mostly otherwise. In 1968 the nation would move to electing Nixon on such themes as “the silent majority,” “law and order,” and eventually “peace with honor.” White voters began their move in 1966, but accelerated it in 1968 and especially 1972. Watergate did interrupt Republican dominance in 1974 and 1976, but by 1980, 1984, and 1988 Republicans were carrying Catholics, running 60% neighborhood numbers with White voters, and carrying the Midwest. They also began eroding the “Solid South” Democrats had enjoyed since the Civil War, which ultimately culminated in the 1994 takeover of Congress, but really took hold under Reagan. In fact, 1966 was the “canary in the coal mine” that foreshadowed Republicans winning five of the next six Presidential elections. Obviously that takes me to 1992 and Clinton. Clinton was the first Democrat to truly reap the benefits of the growing support the party had from Black voters. He also made gains with “soccer moms” and other “normie” voters who were alarmed by the “Christian Coalition” and other culture warrior conservatives. Bill Clinton pulled in white moderate voters and majorities with most non-white groups. Clinton largely abandoned the ideological left of the 1960’s politically. Clinton’s White House was less progressive dogma than his Democratic predecessors, even if that is a bit embellished by some (see his 1993 budget). Sure, Clinton invested heavily in education, the environment, and “built a cabinet that looks like America,” but he also did welfare reform, balanced the budget, was a free trader, and had “Sista Soulja.” Clinton aimed for broad appeal that made him less popular with left-wing academics, ex-hippies, and ideological leftists. He was really popular too, sitting in the 60’s through the end of his term amidst an economic boom. Clinton was personally problematic though. He had the Lewinsky affair. His Vice-President ran for President and lost a very, very controversial election. And probably most importantly of all, his wife became the first ever First Lady to run for office herself after the White House, winning a U.S. Senate seat in New York, which was of course not Bill’s home state. Of course we know the early 2000’s after Clinton were a tumultuous time as well, with 9/11 and the Iraq War dominating much of the discourse through the 2004 Election. And that pretty much takes us up to modern times.

The third year I put in there was 2006, and 2006 is truly the beginning of what the Democratic Party is now. George W. Bush was deeply unpopular by 2006. Iraq, Katrina, a failed Supreme Court nomination, and an attempt to privatize Social Security had worn him down. The Democratic Party was almost identity-less at that point though. The party’s last two Presidents, Carter (defeated) and Clinton (problematic personally) were memories by then. The last two House Speakers who had been run out of office in defeat (Jim Wright of Texas had been forced to resign and Tom Foley of Washington was defeated in his re-election). Tom Daschle’s brief period as Majority Leader in the Senate was a bad memory (Iraq, the Patriot Act, his own defeat in 2004). The Supreme Court had been narrowly conservative since the Reagan-Bush period. The party had no recognizable national leader really. And yet, the party won, and won a lot. Democrats took both houses of Congress in a wave election. Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to lead Congress as Speaker. Moderate mormon Harry Reid, a marginally pro-life Nevada Senator took over the Senate. Democrats took the House winning in places like Suburban Pittsburgh, took the Senate by flipping states like Missouri, Montana, and Virginia, and won Governorships in places like Ohio. This wave in non-traditionally blue areas set the stage for 2008 and the birth of today’s Democratic divisions, in part because the Democrats basically won Congress without a real ideological direction. They ran talking about the minimum wage, the war, health care, and ending corruption. It wasn’t exactly a far left manifesto.

A lot of people have revised the history of the 2008 primaries to fit their narratives that emerged after 2016. First off, the race was essentially a one-on-one race from New Hampshire on. Barack Obama’s coalition was built largely on Black voters, young voters, and progressive white voters. Hillary Clinton dominated among rural voters, older voters, and Hispanic voters. These coalitions dramatically changed by 2016, and even again by 2020. While Clinton won women on the whole pretty solidly, she lost young women in her 2008 run, and Black women. Obviously that was different in 2016. Obama’s coalition didn’t really crack based on age at all. Hillary continuously won in primaries, Obama won caucuses. Opposition to the Iraq War was a huge selling point for Barack Obama, particularly with lefties and young people. Obama’s coalition more closely actually resembled Bernie Sanders campaigns, and yet he was able to win. That was largely a product of Black voters sticking by him loyally. That’s about the only theme from that primary that holds up moving forward though. The rest of his primary coalition essentially forms the backbone of today’s populist left.

