I don't know that one can expect to see any progress in the minors yet. As with Klentak Dombrowski waited a full year to make his moves, and on top of that, the new development director retained a fair number of key people. At the same time, there's no reason to expect good things out of the chaos of the past three years (internally, I mean, not in society/MLB, because every team dealt with that).
And also no reason to think DD had any idea how to rebuild an organization from the ground up. That's not his skill set. And much of that is presumably left to Sam Fuld, a guy from the Klentak regime who like Kapler checks off all the right pedigree boxes but has never shown anything while working for the Phillies.
But at least Barber still seems like he was a decent hire.
Still not ready to call the season toast, but the ceiling is last playoff spot and perhaps, a big first-round upset. It's all well and good to say the schedule will get easier, and the team may improve/change as well, but there are too many better teams that will prevail in a post-season series, of any length.
I find it funny when people say this isn't what Harper signed up for and he might want out. This is his team. He's the second or third most-powerful person in the organization (depending whether you rank him ahead of Dombrowski). He campaigned for JT, he campaigned for Stott to be in the majors, his agent got Castellanos here. At the same time, he has publicly stated the Phillies need more young players. Whether they retool or rebuild, he probably has to ride the ride. If they full-on tank, that's a different story.