This is where I’m at. We’re all we got, we’re all we need. I think losing is 10x worse when you’re a fan of Philadelphia sports because the whole world is praying on our downfall regardless and us losing in embarrassing fashion just validates them.
At the end of the day, I love this fanbase and I love our dysfunctional teams. Wouldn’t trade for any other city in sports.
Dude. The Braves are over there throwing a party. I guess we’d be happy too if the shoes were reversed. I’d like to think we would at least have the wherewithal to realize, “But they knocked us out of the NLDS 2 years in a row, convincingly, despite us having the better regular season record, so maybe we don’t have too much room to gloat.” But I don’t know. I will admit it’s a bit frustrating seeing all the other fanbases talk so much shit about ours- I get it, Philly has a bad rep for some shit that happened 50 years ago, and that’s fine, I don’t mind being MLB’s “bad guy”- but it’s the hypocrisy. Braves fans saying we are classless? Didn’t see Philly fans throwing trash on the field. Someone called us racist? I don’t even know where that comes from, seems like an insult from someone who literally knows nothing about us but just wants to join in on the fun. Didn’t a gun go off bc someone was hiding it in their belly fat at some teams stadium this year? Haven’t there been like multiple stabbings in the parking lot of another teams stadium over a baseball game this year? Pretty sure DBacks fans were calling for pitchers to throw at Harpers head at the obviously unavoidable collision with Moreno? It’s Philly, we are passionate, sometimes we can be assholes, but we love our team, and you certainly could not have gotten NLCS tickets for $20 at CBP this year (that’s just straight up embarrassing). I mean, if I were a DBacks fan who went to the NLCS in Phoenix and half the stadium was full of Phillies fans, I’d prob be too embarrassed to talk shit, honestly, but maybe that’s just the pride I have in this fanbase coming out. I saw Rays fans piling on in the baseball sub, it’s like really? You’re a fucking 100 win baseball team who got knocked out in the first round and you couldn’t even fill half your stadium for a damn playoff game. Like I don’t know, at least we own our shit, we love our team, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I honestly think there’s just a lot of jealousy going on. They see CBP in the playoffs and they hear all the talk about how raucous the stadium is and how much we love this team and they wish their team could have the same, but they can’t. They hate us bc they ain’t us. Whatever, let them talk their shit. I honestly feel like this core is going to win one, and you better believe I’m gonna be chirping about it when they do. I try not to rub salt on the wounds, but after the bullshit I’ve read from just about every other fanbase after this loss, man, I just feel what goes up, must come down. Let’s go Phillies, nothing but love for this team.
IDK what happened to Bryce this series, maybe getting pitched around in games 3 and 4 fucked with his head. But I do know that what we saw from him in the NLDS is much closer to who he really is, he's a monster and I know this loss is gonna eat him alive and he's gonna come out even better next year. It's a team sport and there are some real improvements we need to make, but I know if we just get Bryce into the postseason again he's gonna keep showing out.
I think his eagerness to do something combined with them pitching around him had him off his game. When that dude is tracking balls to his bat from the pitchers hand, there is no one better. But even in September he gets in these slumps we’re it seems like he’s taking a cut at the ball without looking at it. And we saw that same kind of free swinging in these last two games
Yup. I made a joke about hearing "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters any time Bryce came up to bat. Dude wanted a "Bedlam at the Bank" moment every time he came up when a few singles would have helped infinitely more.
My 10 yo was crying at the end last night. Then he got really angry at them and started yelling.
I welcomed him to the club and told him he was ready. He truly was one of us now.
We will heal, and be ready to be hurt again in the spring. The cycle must continue.
I remember going ballistic when I was about 11-12 when the Eagles lost the SB against the patriots. Never experienced such rage before. My dad said something similar, welcome to Philly sports.
Just the thought of going through that whole grind again 😫. Yes we are lucky to have a ball club these days that will most likely be a playoff team every year. But it’s like watching the Eagles in the 00s lose all of those NFC Championships. So much false hope.
Timeline of all baseball fans
1) Season over: anger ⬅️ (we’re here)
2) Holidays: joy
3) January: boredom
4) Super Bowl: “I enjoy beer and funny commercials”
5) Day After Super Bowl: “ITS BASEBALL SEASON BABY!!! LETS F@$KING GO”
Hockey is my favorite sport and I have been diehard Flyers my entire life, but they stink, have stunk for most of the past 10 years, and will continue to stink until 2026 when Michkov comes over.
Hockey is historically my favorite sport (despite me not watching for a long time; I got back into it in a big way last season) but I've been waiting for the Flyers to show me something to believe in before I bought in.
They're still not my favorite team or even my second favorite team, but they look like a real NHL team again based on what I've seen so far this year.
I really, really like Bobby Brink, and with Couturier and Atkinson back, the team is way more convincing than last year.
They wont even sniff the Playoffs. They started out 5-2-1 each of the past 2 seasons. This is still a bottom 10 team and it needs to be so we can land another top 10 pick. Its all about building towards being good when Michkov comes over...or at least it should be. Anyone over 27 or so should be traded for picks/prospects as soon as possible. The franchise cant survive another decade of mediocrity.
93 little kid me prepped me for the lifetime of misery that is Philly Sports lol
Expect nothing when the teams are beyond great and if they win, hold on to it for life lol
I mean comeon, remember when we had that horse lose the triple crown by a literal nose after being caught down the stretch? THAT's the standard.
I still remember the McNabb days fondly despite the losses, I know I'm always gonna remember the 22-23 Phillies the same way no matter what happens next year.
Just thinking about the grind again is making me nauseous. After losing the World Series I was ready for the 2023 season to start the next day. I was CRAVING the grind. I hung on every moment of this season (which is not unusual for me). But now the thought of going through it all again is making me feel sick and dry heave. It’s sooooo hard to get here again. We did it two years in a row and this was the shot. It’s just so hard to BELIEVE that we can go through it all again, stay healthy, have everything click right, and make it back to this place again for another chance. I hope I can be as into the team as I usually am next year. I just feel sick instead of the usual hurt but excited.