I think it’s fascinating to guess as to why most of the groups in the Obama coalition moved from him in 2008 to a more combative populist by 2016. There’s not really an obvious reason. Barack Obama, even today, polls as the most popular Democratic politician in the country pretty easily, and across most ideological spectrums. Some surmise that he wasn’t tough enough on Wall Street after the 2008 crash, or that he didn’t deliver a “public option” in Obamacare, or that he didn’t get out of Afghanistan and close Guantanamo, or all kinds of other theories of his shortcomings, and yet there’s not an ounce of data in polling that suggests these voters soured on Obama even a bit in his Presidency. Interestingly it does seem that Clinton’s coalition did crack quite a bit on their support of her. The more rural Democratic voters who had supported her in places like West Virginia and South Dakota joined young voters and progressive white voters in backing Bernie Sanders in 2016, while Black voters joined older voters and Hispanic voters in backing Clinton’s 2016 primary campaign. While Obama’s poll numbers stayed strong, something clearly had moved within his original base by 2016. Not only did a lot of his coalition move to Bernie, a fatally sizable portion of progressive whites, young voters, and even Clinton’s 2008 rural base either moved to Donald Trump or didn’t vote for her. While she got virtually the same amount of votes as Obama got in 2012, and won the popular vote, Clinton lost the election. Florida, Ohio, and Iowa moved comfortably right into Trump’s coalition. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin moved towards Trump by the skin of his teeth. Clinton narrowly hung onto Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. Obama had won all nine of these states both times, and rather convincingly for the most part.

The thing I find interesting about 2016 is that it really wasn’t supposed to happen. The progressive champion of the moment in 2015 was Elizabeth Warren, and she simply missed her moment in time to try and run for President. Joe Biden was probably the most bullet proof candidate the Democrats would have had at that time, and most of official Washington dismissed him as a candidate. There were some dead-ender “normies” that thought Martin O’Malley was a real alternative to Hillary, but basically the Beltway was ready to hand her the nomination. Bernie Sanders had some real people in Iowa and New Hampshire, but his national campaign apparatus didn’t read like a powerhouse. Republican operatives thought they were going to get a battle between Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie, almost all of them thought Trump was a joke. Bernie and Trump were literally no one’s idea in DC. Then our politics turned on it’s head.

Of course 2018 did happen, but it now looks more like an anomaly than a sea change in our politics. Democrats made a real pivot towards nominating women for Congress in the aftermath of Hillary’s defeat and managed to take the House this way. Of course, Democrats had cultivated no new leaders in the time from 2006 until 2018 though, and Pelosi was back in the Speaker’s office. Pelosi is probably the closest thing to middle ground between the left and center in the Democratic national leadership, but even that isn’t neutral. 2018 brought a new majority in the House of Obama/Clinton Democrats, but also brought about “The Squad,” and did little to assuage the oncoming 2020 nomination fight.

The early portion of the 2020 primaries was a mirage. Joe Biden eventually was nominated by dominating with a coalition of Black, Hispanic, rural, and older Democratic primary voters that was both more moderate and yet more broad than Clinton’s. In the early going states of Iowa and New Hampshire though, he struggled while splitting his electorate with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Once he edged them out in Nevada for second though, he consolidated his electorate in South Carolina and ran away with the nomination by the widest margin since Kerry in 2004. Bernie Sanders had some early success before fading, building largely off of a coalition of younger Hispanics, younger voters in general, and progressive white voters. Bernie also faced problems early on with splitting his vote, particularly the progressive female portion of it, with Elizabeth Warren. The other obvious weird part was Covid essentially interrupting the primaries shortly after Super Tuesday and making the primary seem to be over. Even so, Biden had built a substantial lead after Super Tuesday and lead every poll at that point.

Biden went on to win the 2020 election with the broadest coalition in American history, getting 51%, over 81 million votes, and 306 electoral votes. Democrats won the Senate and made Chuck Schumer the Senate Majority Leader along with Pelosi still leading the House. From there, things sort of went down hill. In 2021, Roe v. Wade was overturned, setting off rage within the Democratic ranks. In 2022, despite rising inflation and Biden’s unpopularity, Democrats lost single digit seats in the House, despite losing the popular vote by over 2 million votes and ultimately narrowly losing the House. Frankly, the defeat looked way better than it actually was, and the loss was foreshadowing of what was to come. Biden’s popularity continued to drain over economic concerns and worries about his age. He ended up dropping out in the middle of the 2024 Presidential race, despite what was essentially a margin of error deficit in the polls. He was largely pushed out by major donors, many of whom had been fans of his as Vice-President and even as a Senator. He was replaced by his Vice-President Kamala Harris, who immediately attempted to moderate her image more towards that of what Biden’s had been in 2020. She talked about her time as a Prosecutor, talked about fighting inflation, attacked Trump as an unacceptable, authoritarian figure, and tried to appeal to moderate voters with endorsements from former Republican electeds like Liz Cheney. Harris leaned into the image of a tough prosecutor type, something she had leaned far away from in 2020 when supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren called her a “cop.” Republicans pushed back, seeking to use her 2020 campaign statements to cast her as a far left liberal and continuation of Biden’s policies, which by then they had cast as more liberal than he ran as. They hammered her on support for transgender people, support for a liberal border policy, and support for Biden’s economic policies. Data says it worked. While Harris bled out less votes from her own base than Hillary had in 2016 (it’s true, the left really did vote for her), she lost a lot of moderate Biden voters. Some flipped. More didn’t show up.

