I officially hate this Phillies team

[Jazzhead]

We finally have an outfield whose play is worthy of a championship team.

[Philsmania]

Bump. October bums.

[Philsmania]

Tear this team down and rebuild. I would be quite happy with 100+ loss seasons for the next three years while we stock up on primo draft picks and prospects.

[dcsman]

I was waiting for this thread to get bumped back up.

Were you g to get swept, aren’t we?

🥺

[phillychuck]

Dodgers are good, too. Phils aren’t bums, the better team is winning.

[zambonir]

Dodgers kind of fooled everyone by being less good in the second half (including almost blowing the West and never really challenging us for #2 seed). Now they look like the first half team and defending champs, and we look like the New York teams did last year (actually much better than they did).

[Philsmania]

Dodgers are good, too. Phils aren’t bums, the better team is winning.

All the more reason to tear it down and do a scorched earth rebuild if we can't compete with the Dodgers and, once they hammer the bugs out, the Mets.

[zambonir]

Who do you actually trust to oversee that?

[Philsmania]

Who do you actually trust to oversee that?

I don't know, I just want see it.

[Austinfan]

The reason to "burn it down" is simply that this group is mostly over 30 and hasn't got the job done in the post-season.
Once is bad luck, three straight post-seasons means you're just not good enough.
This isn't a Braves team in its prime that just needed to keep going to the well, this is a team that age curves say is more likely to fall off a cliff than take a step up.

Unless MIddleton wants to raise the budget by $100M, they can't patch all the holes next season without trading their top prospects from a limited pool.

[andyb]

Except the young players we have are really not that good.

This has been largely bad luck. Short series against a team that is arguably the best in baseball (maybe by far) when mostly healthy.

[zambonir]

They couldn't burn it down even if they wanted to. The first guy you would want to trade is Wheeler, which can't be done at the moment, and he is a 10-and-5 so you'd also be limited return-wise to his preferred spot. Nola? Ha. Harper and Trea aren't going anywhere. Bohm has modest value. Casty gets you little to nothing. If you really went to tank you would trade Duran, Luzardo and Marsh.

But I also go back to my original question. Because any moves are still going to be executed by Dombrowski, Mattingly and Barber. They know how to spend money and win; it is less clear if they are any good at professional scouting (for trades of both major and minor leaguers), developing and drafting.

The Phillies have a ton of money and if you want change just for the sake of change they can just not bring back any of the FAs, and trade Bohm. They could certainly field a team that might lose next year if they do that. See how the kids do, sign cheaper FAs and have a retool type year that could go either way.

I would still run it back with Kyle and JT, but not sure how you improve one of RF or 3B without even more spending, even if you bring both Miller and Crawford up.

[andyb]

I would still run it back with Kyle and JT, but not sure how you improve one of RF or 3B without even more spending, even if you bring both Miller and Crawford up.

Yes they should integrate Miller and Crawford and hopefully Painter in the lineup by the end of next season. Hopefully they are good enough.

Now who do they replace? Crawford helps in the OF where they are thin but he would be more the Marsh/Kepler replacement than Castellanos where they just have to eat the contract. Painter can replace Ranger and Miller can eventually replace Stott.

But bottom line we just are not replacing the older players with anyone in our system adequately. We'll still have Wheeler, Harper, and Turner accounting for $100 million of payroll. We clearly need a catcher so that is JT on a shorter deal or another free agent or trade.

The prospects of a younger team are just not there. They need to add a younger player when they can, but really they need to manage a large payroll to get beyond the Wheeler contract and hope Harper and Turner remain productive (which is still very possible for a few years).

And hope the new era of Renteria and Acuna starts before 2034.

[zambonir]

Yeah it is not even that hard for me to imagine a world where Nick stays, though he presumably doesn't want to. Like, if they keep Bader Nick would still be a better platoon partner for Marsh or Crawford than a Kemp or Wilson. Or don't keep Bader, go with Crawford in CF and Marsh in LF, but you need to make the RHB OF signing you didn't this year, and it is still slim pickings (and unlikely as Tucker is he isn't the answer as a LHB).

And you can't even platoon Miller and Kemp, or Miller and Sosa.

[bigegypt0417]

I haven't watched more than about 10 pitches so far because it felt tike this was the most likely outcome.

Burning it down and starting over is...sorry...the only word i can think of is "dumb".

You are playing against a really good team and your two best pitchers aren't really an option.

Add to the bullpen and take another run.

[flyers19rw]

The club had some horrible breaks this season that reverberated throughout the roster. The impact of the Alvarado suspension can’t be underestimated. Losing him caused the roles of the entire BP to be altered and upped their usage. It ultimately caused the Phillies to trade away two of their top prospects in order to plug Alvarado’s hole in the pen. Now in the POs his absence is a problem once again.
Then there is the Wheeler injury that has put a hex on the rotation. Few, if any, teams can have their entire pitching staff take hits such as these and succeed. Dombrowski and CC deserve a lot of credit for cobbling together a reasonable solution.
Three changes that I would suggest being made:
-Replace Thomson
-Put Turner in CF.
-Obtain a Rollins, Utley, Rose type of player to push the complacency out of the clubhouse and make the team more conscious about playing fundamentally sound baseball. If some players don’t like that, move them on.

[zambonir]

I don't think the Alvarado suspension was quite that momentous. Sure, the best version of him would have had a role, but we have seen pretty good versions of him blow playoff games in two other seasons, and last season he was not in the playoff circle of trust. The completely disastrous Romano signing is what led to Duran, while the Alvarado suspension led to Robertson. On top of that Ross and Ruiz were both flops and Kerkering had an inconsistent year.

And there's really nothing Wheeler could have done to win either of those games either. The rotation is still deep but that is not as big an advantage in a short series, and LA, now that they are healthy for a change, is deeper.

The Phillies need to hit home runs. When a great pitcher - and especially an ace LHP - shuts the two LHBs down and the RHBs aren't that dangerous, this is what you get. They can actually play small ball, but they don't outscore any good playoff team doing it. And neither will the Brewers, who are still doing it with slug (doubles in Game 1, homers in Game 2).

[bigegypt0417]

And there's really nothing Wheeler could have done to win either of those games either. The rotation is still deep but that is not as big an advantage in a short series, and LA, now that they are healthy for a change, is deeper.

With all due respect...Zach Wheeler was on his way to a Cy Young type season.

If you really believe he couldn't have pitched way deeper in to game 1 and shortened the BP. we have been watching a different Zach Wheeler.

[andyb]

Zach would also have let us use Suarez or Luzardo as a short relief weapon if we so chose. Our starters have been good, but one big difference with the Dodgers is that they have secondary starters that are usable in relief.

We have 3 guys (Nola, Buehler, Walker) who are really not usable in medium or high leverage relief situations. Buehler (6.6) and Walker (6.3) have 2 of the lowest K rates around and Nola has never relieved. Leverage relievers need to be able to strike people out.

[zambonir]

I am not saying no difference. But our two starters pitched well enough to win, the Phillies found a way to lose 8 of Wheeler's 24 starts, and several of his playoff starts in past years as well. Of course his entire poor and abbreviated second half was injury-affected. Bigger impact might be that we would not have been playing the Dodgers in this round had he been healthy.

And for sure it would have made Game 3 and any subsequent games much easier to manage, including the pen.