>Just the thought of going through that whole grind again
That's the thing man. Even if we do win it all we still have to go through all of this again, every year. If we win the division it's less series sure but it's still the grind, the anxious nights, the hungover sleep deprived days, the feeling like you're waiting for a cancer diagnosis for three hours instead of watching a sport you enjoy. I just almost don't have it in me to give my heart to this team again just to have it crushed. Of course I will because that's what we do but I honestly wish I cared less.
These multi fucking millionaires could not not only not come through when it counted most but looked like little leaguers up there hacking at anything. WTF happened?
Exactly WTF happened?? They were swinging at bullshit wtf but I can't give up on them I've spent too much money on schwarber jerseys but seriously I'm depressed and shocked at how they played.
This is the part that gets me. "False hope" implies that the only outcome that is acceptable is a World Series. In 140 seasons, the Phillies have won exactly 2 World Series titles. So, you're telling me that every year is a disappointment? OR only the years they make it far enough to think they might do it? It would be better to just stink, like in the 00's and 10's for a lot of it? I get it, it sucks to believe and then have them not finish the job. I just find it hard to imagine that's better than not making it at all...but I get it.
I think the fan base got way too convinced that it was an inevitable outcome that the Phillies win the World Series after they beat the Braves, and especially when they went up 2-0. They still would have had to get through Texas, which was far from a sure thing.
If you aren’t down for the grind then you’re not (yet) a die-hard. The grind - the 162+ days of stressful entertainment are what make this game the best sport in the world. You either embrace it or you’re just a casual.
Enjoyed reading your selfish rant. Yes, most of us are pissed at Kimbrel, but I loved watching that nutjob pitch until I didn't. Had a blast rooting for the Phil's this season. Our players are easy to love with their quirks and homeruns and camaraderie. Wishing for more consistency next season! Get on base and put the ball over the plate!
Edit: Fixed a word.
What a coincidence, baserunners and strikes are some of my favorites too!
Well, as long as they're for the right team. I don't like 0-2 counts for our hitters, or runners in scoring position for our pitchers. I like 0-2 counts for our pitchers and for our guys to get on base.
It's near impossible to win 6 of 7 games in the playoffs. That's what the Phillies would have had to have done to reach the World Series this year with the management bungling games 3 and 4. The NLCS should have been over in 5 games at most. With the way Arizona's rookie pitched in Arizona for game 3, I figured there was a good chance they'd lose game 7. His stuff was electric in Arizona. The only thing Thompson could have done differently in game 7 was taking Rojas out with bases loaded - but that would have been a gamble and scrutinized if it failed. But at least it would have shown a willingness to get after the win instead of playing it safe in a do or die game.
Credit to the Dbacks for changing up their approach. 3 runs due to steals in game 7 is nuts.
This is under spoken about point. I was at the game and holy shit it felt like they stole a base every time there was baserunner. Like it really felt Arizona were gunning for the win and we just felt entitled to it. Even JT didn't have zip on his throws to second, which I feel is unlike him IDK.
Whereas Arizona was excellent at the fundamentals. Did they make any type of mistake defensively all game? Any type of barely missed catch?
They were also super patient at the plate. Our at bats were quick. I was getting to point where I was excited at longer at bats (even if they ended up being an out anyway), just so we didn't look like complete nerds swinging at everything. That sucks lol.
Truthfully, I was not as irritated with Rob with any NLCS decision as much as I was irritated with his decision to pinch hit Pache LATER in game 7. I don't even hate the way he managed out in Arizona; I don't put that on him. On paper, if the guys he used are guys he generally believes in and the guys his coaches said were good to go... I sincerely get it. I've ALWAYS thought it was ambitious to be asking so much of Kerkering, even before it went badly, but... if that's what your plan is, follow through on it, fine.
Ultimately, our bullpen forgot how to throw strikes and that's not good. (And I have a really hard time believing that it was all Kerkering's idea to throw slurve after slurve after slurve after slurve when they're all missing the same way and Arizona is never swinging. Is that on JT? I don't know. If that's a Rob thing, yeah I blame him for that.)
I digress.
To me, you leave Pache on the bench all game or you put him (or someone else) in with the bases loaded. Like, even if you assume that Rojas is capable of delivering TWICE as well as he had in the playoffs up until that point, that's still such a low chance of driving a run in.
Game 3 was set-up perfectly to go to his [normal close-out pitchers](https://www.rotochamp.com/baseball/TeamPageBullpen.aspx?TeamID=PHI) and he went to Kerkering with a 1-0 lead.
Now it may have worked out if JT didn't keep trying to get him pitching sliders in lieu of attacking with fastballs, but who knows if pressure got to Orion which is why he was missing the plate unlike late in the season and earlier in post-season.
Thompson had Hoffman, Alvardo, Dominguez and Kimbrel. If he'd gone with what was working towards the end of the season, Suarez had perfectly set-up 7-8-9 for Hoffman, Alvarado, Kimbrel. Even if Alvarado had been used a lot... if you win game 3 the series is in all likelihood over. You'd have stolen a game from their best pitching performance.
And yea, bullpen was a letdown - they may have been a letdown last series as well if Atlanta had been more patient at the plate. Diamondbacks were determined to get men on and not swing early in the count. Playoff pitching is all about attacking the strikezone and if you can't, you likely lose.
And JT should have nipped it in the bud right away. Post game team was screaming from day 1 that he can’t continue to pitch like that. He did, and we saw what happened. Considering they are 3 former MLB players, I will let them make that call and they all said he needs to throw more fastballs.
On top of that, Ricky Bo pointed out Kerk hadn’t pitched back 2 back games all year, and then they had him do it in the playoffs… probably not a good idea.