All of this brings us to today. The Democratic Party’s “brain trusts” in DC seem to be moving the party in a very different direction suddenly. They seem to think the way to bring back the “missing” Biden voters is to move which voters they are prioritizing with their messaging. Most of the front-runners for the 2028 Presidential race that are being created by DC consultants and the media are white men, many of them Governors. So in this group, think Shapiro, Newsom, Pritzker, Beshear, Gallego, and Murphy. The other group getting attention are non-white populist progressives such Ro Khanna and AOC, and while he’s not a Presidential contender, Zohran Mamdani is a figure they are pushing. Then there is a whole other element of candidate rising amongst the consultant class- the “white masculine man” that is going to bring back appeal to white men. This is a solution in search of a problem. as Kamala Harris actually did better with white men than Biden, Clinton, or Obama, even winning the college educated white men. Even so, we’re seeing the rise of candidates like Graham Platner, Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, and James Talarico. Even worse, the white guy governors seem to be embracing this crap too. Newsom is going to go on human pile of dogshit Hasan Piker’s podcast to talk. Shapiro is endorsing Brooks. Senators such as Gallego, Murphy, Heinrich, and Whitehouse are embracing Platner. The fix is in. They want to go all in on “manly” white men as their path forward. What problem does it solve? I’m not sure. They’re doing it though.

I think the clear thing to understand is this isn’t the party’s top problem, but the party’s lack of appeal to white people is a problem. If states like Ohio, Iowa, and Florida are out of reach, and states like North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada aren’t firmly in the win column, the map tilts conservative. The reality is that further erosion could take Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin out of the Democratic column for good. Even more succinctly, while half the country is going to live in like 8 states that will be more diverse, the other 42 states are going to be decidedly white. The Democratic Party’s decline with white voters largely has stabilized for a quarter century though, and Kamala Harris did better with white guys than one might have guessed. I’m not sure what in our modern history suggests that we need to nominate Neo Nazis, crooked “every” men, and people who go on conspiracy podcasts in order to win? We got more votes than anyone in history in 2020 by running a moderate guy who had solid appeal to Black voters and didn’t seem like an extremist nut to white and rural voters. We’re risking our strongest bases of support- Black voters, Jewish voters, and educated White women to appeal to who exactly? The descendants of people who moved away from the party between 1966 and 1994? The last few Dixiecrats who ran away in 2010? People who came out of nowhere to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, or 2024? Do we really think going on Hasan Piker’s ridiculous podcast is going to make us look normal? Didn’t we learn our lesson from thinking normal people listened to Charlamagne? What in the last 60 years of the party makes us think we can get votes from people who don’t vote for us by being more like a New York City Mayor who won’t oppose saying “Globalize the Intifada?” Sure, I do think Democrats overreached with trying to normalize and formalize DEI, #MeToo, and other social movements that the country wasn’t ready for at this time, but are we now going to embrace terrorists and Nazis to chase mythical votes we haven’t received in decades? It should be worth noting that the only group to support eversuccessful Presidential candidate in recent times on the Democratic side are Black voters. Jewish voters are the only other group to support every Democratic Presidential nominee in recent history. Wouldn’t any modest gains made with guys with Nazi tattoos chopping wood in the rural South be offset with the losses we’d take with our base? Seems so to me.

Anyone to study recent American political history understands that the ideological left Democratic Party broke up as the electorate included more and more women, and Civil Rights finally let Black voters vote. Race and gender simply trump ideology in the American electorate. One that wants an ideological party could put in the time to organize and build support for their positions, maybe even try to pass some legislation that moves the ball forward towards their position. Instead, some think the right idea is to wholesale try to turn 60 years of political movement around by embracing lunatics and bigots. It’s a horrible strategy. It’s tone deaf. It’s historically ignorant. It’s a path to losing the 2028 Presidential election. Tread wisely, friends.

Sultana, Tiburcio Challenged, Obando-Derstine is Not.

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

If you bat .500 in baseball, you win the batting title. I told you yesterday that Taiba Sultana’s nominating petitions for the 18th State Senate District and Carol Obando-Derstine’s nominating petitions for the 7th Congressional District were potentially being challenged. Only Sultana’s petitions ended up being challenged. It turns out that Carol’s 1,800 plus signatures stood up. Sultana’s may not.

Bernie O’Hare reports that Ray Lahoud filed the challenge to Sultana, stating that she only has 484 valid signatures amongst her 901 signatures. He also says her statement of financial interests is invalid. They will now go to a hearing.

Meanwhile in more/less surprising news, Ana Tiburcio’s petitions were also challenged in the 22nd House District. The suit contends that a majority of her signatures are bad. After watching the debate for the special election, I don’t find myself shocked.

The Sultana and Tiburcio cases will now get a court date. Then we’ll see what happens.