I get that Philly is a drama queen town with our teams. That’s fine. You want to scream and yell at A.J. Brown, and fine, whatever. You’ll love him in a few weeks when he’s cooking.
But really, are we debating Bryce Harper? Yes, we’re at 7 years into his deal. Yes, it’s been 4 years since his last MVP, and 3 years since his NLCS MVP. Sure. I might agree he’s not quite elite anymore. He’s still really good.
Look, a 13 year deal is always ugly at the end. I expect us to get three or four more very good seasons from Bryce Harper. The problem with this team is *not* it’s stars though, even if Harper/Schwarber/Turner struggled a bit in the playoffs.
The Phillies didn’t have Wheeler, or Alvarado for the playoff series. They also didn’t see noticeable jumps forward by Bohm, Stott, or Marsh. Also, Castellanos, who I generally like, wasn’t good. All of that explains losing to a really good Dodgers team more than blaming the guys who are elite. Great pitchers will get out great hitters. It’s baseball. We hit our best series right away this year.
What the hell do you think you’re getting for Bryce Harper? You aren’t moving his money and getting great prospects right now. He’s very good. He’s also owed over $150 million against the luxury tax yet. You won’t get an even trade now. He still makes plenty of money, even if not a crazy number. Hoping he plays more next year and continues at his current per game rate (which is still likely at 33) is the best case scenario for the Phillies. Trading him is a losing proposition. Dave Dombrowski was right to shoot it down. No one should have pushed it to begin with. I mean really, you think Ben Rice is a game changer?
You know, if I waited a day, I’d only have to really rank two teams. Instead, I know who #4-30 are going to be, and their order is pretty much preordained. After Game 7 of the ALCS is done, #3 will be locked in for the year. We’ve almost reached the end of the weekly, in-season rankings. These should be no surprise. One team has won the pennant, and they are #1. Two teams are alive, they’re #’s 2 and 3. From there, it’s all locked.
Sure, maybe the Yankees have been out for over a week, but at least they were in the postseason. Juan Soto would have been in the same spot he’s in now if he had never left Washington, D.C., and he’d have at least had a postseason for the Yankees or Padres. Hey, he wanted to win with the Mets. Great for him.
And then there were four. That’s it, four teams are left. One LCS already played a game. There’s really only four teams to rank, though this will be the final ranking for teams #5-8. A week from now there might only be two teams to rank. I’m basing this week’s rankings on 1. the state of their series, and 2. the state of their pitching. Enjoy.
For the fourth straight year, the Philadelphia Phillies reached the Postseason. For the fourth straight year the Phillies did not win the World Series. For the second straight year the Phillies won the NL East. For the third straight year the Phillies lost a playoff series to a team they won more games than during the season. 96 wins be damned, the second Kerkering’s throw sailed past Realmuto, the season has felt like a loss. This really seemed like it should have been the year.
It was not though, and it looked a lot like the other recent failures, prompting me and others to say it’s time to break things up a bit. Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, Ranger Suarez, Max Kepler, David Robertson, Walker Buehler, and Jordan Romano are all going to be free agents. The Phillies hold a club option on Jose Alvarado and a mutual option with Harrison Bader. The Phillies only control the rights of Nick Castellanos, Alec Bohm, Jesus Luzardo, Taijuan Walker, and Matt Strahm for one more year. In other words, the group they built from 2022 until this past trade deadline is coming to the conclusion of their contracts. The ball club is coming to a crossroads.
The Phillies have guaranteed contracts with Trea Turner ($27,272,727 toward the luxury tax), Bryce Harper ($25,384,615), Nick Castellanos ($20,000,000), Zack Wheeler ($42,000,000), Cristopher Sanchez ($5,625,000), Aaron Nola ($24,571,429), Taijuan Walker ($18,000,000), and Matt Strahm ($7,500,000 option that vested). The owe a minimum buyout of $500,000 on Alvarado if they buy out his option ($9,000,000 if they accept it) and $3,000,000 on Bader if they decline ($10,000,000 if they accept it. That leaves them with a guaranteed payroll of $173,853,771.