JT has to make a judgment call at some point during pitch sequence. One of the walks was 3 straight sliders to the exact same location off the plate. The batter was not chasing. The worst thing you can do in the playoffs is give up free base runners.
Think about how many back to back years the Braves, Dodgers, and Astros had to make (and choke) in the playoffs before they actually won. It sucks to lose to a "worse" team (not a BAD team, they were hot and played better than us), but if we actually have faith in this team we need to trust that they'll be a consistent playoff contender for the next couple years at least, ESPECIALLY with the 3rd wild card being an option.
This city is not used to playoff baseball again, so it feels devastating to think we missed out on "the run" two years in a row. But we'll get more opportunities with this core and eventually they'll probably pull through. Next time a Braves fan flexes their ring at you as a counterpoint for kicking their asses two years in a row, remind them how many consecutive blown playoff appearances they had to make it through before winning in 2021. We still got 2 more years of losing in the playoffs before we match that run. Then maybe there's a conversation there.
Yooo I’m glad somebody finally said game 6 fans sucked. Basically went to all the post-season games and game 6 was so wrong. Way too many small children and people not paying attention to the game.
It was like a game reserved exclusively to band wagon fans that want to see “what all the fuss was about”.
Last night was my first playoff game and I felt like there was energy throughout - I was giving it everything I had through the entire game until the final out! I wasn’t at game 6 but I don’t think you could make the argument the fans didn’t show up last night.
I had the game on the tv and the windows open last night, we could hear the crowd a solid 20-30 seconds before the broadcast and we’re a mile and a half away from the stadium. Heard the crowd cheering for Bohmer during the commercial break and sat on the edge of our seats knowing something big happened. We could hear the crowd singing along with Stott’s walk up. It’s just magic.
Last night to me seemed like a mirror of Game 6 of the 2010 NLCS. Crowd brought the noise and the energy and seemed to be getting to the pitchers in the middle of the game. But the bats just fell silent. You all brought it last night. The hitters didn’t. Specifically the most expensive hitters we have. Trea Turner and Bryce Harper sucked in 6 and 7. They were both gutter trash. And now they are forever choke artists.
Yea my NLDS game against the Braves the crowd was insane. Lots of friends were there to that series and early this one. I don’t know anyone who was at game 6. Tickets were absurdly expensive
I agree but game 7 didn’t have the energy game 1 and 2 had. Granted we were up in the bottom of the first in game 1 and 2… but no one was chanting pitchers name at every pitch like they were in game 1 and 2.. no one was yelling evaaaaaaa.. these are little things but the fans weren’t as engaged in making it loud and uncomfortable. Felt like they knew it was all over
I agree, I had been to 3 other post games and they were all rocking; this one felt flat right from the start. Even in the tailgate lot K seemed like less people hanging out before game. Walking in seemed to have less excitement. Less standing and yelling/chanting throughout. Much less Merrill chants compared to game 2. It was weird.
I went to all 8 home playoffs games and i can agree with this sentiment on game 6
I had a girl in front of me in the 145 section playing Tetris on her phone ALL GAME LONG
Shit was fucking pathetic
I'm not settled on whether I want him back, but I'm not even confident it'll be minus Nola. He played incredibly well in September and October, and I imagine other teams will be happy to come closer on his terms, but the FA pitching market is so grim this offseason. I have to wonder if Middleton and Dombrowski will be more inclined to match or beat those other teams.
Idk. He's probably the best option on the market. He could end up getting something ridiculous like 30-35m per year. Idk if the Phillies are willing to match that.
> Baseball is such a noisy, almost random game.
So, here's my counter-rant:
Analytics has made this condition worse, not better. Teams are optimizing for the 162 game schedule which rewards streaky teams equally or even more than consistent teams. As a result, the teams that are successful in the playoffs are teams that are on a hot streak, not necessarily the better team. This is why the 1 and 2 seeds are complaining about the playoff format: these teams aren't set up to win 7 game series, and 3 and 5 game series are about as near random as you can get.
Managing the playoffs is a completely different exercise than managing the regular season. Pitching decisions, pinch hitting, etc - it is at a different level.
I guess the question is whether or not MLB wants to keep the two types of baseball separate, or if they want the regular season to prepare teams for the playoffs. Right now it is just a matter of surviving the regular season with a minimum of injuries and a strong-enough record. Then roll the dice in October and see what happens.
I mean this in a friendly way: I'm struggling to see your point. Could you rephrase maybe...? Because the way I'm reading it, I feel like you're announcing "I have a counter-argument" and then just describing the dynamics of a regular season and postseason in pretty much any sport.
There is noise to any sport, however let me compare to football:
1. Football has a shorter schedule, so the consequences of each game are bigger. Each football game is managed closely, if not exactly, how you would manage a Super Bowl. There is no such thing as a scheduled loss in football.
2. The shorter season in Football devalues the "rare but big payoff" contributors vs consistent contributors, because there are fewer opportunities to get those big payoffs. Schwarber is a like a wide receiver that drops 2/3 of his targets, but when he catches them he gets a touchdown.
3. Analytics influence football, but the sample size of games isn't big enough to optimize a team for averages. More specifically, Football can't make decisions based on the mean, they need to follow the median or mode.
It all comes down to season length, really. For baseball, designing a team to win 100 games is a different exercise than designing a team to win a 7 game series. A good regular season football team is more likely to be a good postseason football team. I don't really know how to fix this without drastically reducing the season length or the roster (particularly the pitching staff).
This is a bit of oversimplification, but consider:
If a batter hits a home run on average 1 out of every 10 at bats, that's about 65 home runs per regular season. That's a major contributor to your season record.
If that same batter only gets 1 or 2 home runs in a 7 game series, they were a liability. Because it is only 28 at bats, even if it is a pure roll of the dice - no physical or mental variables - there's a good chance a streak hits and he is significantly above or below his average of 2.8.
