Phillies 2026 News and Discussion

[Lucky_Beagle]

It is never a one cause problem. It is most likely a combination of issues. If your not producing young, hungry, improving young players it causes a desire to sign expensive FA's. Is that a draft issue or a developmental issue? Hard to say maybe part of both.
It seems all teams have some of these concerns. The Phillies are coming off of a few good seasons in a row were they able to overcome these same issues in previous years for some reason?

[Philsmania]

Instead of #4 being what you say, I would add stripping the farm for trade chips.

[MichaelJackSchmidt]

But wouldn't that be a symptom of #5?

[Austinfan]

I warned against this years ago, when you have too much money, you can buy your way out of mistakes instead of making organizational changes to address fundamental problems.
The biggest problem is drafting and LA signings, followed by player development
2015: #10 Randolph, #48 Kingery
2016: #1 Moniak, #43 Gowdy
2017: #8 Hasley, #45 Howard
2018: #3 Bohm (no 2nd, 3rd rd picks)
2019: #14 Stott (no 2nd)
2020: #15 Abel (no 2nd)
2021: #13 Painter, #49 Wilson
2022: #17 Crawford (no 2nd)
2023: #27 Miller (no 2nd)
2024: #27 Nori, #63 Buckholder
2025: #36 Wood, #63 Obermuller
other draft picks that made the show:
2015: #144 Falter,
2017: #203 Maton, #293 Brogdon
2022: #152 Kerkering

Name me a LA player who's made it the last decade?
Sanchez, Marchan, ???

The production of players by the farm system is pitiful, this team was built around free agents and trades for depth players.
Now they're an old team falling off the cliff.
And there's little hope b/c they're buried by bad contracts that are a large part untradeable.

[zambonir]

Baseball is hard man! I gotta think that if we were Braves fans coming off of two NLDS losses to the Phillies, a NLWC loss and then no playoffs over four seasons, we would have wanted them to trade Sale, Olson, Murphy and Acuna to start the rebuild, and fire Anthopolous for sure. Only Acuna is young(er) in that group and look where they are now. They did change managers after this last failed season though that was probably happening anyway and they didn't really shake things up (or hire a younger fresher guy).

Right now it is a perfect storm of bad play and bad luck (and bad health). It's also still just a month. If it's two months, yeah, they're toast.

It's always bad GMing to build a team that is only good if everyone gives you a career year, but it's also pretty rare to build a team that is this bad due to nearly everyone having career-worst years (or close to it).

I was listening to radio today (a bummer because I had 90 minutes to kill in the car and it was already 6-0) and Stocker thinks the Phillies should ask Bohm to accept a trip to AAA. I don't think benching him would help, and you can't really trade him yet.

If they do it they could not only bring Kemp back up but maybe give Berroa a look to actually have a defensive CF off the bench.

Perhaps the coaching staff does need a hard look too. They have received plaudits for their work with Bohm, Turner and even Casty to some extent, why is the defense so bad now? Combined with the apparently poor BABIP luck it's as big a factor as the poor hitting, and they all feed off each other. What about base running, or having more of a running game? And what has Long been trying to have them do this year that just isn't working?

[allentown]

Is the main issue:

Poor major-league managing?
Bad free-agent strategy?
Too many hitters with flawed plate-discipline profiles?
Poor drafting and player development?
A front office evaluation model that is not identifying the right players?

The main reason is

Something else entirely?

The main reason is #4, scouting and player development. You can't buy enough of a team to win a championship. You need homegrown players who are solid starters with at least a near-star or 2. The Phillies simply haven't produced them. Nola gave us quite a few excellent years as a starter. He racked up a ton of good IP. I think his arm may be shot. He was among the most heavily used pitchers in baseball, prior to last season.

The highly rated prospects we bring up seem to have holes, which opposing teams discover, and then cannot adjust to compensate for the opposition exploiting their weaknesses. Our prospects may start okay but then regress quickly. We do worse on hitters than on pitchers, yet spend far more on hitters, with rather pitiful results.

It's a very veteran team. That can lead to a lack of energy and this team seems to lack a spark.

We've done ok on trades. Sanchez was a steal. Marsh was a very good trade. You can't make a lot of consequential trades if you have little to trade.

[zambonir]

I sure do love Rob Thomson though

“I worked for a guy for 28 years that has the Seinfield episode, and he’ll tell you he fires people like it’s a bodily function," Thomson said. “And it never bothered me. I don’t have time to think about it.”

Phillies manager Rob Thomson on speculation about his dismissal: ‘I’ve never...

[andyb]

Name me a LA player who's made it the last decade?

Ranger Suarez, Seranthony Dominguez, Hector Neris, Luis Garcia (relief pitcher version), Curtis Mead, Hao Yu Lee are all major leaguers or recently retired from our international program. We have a below average record, especially on big signings, but there are successes out there. And both William Bergolla and Starlyn Caba look pretty good now.

[Philsmania]

Deleted

[Philsmania]

Name me a LA player who's made it the last decade?

Ranger Suarez, Seranthony Dominguez, Hector Neris, Luis Garcia (relief pitcher version), Curtis Mead, Hao Yu Lee are all major leaguers or recently retired from our international program. We have a below average record, especially on big signings, but there are successes out there. And both William Bergolla and Starlyn Caba look pretty good now.