The Phillies have a number of players who are also arbitration eligible. MLB Trade Rumors did a piece recently projecting what those players should get, you should give them a read. They project that should the Phillies agree to offer arbitration to these players (they can decline to and let the player go to free agency), Alec Bohm ($10,300,000), Brandon Marsh ($4,500,000), Bryson Stott ($5,800,000), Edmundo Sosa ($3,900,000), Rafael Marchan ($1,000,000), Garrett Stubbs ($925,000), Jesus Luzardo ($10,400,000), Jhoan Duran ($7,600,000), and Tanner Banks ($1,200,000) would cost the Phillies roughly (these are estimates) $45,625,000. Added together with their guaranteed contracts and the Phillies would have a starting payroll of $219,448,771. There are also a number of players on the Phillies current roster who neither have reached a guaranteed free agent contract or arbitration, and those players are renewed for next season at a minimum rate of $820,000 (if they’re up the whole season. Those players are Orion Kerkering, Max Lazar, Weston Wilson, Otto Kemp, Johan Rojas, Alan Rangel (spent some time up this year, mostly is a AAA starter), Moises Chace (coming back from Tommy John in AA, unlikely to pitch in the majors), Jean Cabrera (Pitched in Reading fairly well this year), Daniel Robert (was up and down a bit this season), Michael Mercado (has come up for short stints the last two years), Seth Johnson (has come up for short stints the last two years), Nolan Hoffman (made his debut for the Phillies late this season), Rafael Lantigua (spent the entire AAA season in Lehigh Valley and came up in the last week), and Brewer Hicklen (has spent much of the last two seasons in Lehigh Valley and appeared on the 40 man roster both years). Most of them won’t make their full salary because they will spend time in the minors, but however many spots you fill with these guys, you’ll pay out $820,000.
For our arguments sake right now, let’s assume everyone under contract is back in full, all of the players at arbitration are retained right at the rates above, and Alvarado and Bader’s options are exercised, putting the Phillies payroll at $234,948,771. In order to fill out the roster, let’s assume that Kerkering, Lazar, Robert, and Rangel are kept in the bullpen, and Kemp and Rojas are kept on the bench. They may interchange with some of the other guys on that list, but they would cost $4,920,000 more, setting the Phillies minimum payroll right now at $239,868,771. The luxury tax threshold for 2026 is $244,000,000. The Phillies would have $4,232,229 to spend before the tax, assuming they don’t non-tender some of these players or trade them.
Quite clearly, that is not enough money to bring back any of the free agents on this team right now, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that. For one thing, even cheaper players like Justin Crawford, Andrew Painter, Gabriel Rincones, and Aidan Miller all have varying chances to contribute to the team next season. Second, and probably more importantly, they will move some of the guys they have. Third, and most importantly, the Phillies are likely to go into the luxury tax again this season. With all of that said, I would be very surprised if they kept all of Schwarber, Realmuto, and Suarez- they probably can’t afford it. They also would probably be smart to not pile more money into players 32 and up (Schwarber and Realmuto) without at least trying to get younger and more athletic somewhere on the roster. With all of that said, there are other costs the team takes on- minor league payroll, player benefits, differed payments to past players (Realmuto and Didi Gregorius are both being paid next year), and the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players on the team. They come out to about $30,000,000 for the Phillies next season. So the Phillies are really only about $35 million short of what they paid out in 2025.