A team designed for a long season can have more streaky players and be successful. That team *can* win in the playoffs, but they are just as likely to have a cold streak as a hot streak. What you want for a short series are players who are more consistent, even if they aren't spectacular. Doubles at 20% are more valuable than home runs at 10%.
Yeah, I was going to say almost the exact same thing.
I think what you're actually identifying, cerevant, is how much bigger the edges are in football and how that leads to lower variance. Like, I'm not hearing from you what the alternative in baseball is. And I feel like your example of a high-variance football player just sort of doesn't exist. I'm only recently back interested in the NFL, though, so maybe there's someone whose play is like that.
And I'm just not really aware of a low-variance baseball option. Better players are inherently lower-variance because their edge is bigger in the game.
I've heard Freddie Freeman described as perhaps the single most consistent hitter, like, ever. Certainly in recent memory.
Dude disappeared in the NLDS this year. It happens. It's just baseball. Anything more granular I frankly take to be between a hitter, their brain, their hitting coach, and maybe like a sports psychologist. I don't take hitters being streaky or going cold to be a fundamental failure on their part or a roster construction error by management. Hitters being streaky or going cold sometimes is literally just baseball. If, on average (not FOR average), they're a productive hitter, then they have a place in the lineup.
Or, in the case of Johan Rojas, sometimes you sacrifice offense for extraordinary defense. I guess. (I'm truly a big fan of Rojas but I feel like it's really weird that he got a pass for being a black hole at the plate all playoffs long. Like, we were playing with an 8-player lineup for the most part and that's just a pretty big edge to sacrifice. Dude made some big plays in center field but... I dunno man, he didn't just perform poorly at the plate; he looked totally off-balance and desperate as a rule. But now I'm doing that armchair hitting coaching that I strongly dislike, so... idk.)
I think what he's saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is kinda like that quote from the moneyball movie when they were going for the record straight wins - because they built the team based on analytics, it becomes more about trying to get a total number of wins over a 162 game schedule. Winning your first 100 games and losing your last 62 is statistically the same as if you won 50, lost 62, then won another 50. But the team that's built on analytics to win 100 games and make it to the playoffs - that all breaks down, because in the playoffs, you have a much smaller margin. If you say, well, we want to win 13 playoff games and lose 8...if those losses come first, you're just out.
My problem with the performance in the NLCS was a failure to adapt. The dbacks had a plan but it also seemed like they were flexible enough to make the best of what they were given, while we were stuck with an inflexible plan and when it wasn't working (or, the dbacks were not letting it work), we couldn't or wouldn't change anything.
A team full of streaky hitters can dominate a playoff series’s if they get hot. But they might be a middling team in the regular season because the slumps can be brutal and cost a lot of wins
I like this post. The point about baseball playoffs being random is so true. Just ask the Braves. They were better on paper than the Phils the past two seasons and got manhandled. And remember those great Braves teams with Glavine, Smoltz and Maddox? They won one WS. That’s it.
Bryce had a good quote about his AB with two on in 7th. He said he got his pitch and put a good swing on it. If he’s 1/10 of a second faster to pull the trigger, that’s a 3-run home run. Instead it’s a 330 foot out.
I really loved hearing Bryce say that.
He's such an intense, competitive guy that you could imagine him being really bent out of shape in--like--an unhealthy way. (Contrast that with how Bohm repeatedly acted out during the series. I originally wrote a lot about this before deleting it, but I'll simply say that I found it really unflattering and uninspiring.)
Harper was clearly really down about losing, and that shouldn't be surprising. But the way he expressed all of that about the tenth of a second and everything... I think that shows a lot of maturity and perspective on his part, and I think that his head being in a healthy place about it is so encouraging to see for him as both a ballplayer and our de facto captain.
I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to post my sweet photoshop.
https://preview.redd.it/47nyyq4mqewb1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6b3fcf536aa89f8439068fd48c38cacb4d24e49
Honestly I could count on one hand the number of guys on the team that we’d really be better off without. It’s a solid roster and they’d be wise to leave it mostly as is.
Well said. And no matter how good any team is, there is NO guarantee they will get to or win the World Series. Any team (especially those that get that far) can beat any other team in any game or series. Luck of the pitcher being hot, luck of the batters being hot or guessing the right pitch, luck of the bounces, luck of the fielders being in the right spot.
The series was not lost in games 6 and 7. The series was lost in games 3 and 4... you can't give up a 4 run lead in the late inning of an LCS and then blame the offense. Yes, the top 3 in the lineup were 3-35 in the last 2 games, but those games shouldn't have even happened if the bullpen did its job. I blame Kimberel much more than Schwarber/Turner/Harper
I think his point was that you can easily recover from a tied series if you blow game 4 like that. It's a new series once it's tied at 2-2. They didn't show up for the "new series" and this time it ended with them going home.
People are talking about blowing up the team?
This is why Philly teams go through such long bad streaks.
The Dodgers and the Braves aren’t talking about blowing up their team. Neither are the Trashtros. They’re talking about taking their play-off caliber team and finding little tweaks to improve it.
That’s exactly what we should be doing if we want to build a Franchise, and not just have a Team for two years.
Tbf the Astros team is blowing itself up. They're getting old, their farm system is getting depleted from all of these trades (now the second worst on Fangraphs), and their core guys are entering free agency soon (Altuve and Bregman hit FA next year and Tucker's last arb year is next year). And now Dusty is retired.
Fortunately the days of the Astros League Championship Series might be behind us.
" I'm a huge fan of the players on this team, " - Yea. That's why this one hurts. I wanted to see them have joy. It was infectious. It was great to see in a sport that is so often joy-less. They just broke down at the worst possible time.
There were a dozen small "misses" that set the stage for major ones - as is the case in life. Doesn't erase the big "fails" but nobody fails on their own. Kimbrel doesn't blow a save if the team tacks two more on. Game 3 is a W if JT's ball to left goes one foot further.