We have much more success with pitchers.

[allentown]

Yes, we keep spending the big bonus money on position players, both draft and international, assuming that we've finally figured out how to judge young position players. The underfunded search for pitching has outdone the well-funded search for position players. We've done a lot better finding infield prospects of late. We need catchers and OFs. Crawford fading at the moment, but started the season well, and Nori rising, so perhaps we now have some scouts, coaches, and scouting/development top management who actually know what a good young OF looks like. Still need to find a catcher or two to develop.

[phillychuck]

You have to give Crawford at least a season to adjust, and it can’t be easy plying in the current environment for him.

[zambonir]

Velandia (pushed for them to take minor league 2B Herrera after managing him in summer ball) and whomever liked Marsh as a trade target did better than the guys who picked Moniak (same year Marsh got drafted) and Haseley. They've done okay on catchers, but keep trading them. Seems like in 2020 and 2021 there were also a few guys who might have turned into another Howard or Hoskins but very much did not.

The only issue with Crawford, it seems, is whether he sticks in CF, and whether he and Marsh should really be on the same team. But it's not like CFs and good RHBs grow on trees either. Garcia is not giving them what they need but no regrets on Bader or Robert so far.

[allentown]

Moniak was Gillick's guy.

[zambonir]

And Almaraz. I understand why Klentak couldn't just jump right into that draft with anything other than the existing scouting infrastructure/data, but Almaraz wasn't a good hire to begin with (given he'd been in international at the time), and then they kept him for three more drafts.

But I reckon that's ultimately more on Middleton for hiring MacPhail and being overly deferential to Proven Baseball Men in the first place (which also left Klentak with people still working against him). He got lucky with Dombrowski, who is also obviously a much better manager/politician (both of his employees and of his owner). But if the issues we are seeing now can't be fixed or at least mitigated, we'll be left to wonder if anything about the team's culture or philosophy really changed in this era.

[Callison]

Agree that the current face-plant is a combination of many things, but #5 seems to have been a problem for a while. That's how you get to have $38M of dead money on your roster and Nola trying to add to it. The Phils have been looking for an OF that can hit for years, Garcia's predecessors, and they've all been screaming failures. The Phils' talent-evaluation team needs assistance.

That's not on Rob and it would be just mindless-cruel to replace him because of it. I admire his cool in the face of the blame landing on him. Everything he does has been validated in the past few seasons. If Kerkering could have been cool under pressure, the team might have beaten the Evil Empire last season and more. When you're out of answers, change the manager, right?

Two improvements that could be made today: 1. Lineup Improvement: Crawford, Turner, Harper, Schwarber, Garcia, makes-no-difference-because-they're-all-so-inconsistent is the new lineup that Rob refuses to change. DO IT!!!! Don't EVER put Bohm back at cleanup - he knows he doesn't belong there and so does everybody else except Rob. 2. Nola Rehab: Nola goes to the pen for long relief, the role the Phils refused to offer Walker (even though it looks like they're keeping even weaker arms). Take pressure off Nola, and maybe Nola can save his career.

Double espressos for everybody. Let's wake up and save the season.

+

[EDmuch]

I just don't think this is fixable. There is no 25 home run RH hitting outfield sitting around out there waiting for a callup. Bohm needs a change of scenery and a clear mind. Nola is toast. Miller could hare made a big difference by adding a solid RH bat. But he is apparently will be gone for awhile. It seems that five years is enough time to have replaced Hoskins.

[andyb]

One right-handed bat is not really going to solve the problem now. The biggest issue IMO is that all 5 starting pitcher slots have underperformed this year. Sanchez and Luzardo have been less good than expected even if Sanchez has had his moments and Luzardo has been unlucky. Nola has been off in his command all year to mediocre results. Painter has been an inconsistent rookie as expected and the Wheeler spot (which may be fixed now) was manned by Walker who was terrible.

This team does not win without above average starting pitching in both quality and length. The bullpen is not good enough to handle more innings. The defense is below average. And the offense has struggled to keep up with Bohm the notable whole.

We could fix this with money or trading prospects, but nothing really matters unless the starting pitching fixes itself. It simply is not worth trading prospects or adding salary without a strong chance that move will put us in the playoffs. Unless the starting pitching gets better,, no other external moves will be big enough to matter. So we should probably see if it can be fixed over the next 6 weeks and if not become a seller at the deadline.

[zambonir]

Well, Hoskins was supposed to be on the 2023 team, that was when he got hurt. Nick and JT were still bringing enough thump then, until they weren't (I.e. the difference between the beginning and the end of the Diamondbacks series). Bohm never became a power guy.

But that's the major league team. Five years is not at all too long from a developmental perspective to produce a new hitter, even out of college. Bohm, a 2018 high draft pick, got to the bigs fast but didn't really break out until 2024. And Hoskins was just a fifth-round pick (as, coincidentally, was Howard). But the 2020-2021 drafts bore no fruit. Now it's Crawford and Rincones from 2022.

[dcsman]

we should probably see if it can be fixed over the next 6 weeks and if not become a seller at the deadline.

Who are we selling?

Wheeler? Duran? Marsh?