I would say they go into the offseason needing a catcher (Realmuto?), a power bat (Could be Schwarber, could be an outfielder or corner infielder too), and at least one high leverage reliever, if not two. If I were them, I’d take a good long look at their starting pitching, as it was great this year, but had cracks, and I’d consider bringing back Ranger Suarez. I would prioritize extensions for Luzardo and Duran, and I’d try to work out a two or three year deal at a lower average annual value (luxury tax hit) with Bader and Alvarado. Finally, I’d prioritize getting Crawford and Painter onto the active roster early next season, even if it’s not an ideal role. Notice the Dodgers had some young starting pitchers (Sheehan and Sasaki) in their playoff bullpen, it’s okay to bring a guy up and build his role there. This is where things start from. We’ll dive further in, in a couple of days.
I tend to value experiences more than I used to. I actually have felt this way for several years, as I was arriving at the dawn of my fifth decade, but that’s more true than ever after going through a near death experience. I kind of now see that youth is wasted on the young, that all of those playoff and World Series games I got to go to in the Rollins-Howard-Utley-Hamels era, like all the great concerts and other events I got to go to, they were a blessing. I took a long moment to enjoy and take in the atmosphere when I was at game three of the 2022 World Series, as I realized what a childhood dream it was when I was there in 1993 and 2008. You don’t get these experiences every day. In fact, they can be taken away from you in the course of a random Summer afternoon. You need to enjoy it while it’s here.
Saturday evening I was at the Pass & Stowe bar in Citizens Bank Park before the game and having a seat for a moment and that dawned on me again. This group of Phillies has had a really good run, and we ought to appreciate it. “Red October” over these last four years has been the most incredible atmosphere one can experience in sports. I’m grateful to all of these guys, even the guys who are playing terribly right now. Four years is an eternity though in sports. Time passes everyone by. That 2008 group was the greatest era in Phillies history, and it was stone cold dead by the end of 2012. Sports are a young man’s game. Economics are a cruel reality. Being sentimental in the sports industry, and throwing around money chasing a ghost you aren’t going to catch is how you end with an old and broken team. It’s either going to happen or it isn’t. The people running your team need to know that. Otherwise you’ll be in a stadium with 15,000 people in three years watching a losing team play out the string.
I think the Phillies are actually not at the end of their window of contention if they want to stretch it with this group. In fact, they’ve won more games every year since Bryce Harper signed in Philadelphia. There’s a strong argument that you re-sign Schwarber and at least one of Realmuto and Suarez, and just hope your team is the hot one next October. You just run it back, because statistically it’s your best odds of reaching your goal, a championship. Look, we have done this in Philadelphia with the 76ers for the better part of the last decade. Our best shot has been to hope for a healthy Embiid, paired with some star guard, and things maybe will fall our way one year. Then we get to the next season, and things end the same way in the playoffs, or worse. Yes, the Phillies best chance of winning a title is to keep running out a team that has one of the best records in the league. Sure, one year they won’t be that good anymore. We don’t know when that will be, of course, but until then we should just keep trying it with tinkering around the edges. I’m sure that’s what the analytics say.
The Phillies are down 2-0 going to Los Angeles for game three facing elimination. Their top three hitters are a combined 2-for-21 with a few walks through two games, but it looks exactly like last year’s Mets series (if not worse), which kind of looks like the last few games of the 2023 Diamondbacks series, which of course, kind of looks like games 4 through 6 of the 2022 World Series. Not only have the top three bats gone cold again, but the bullpen has wilted under the unkind, bright lights of the playoffs, where every out has outsized meaning. The manager has again, ran out his bullpen arms for one or two too many outs in big spots. Topper has had a great four years here, but Dave Roberts is doing what Carlos Mendoza and Torey Lovullo did before him- press the right buttons. The other teams make adjustments in the series, and even in the games, and the Phillies just can’t quite answer. There just isn’t some stroke of brilliance there, nothing that stems the tide against them. And it’s like this every October. Sure, one year it didn’t happen until the World Series. Here’s the truth though- the Phillies are one loss from a third straight playoff series loss to a team that won less games than them in the regular season. There is something pretty damning about that alone, let alone that it looks the same each time.