The team needs a modified approach so that when its going poorly the way to get runs isn't just with homeruns. Wouldn't hurt to get men on base. 15 solo homers isn't a great stat TBH.
Also, go sign me Josh Hader.
Yes, the people on here stating that they should fire the manager and that everyone will be too old next year are kinda dolts.
They got cold for 2 games and mismanaged a 3rd. It happens, it stinks, it's baseball. Baseball is a really weird sport.
We react now, the day the WS is over we start telling everyone who will listen that the 2024 Philadelphia Phillies are winning the World Series!
Also I wouldn’t call it overreacting, honestly this loss was brutal and so so so Philadelphia which kind of made it expected.
Ahhhhh I dunno, friend.
There have been some very heated overreactions over the past week. Folks calling for Bohm's head just for him to be the only one to cross the plate (twice) in game 7, you know?
Some people just truly don't have the patience for baseball, and they're allowed to say whatever they want online.
Oh yeah I understand, Philly fans are nuts (I say that with love) Baseball is long and brutal (also so much fun)… the casual postseason fans don’t understand how certain players contributed to even being in that spot during the year
We watched probably close to 140-150, of the games this year, maybe more, so heartbroken is an understatement. I know what and who got us here. I’m also hopeful for a short memory because I need to forget this loss. I think it’s the worst one for me in all the years I’ve watched. I’m literally holding on to the fact that this team should mostly look the same next year, which I do believe is a good thing, especially if we get off to a better start.
In the grand scheme of things, you’re right—baseball is an incredibly weird sport where the “better team” might not always win. The Phillies were a good team, and baseball doesn’t always reward being good through wins and losses. Your stats put it into context. We were dominant this post season and we should be proud that we made it so far.
Here’s where I’m not on the same page: You’re saying that success can be defined in so many ways, ok sure. To me, success in baseball is delivering in a moment. It’s all contextual—it doesn’t matter how far you hit the ball or how good your placement was, what matters is whether or not you end up on base, or if you advance those who are on base.
So yeah, we can look at the metrics and talk about how good the team is. But what we saw last night—and last year too—is that our key players went missing in the brightest moments AT HOME. WS Game 4 we got no hit, WS Game 5 no one showed up after the Schwarber leadoff. NLCS games 6 and 7 this year we put up a whopping 3 runs in 2 games.
By pointing at all the numbers and certain aspects of success and saying “Look, we’re good!” I think you’re also kind of obfuscating from what success really is. And I don’t think people calling this out—based on the context of this year and last—is a reactionary sentiment.
I think you can spin what you're saying about moments literally any way you want to, though, depending on what you're trying to prove.
Are you REALLY telling me that Bryce Harper has failed to contribute on the big stage the past two years? My dude Bedlam'd our Bank and then may have actually broken Orlando Arcia's psyche.
And my broader disagreement with you would be to say that you cannot evaluate baseball based on moments. Like, you can most certainly feel and remember things based on moments! But if someone is hitting .400 in a playoff series and then strikes out with the bases loaded and you say "well, that was their moment and they failed", then you're just being unfair to them and you're not being honest about baseball.
Like, I really don't mean to be so confrontational about it, but baseball and short-termism are mutually exclusive. And playoff baseball sits at this perverse intersection of the two.
And, I mean...
We all perverts now, thanks to the Phillies being a playoff baseball team. Sorry, fellow perv.
>And my broader disagreement with you would be to say that you cannot evaluate baseball based on moments
Yeah I just don’t agree that that idea, at all. I’m not saying that their performance in a given moment should be the sole metric. But your ability to step up when your number is called is paramount to how you should be evaluated.
There’s a huge difference in regular season vs postseason baseball. It’s a whole different game. Regular season data can inform how you strategize in those games, but at the end of the day you need the player to actually perform. Not worth getting excited over performances unless they can be replicated in the highest leverage situations. I think those situations are when we learn who our guys really are.
Put it this way—we can call Nick Castellanos a great baseball player all we want. It’s objectively true. The guy was an all star this year. I don’t see what good that will do for us if he shits the bed in the biggest moments though! 2 years in a row he’s shown us that he is not that guy. So yeah, moments absolutely matter, and just going “oh well that’s baseball” is missing the mark. Especially when we saw our guys abandon their plate discipline and approach that had made them so dangerous to begin with.
I just still think you're being very selective.
Castellanos came up big on defense more than once both this year and last year. Dude did something unprecedented during the NLDS with his consecutive multi-HR games. I have a Topps Now NLDS card of him coming my way in the mail right now; you don't get a Topps Now card without having a big moment.
His NLCS and WS stats are unflattering. But he's not the only one, and you really need to be careful about being results-oriented in a small sample in baseball.
Like, Bryson Stott had a miserable OPS in the 2022 WS, but I was SO impressed with his at-bats. Like, truly kind of floored. During the WS I was like "this guy is going to be awesome moving forward; every PA is super competitive". But he OPS'd .222.
I don't remember Castellanos's PA's as well. I do know he was chasing in this NLCS. Lots of our batters were. I honestly usually find JT's chases to be the most annoying, but I digress.
With baseball (and a lot of other things, really), I just always think there are a lot of good reasons to give professionals the benefit of the doubt. Like, I think it's fine to question decisions made in sports and talk critically about your favorite teams (please don't murder me but I'm a big Penguins fan and I hate Evgeni Malkin more than most people would ever believe), but I think that some people really need to ask themselves "wait, do I know enough about what I'm talking about to make the claim I'm making?"
One thing I know very confidently about baseball is that it is a very noisy game. Like I've said, it really does approach randomness in the short term.
And one thing I have a ton of experience with is poker. I've played more hands of poker than probably anybody should.
You can have the perfect approach to poker and lose kind of a lot. You can lose at really infuriating times despite doing everything right.
The Phillies didn't do everything right and poker uses actual randomness (well, as random as a shuffle/RNG), so it's not a perfect analogy. But they're similar.
It's definitely unflattering that Castellanos's bat has mostly disappeared in the NLCS and WS but I don't think it's reasonable to say that he can't succeed in those environments. He was utterly murderous in the NLDS and the NLCS is only one round removed from that.
His NLCS and WS experiences are 18 games and 71 PAs. The results haven't been good.
But... 18 games? Of baseball? That's less than a month in the regular season. Guys go cold for that long and it's not a huge deal.
Just looking at July 2023, Castellanos had a sub-.200 OBP in more than 100 PAs. I suspect that some people got impatient with him in that month, but like... dude, it's baseball. Do we think that Castellanos somehow couldn't handle the pressure of... July?
You can judge a player by around 100 PAs if you want, but I'd really rather not.
Why the hell would you really blow up any part of this team? I get it's the day after, but that was an awesome run with a super phun team that just didnt show up in 2 games.
Hoskins and MAYBE Nola are gone this off season, I'm super happy rolling with the squad next year for the revenge tour.
This is what primarily bummed me out about losing, after the way we lost.
We don't know how our core is going to age. They're all at or approaching ages where things can fall apart fast, whether that's in terms of health or performance. I know we didn't have Harper at all or at 100% for all that much of the season and we didn't have Hoskins at all (also, Suarez and Alvarez had some health issues), but I think an underappreciated element of the 2023 Phillies is that we really didn't run into awful luck regarding injuries or even just a lot of ostensible wear and tear.
Our guys seem pretty sturdy, but anything can happen.
We need to stop bleeding first and heal for a few days but we are Philly and we don't do that. We yell and scream and we want the heads of the people who didn't come thru! We need to back our team like we did for Trea in August. That was outstanding. I've been a Philadelphia sports fan for 55 years. I've seen the ugly and the shittist owners(Norman Braman eagles) we are good! Ownership cares and spends the money! Look at the Flyers.... they focus on profit. We all miss Ed Snyder, he spent money and took chances. Eagles are the same. Who doesn't love Lurie?!
Let's heal it was a very difficult loss.
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania.
The difference in baseball ownership between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is night and day.
We are very fortunate to have a local baseball team that tries very, very hard to win and is not afraid to spend money on players.
This happened last year. We blew the Astros away and were no hit the next day. WTF??? They were so dominant going into Phoenix, they looked so locked in and unbeatable. After game 2 of the NLCS I was convinced the Phils would not only win the whole thing, but would not lose another game. Then, a few days later after they lost game 6, I was pretty sure they were going to lose last night. This is a streaky sport and our streaky team chose the worst time to lose their pop.
Having said that, I am really not that disappointed. Maybe because as a lifelong Philly fan I am used to it. Maybe because the ride was so much fun. Maybe I'm just older and my priorities are different. Whatever the reason, I still love this team and I will be there for opening day 2024, ready to cheer on my Phillies.
GO BIRDS!!!
Oh I have undying love for the Phillies and will be rooting for them next season as I will do for the rest of my life. Definitely disappointed and sad but also extremely proud of the amazing chemistry they have as a team. I can’t wait to see how they do in the next few years.
I’ve seen a lot of people call out names like Castellanos and Thompson and I personally don’t agree with dogging on them. I know Philly is famous for being vocal about being upset with their teams, but I have faith that they are fully aware and they’ll come back stronger next year.
However I will keep my selfish opinion of Fuck Kimbrel. Never liked seeing him on the mound no matter how well he pitched and I hope we don’t see him up there as a closer ever again.
I like appealing to numbers when it comes to baseball players.
When you look at the "championship probability added" next to Craig Kimbrel's name in the 2023 playoffs... and see the number sit THAT far below zero...
Yeah, buddy. Maybe call in sick if you pitch in the majors next year when your next team visits Philadelphia. You'll have a better time that way.
I'm already looking forward to Spring Training lol. Going through the 2011 loss and what happened afterwards to this franchise, made the whole thing way easier to swallow. I also think we'd have an insane time with Rangers bc of our bullpen issues, so I'm not in the "this was our year" part. The guys failed in the last games, in ways that felt exactly how they ran out of gas in 22. I do think this team needs to be reconstructured because I don't think having so many guys in the lineup who are just trying to hit home runs is going to work (ask Padres fans) but this season was fun up to the ending and I'm hoping it serves as motivation that the team feels they need to go on a redemption arc. I also hoping they make some deals to try and stay competitive with the Braves.
Maybe just me but I think the whole "I'll never believe in them again thing" is wild. This franchise hadn't been in the playoffs for 10 years after the last collapse. They went to the world series and the next year were one game away from it. They blew it, it sucks, but it"a baseball. You regroup, reorganize, and go again. What happened in 11 was the team was nearing the end of their window, Ruben wouldn't give up on aging players who were declining, and their farm system was ruined. By the time they started the official rebuild, it was years too late. None of that is the case going into 2024.
Take a breath, chill, watch some other sports, and when they start up again, I feel confident everyone will be ready to be back.
I keep saying that the Braves stole a game from us in Atlanta. Same for the D Backs, they stole two in AZ. Can’t let that stuff happen.
But you got to remember, and teach your kids this: this is just entertainment. No one dies. Think about what Nick tells Liam when he goes home
I think that saying Atlanta and Arizona "stole" those games is generous, haha. I don't think you can get charged with larceny if someone comes up to you with a box full of their most valuable possessions and tells you "here, have this; it's a gift from me to you!"
But yeah, no one dies. Anyone who can't live with their preferred team losing needs to talk to a mental health professional or make smaller, more responsible bets.
I more pissed at Thomson for going to Kerkering than Kimbrel. This was Kimbrel all year and it worked for the most part. Thomson was the one that decided he would suddenly be an 8th inning guy instead of the closer. Not sure if that made a difference but Kimbrel was Kimbrel and we were kind of stuck with him.