The playoffs are just a different beast than the regular season in every sport. In baseball, the biggest difference is that you do have to lean much heavier on your best players. Your bench players can’t really be getting many at-bats, let alone starts. Your middle relievers should be getting the bare minimum number of outs. Your starters should be willing to come out of the bullpen. We can criticize Topper for the fact he is less aggressive within these realities than other managers, but that’s really not the whole story. The Phillies have a tremendous payroll. They have big time star players. Those players have just come up a little short each year. And now we’re one loss from that happening again.
Don’t eulogize the living. Ranger Suarez will throw game three, and while starting pitching hasn’t been the reason the Phillies are losing, Suarez has shown in the past that he is capable of pitching on a whole other level in big spots. Then you have the choice of going with Nola or going back to Sanchez, and well, if you win that game this is a totally different discussion about the greatest comeback in team history. I mean, in truth, they had a better year than the Dodgers and they have been pretty good against them for several years. There’s no reason this team *can’t* comeback in this series. Five game series are notoriously weird and lend themselves to weird outcomes. There’s plenty of reasons to still think it’s possible.
The problem with that though is I’m watching these games. Nothing we see makes us think this is going to happen. In fact, I recently went back and re-read what some of the national writers had to say before the 2022 season about this group, and it’s ringing true. The group the Phillies had assembled would certainly have nights they mashed the ball, but they also were prone to streaky hitting and a lot of strikeouts. This team is capable of putting on a show, but they are also capable of just being shut down for a week. In 2023, the Diamondbacks pitchers had a meeting on the flight back to Philadelphia for game six where their coaches essentially told them to stop giving in and throwing predictable pitches (aka- fastballs for strikes) to this team when they were sitting on it. This group has always been very good, but very flawed. It’s feast or famine. We’ve seen famine before. This looks like famine.
Wednesday night the Phillies will play another baseball game, then they will do so again if they win, on Thursday. Essentially a week from now they might be white hot and preparing for the NLCS, or they may be eliminated by Thursday morning. If this continues towards where it looks like they’re going, I think it’s time for a shake up with these Phillies. That, in my mind, should mean changes to the manager and the coaching staff. It should mean a willingness to trade some starting position players away. It should mean a willingness to let any combination of Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, and Ranger Suarez go to free up space to add new and different pieces. It should absolutely mean guaranteeing a spot to Justin Crawford off of a sensational season in left and center fields in AAA this season, who looks ready to come in and make an impact. It should also mean laying out a pathway for Aidan Miller to hit his way into the 2026 infield by the middle of next summer. I would suggest that if this series doesn’t turn around, the Phillies should be married to absolutely nothing going into the off-season. Running it back in 2026 is most likely going to end how all the other years have ended, or worse. Sure, fans will be sad when players who did great things for this group walk away. Fans will eventually learn to love future players if they come in and perform.
Again, as I said above, appreciate everything you’ve had. Also, for all things a season. Father Time is unbeaten.
A week ago I wrote up my rankings with 12 teams alive. Today, four of them are eliminated. Another is down 2-0. Two others are down 1-0. As I write this, the rankings are tremendously shook up by those facts, and MLB’s “second season” is a totally different world than we were living in a week ago. Teams #13-30 won’t be changing until free agency and other things happen. In the playoffs though, the world changes fast and furiously for those taking part.
Here is this week’s rankings:
The Milwaukee Brewers
The Toronto Blue Jays
The Los Angeles Dodgers
The Detroit Tigers
The Seattle Mariners
The Philadelphia Phillies
The Chicago Cubs
The New York Yankees
The Cleveland Guardians
The San Diego Padres
The Boston Red Sox
The Cincinnati Reds
The Houston Astros
The New York Mets
The Kansas City Royals
The Texas Rangers
The San Francisco Giants
The Arizona Diamondbacks
The Miami Marlins
The St. Louis Cardinals
The Tampa Bay Rays
The Oakland Athletics
The Atlanta Braves
The Baltimore Orioles
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
The Pittsburgh Pirates
The Minnesota Twins
The Washington Nationals
The Chicago White Sox
The Colorado Rockies
As was the case last week for teams #13-30, this is the end of the line for teams #9-12. Teams #6-8 are currently trailing in their series, and if that holds, next week will be their last new ranking, as it will be for whoever loses #4-5. At the end of the playoffs I’ll re-rank #3-12 based on opinion, but it probably won’t change a lot.