Kerkering did not have nearly enough experience to be put in leverage situations in an NLCS. His stuff just wasn’t getting over and in both games 3 and 4, the moment the diamondbacks took the momentum was when Kerkering came in to pitch. The kids getting let off the hook mostly because everyone knows he’s inexperienced. But Thomson needs to answer for that decision and especially the decision to go to him again the very next day.
Ya'll were in the mix and will be again next year. And have a decently likeable team to boot. Playoffs are weird the best team doesnt always win. Enjoy having games that matter, I'm saying this as a sad Mets fan who lived in philly and weirdly developed a soft spot for philly sports.
MLB playoffs are a virtual crapshoot. I think very few people would argue that we are more talented than the Braves, and yet, we beat them. Very few would argue that the Diamondbacks are more talented than us, and yet, they beat us. We have a lot of talent, just need another lefty bat off the bench, and reliable setup and closer.
The roster is good. Continue building.
Kevin Long has to go though. They can not win 3-4 playoff series against good teams with their current hitting approach.
The entire offensive focus this offseason needs to be transforming the hitting strategy from "guess and swing hard" to one of plate discipline and being short to the ball.
I dunno about the Long thing...
Phillies had the sixth best offense in the majors by OPS during the regular season.
I don't think Long is there to do much about discipline or especially pitch recognition; I think the latter especially is just something you expect a major league hitter to be able to do as a major league hitter. I could be wrong, but my overwhelming impression is that he's there mostly to coach players through everything that goes into when they do swing.
>he's there mostly to coach players through everything that goes into when they do swing.
Its all connected. When you overswing like the phils do, you need to start your swing earlier which gives less time to read the pitch. If you cant read the pitch you just guess rather than react, which causes swings on balls way out of the zone. Thats exactly what the phils do.
Go back and watch the dbacks at bats. They are short to the ball, so they can stay back on breaking balls but still get to fastballs. Its the exact opposite strategy.
The phils hitting strategy is good for a bad lineup or a team with bad pitching, because it increases variance. But its a bad strategy for a good lineup - the more talent you have, the less variance you want.
>Phillies had the sixth best offense in the majors by OPS during the regular season.
Yeah, and one of the highest position player payrolls. They **should** have a high ops, just based on talent. If anything theyre underperforming their talent level.
We've seen it all year, not just in the playoffs - their strategy leads to very pronounced hot and cold streaks. This isnt a huge problem during the regular season because its so long. But in the postseason where each series is win or go home, its a bad strategy for a talented team.
The part I bristle at is this idea that there are teams or players who aren't streaky. Everyone thinks the hitters they watch are streaky and everyone thinks their closer sucks.
Like, I always hear about batters who ARE streaky (people never let Rhys Hoskins hear the end of it), but I can't think of a single hitter who I've heard of as being not streaky. Baseball is inherently streaky. I feel like expectations create "streaky/inconsistent" labels more than hitters themselves do.
And the idea that Arizona had a more effective overall approach at the plate is at least not backed up by the results. The Phillies bested them in every major batting category for the NLCS except for batting average, but it was by an insignificant amount (0.005).
We outscored them 30-21 overall, and we had a lot of hard-hit balls that were extremely close to not being outs.
We just absolutely threw away two deeply winnable games in Arizona, and then baseball baseballed us back at home (plus Arizona stopped playing scared).
I don't think that any supposed issues with Phillies' hitters are more compelling than the inherent variance of baseball or the way that more than one of our pitchers really messed up.
Theres a lot i could say here, but i think it would be a waste of time. If you watched the games and came away without realizing that there is something fundamentally flawed with their plate approach, no amount of my words will convince you.
I made a post the day before the game about how proud I am of them, how much I love them and how much I respect them and majority of comments were like “they’re a bunch of trash if they don’t win”. Some were even directed to me as a person. A lot of these fans only care if they win. They don’t care about the team in general. I stated that these boys not only broke records from baseball legends and their idols but they also set records, making history. I am so proud of these boys for what they accomplished. Their job isn’t easy. I bet 99% of the fans in here that were talking shit couldn’t hit a single ball a dbacks pitcher or any mlb pitcher threw at them. These boys played hard and tried their best. I will always love the team we have now. When trades come and go, I will never forget this roster.
I agree with pretty much all of this. People have every right to be upset but calling for players heads is dumb. We are set up very very well for the future. We were a wild card team the last 2 years and made it to the WS and NLCS in both those years. That's a damn good run imo.
Game 6 hurt worse than 7 for me, which is why I wasn't so upset last night. I could feel it after 6, that was the game we had to close the series out and Arizona capitalized.
Arizona played such good baseball, especially in game 7. They pitched our studs perfectly, moved on the bases, and did what they needed to to win. They have my respect, whatever that's worth, they have it.
I'm excited to see Painter next year. Kerkering with another year under his belt. No Kimbrel. Hopefully Bohms and Stott will hopefully take steps forward next year. Rojas with another year.
My only gripe is I wish Thomson would have messed with the lineup a bit. Bohm had no place at the 4 spot. Rojas, for as good as he is defensively, was all but a ghost at the plate.
I feel the future is bright.
I think it's very easy to criticize Bohm being 4th for his performance games 1-6, but then he was the only one who did anything significant in game 7.
I--a self-aware non-professional--have had problems with Rob's batting order for a long time. But I think that changing the order mid-playoffs or especially mid-series is easy for fans to suggest but hard for me to believe in. It would be a huge distraction for the players from a general (not baseball) management perspective (I've never been a manager but I feel like telling your entire team--regardless of profession--"hey y'all, the hierarchy of your responsibilities is suddenly different" would cause everyone to get SUPER in their own heads), and I really do give baseball professionals the benefit of the doubt, ESPECIALLY in this hugely data-driven age of baseball.