The season is over. We know who is going to the playoffs. We know who is not. Now, it’s time for the best tournament in sports. Nothing beats October baseball. Especially in Philadelphia, but I’m biased there. Here’s the last regular season/first postseason power rankings. Here was last week’s.
The Milwaukee Brewers
The Philadelphia Phillies
The Toronto Blue Jays
The Los Angeles Dodgers
The New York Yankees
The Seattle Mariners
The Cleveland Guardians
The Chicago Cubs
The Boston Red Sox
The San Diego Padres
The Detroit Tigers
The Cincinnati Reds
The Houston Astros
The New York Mets
The Kansas City Royals
The Texas Rangers
The San Francisco Giants
The Arizona Diamondbacks
The Miami Marlins
The St. Louis Cardinals
The Tampa Bay Rays
The Oakland Athletics
The Atlanta Braves
The Baltimore Orioles
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
The Pittsburgh Pirates
The Minnesota Twins
The Washington Nationals
The Chicago White Sox
The Colorado Rockies
Obviously for teams 13-30, this is the end of the line. I’ll continue to rank them for the remainder of the postseason, but in the order you see now. None of that will change again until free agency. They are in record order, because after 162 games, you are who you are. 17 teams won 81 games or more this year. Two teams lost over 100 games. No one reached 100 wins this year.
Well it’s the final week. All hell has broken lose. The Reds begin this week in the playoffs. So do the Guardians. I guess we’re in an Ohio State of Mind. Meanwhile, the Astros could miss. Things are insane. Here’s my last regular season rankings. Here’s last week’s for reference.
On Sunday night, long after their game with the Royals had ended in disappointment, the Phillies clinched a spot in the postseason thanks to other teams losing. This marked the fourth straight season the Phillies had reached Red October, a streak that probably makes the the third best era in Phillies baseball history. The 1976-83 Phillies Group secured five division titles, two National League pennants, and the 1980 World Series. The 2007-2011 Phillies won five consecutive division titles, two National League pennants, and the 2008 World Series. This group now has four consecutive playoff appearances, two National League East titles, and an NL Pennant. Clearly, there’s just one thing left for them to do. They’ll get their chance…
Of course, they still had to win that second division title, and in the early hours of Tuesday on the East Coast they did that by beating the Dodgers 6-5 in extra innings. This feels a lot different than last year. On the one hand, last year was their first division title as a group, and felt like something they needed to do. This year felt like a simple statement. On the other hand, last year they limped into it. This year they roared.
This team faced a lot of challenges. Obviously the loss of Wheeler hurts. Aaron Nola, their longtime #2 starter, missed most of this season. Their game three starter for a couple of these playoff runs, Ranger Suarez, started a month late. Their two offseason bullpen signings both tanked, and their opening day closer got suspended half a season for PED’s. Their franchise player missed significant time in season. Their starting shortstop and third baseman are hurt now. Their left fielder most of the year struggled, their right fielder most of the season went cold in the second half, and it took them months to figure out center field. This was not a bloodless pathway back to October. This team took a lot of shots.
Yet, here we are, 90 wins, a repeat as division champs, a fourth straight trip to the playoffs, and a really good shot at a bye or home field. And, it didn’t even feel like they were amazing doing it. Again, sports are about winning, not being pretty. The Phillies showed that to the world, again. Say whatever you want about Rob Thomson, he’s getting the job done. Now he has a few more steps to take.
Apocalypse Vibes 