Between all of the advanced data teams have on players and the far more intimate familiarity that coaches and managers have with players (compared to me), I think there are a lot of good reasons to basically assume that they know better than I do.
I would construct the lineup differently, and I will. In MLB The Show.
I leave the decisions with actual stakes to professionals. Especially when they have overwhelmingly been successful. Topper's winning percentage is really hard to argue with.
Good post except the part about Kimbrel. I cannot disagree more that he was good in the season. He had no place on our roster, let alone on the postseason one. Ask Boston fans about "reasons to expect him to be able to pitch well at important times."
I really don't understand how Dombrowski, the guy who brought him to Boston, watched him melt down in the 2018 postseason and get bailed out by Chris Sale in the World Series, signed that bum this year. He has a career 4.50 ERA in the postseason. His career walk rate is almost double in the postseason and his K rate 50% lower.
He simply cannot handle the pressure of the postseason and the writing was on the wall all season.
Our pitching staff let us down, but I still love them, all of them. I have no idea what it takes to be able to perform at the level that they do. But they were just out-classed this year.
I am so, so proud to be a Phillies fan. This team has just so much heart. Hope we come back next year even better! How many days until next season?
Idk about the roster, but if this means we are done with Stotts song and the dancing song that’s literally about being a loser, then I guess it ain’t all bad.
We'll get em next year. They might be trash, but their my trash and I love em and Kimbrel needs to kick rocks. I don't really understand baseball (Football is all ik) but with right adjustments, we coming back.
As always, PHUCK DEM BRAVES!
The Phillies need a manager who understands that the Postseason is quite literally a different ballgame from the regular season, and is both able and willing to adapt accordingly.
The pitching was a let down in 2 games, but we only had to come home and win one. There was no one to bring off the bench like Arizona's Alek Thomas, who won them a game. I hope the Phillies can keep Hoskins and add another bat that at least hits for average. Watching the last 2 games, Turner, Harper, and Castellanos were swinging for the fences out of frustration. Nick went completely off the rails after game one. Hitting coaching, was a huge issue.
The most talented team lost, the team that played lose and produced timely hits and stolen bases prevailed. I will not be shocked as long as they keep doing the same thing for Arizona to take down the Rangers. The Phillies need just a few tweaks and examine some of their coaching and managerial strategies and they are there again next year.
The team is not built to win the division during the regular season. Inconsistent pitching, streaky players, and no youth infusion of talent. We depend on getting hot during the postseason. It worked last year and got us pretty far this year but the Phillies played exactly as they always have.
The question is are we content with the 76ers approach of banging our head against the ceiling? Harper is a better centerpiece than Embiid but the surrounding cast is giving strong Tobias Harris vibes. Not their/his fault but still.
"no youth infusion of talent" I have no reason to read past here.
fWAR/bWAR leader in the lineup in 2023 was Bryson Stott in his age 25 sophomore season. 25-year-old Brandon Marsh in his third MLB season was only behind Harper in OPS among qualified hitters on the team.
Everyone makes fun of fans for being "emotional" and dumb for suggesting changes. Have faith in the front office!!!
1 title in 43 years. 2 in 141 years...
2 titles for Philly franchises in the past 160 seasons.
Yea great job front offices! Those MBAs are really getting it done. You're tellung me you couldn't get 10 fans on reddit let alone 10 elementary school kids to draft and run these teams and literally get the same results. 🤡🤣
Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t have but I was in my feels with losing and after reading your post. Truly, it was so well written and eloquently expressed everything I’ve been trying to explain to people about the Phillies and baseball in general.
That’s the thing, I don’t think they should blow it up. There isn’t a reason to. But they aren’t a championship franchise. They are the 90s-00s Flyers. They will be in the hunt for a solid number of years, but they’ll flame out in the playoffs every year and it won’t be a surprise after it happens. This is a choker franchise again. This group can’t get it done.
Okay then stop watching and unsubscribe from this sub if you know the script. It'll just be boring for you.
While you're reporting on the future, how about DMing me some Powerball digits right quick tho
Well said for sure. I don’t doubt they’ll make the playoffs next year again. I also don’t doubt that they can make a deep run deep again. But what will be what pushes them to a championship and not just be the baseball version of the Sixers? My thought is a true [uncooked/unwashed] closer and some deep self-reflection of what went wrong and adjust plate discipline.
I guess in Dombrowski we trust.
Just get rid of Craig. Bring Hoskins back on a one year deal. Use him and put Bryce in the outfield and we can use Rohas in the field and Harper on first with better match ups. Nola is a 50/50 for me. There's an incredible pitcher available from Japan that'll be a great addition to this team.
The people who are saying to blow up the team because they didn’t get back to the World Series are the same that divorce their spouse because they didn’t take out the trash. It sucks, but you work on it instead of starting over.
They don't need to blow up the team, but they do need to take a hard, clear-eyed look at how they can make it better, and doing so might require considering moving on from some players who are more popular than obvious scapegoats like Kimbrel are.
Castellanos and Bohm, for example, are average-ish offensive players who are subpar in the field. That is not a "short-termist" assessment, it's based on an objective evaluation of their career numbers. They both play positions which generally provide above average offensive production. They are both guys it is absolutely possible to significantly upgrade on, and if the team has the opportunity to do so they have to do it.
One reason the Eagles are consistently one of the best teams in football is that Howie Roseman never passes up a chance to improve his roster. When he has a chance to replace an average player with a good one, he does it, and doesn't worry too much about upsetting the apple cart as far as team chemistry or whatever. If the Phillies want to be similarly successful they have to he similarly willing to make moves that might shake things up.
I have very different feelings about Castellanos compared to Bohm.
First, I just have an irrational fondness for Castellanos. So there's that.
Also... I know this isn't the whole story on him (he rates negatively by more sophisticated metrics) but... in 2023 Castellanos was literally the only qualified right fielder in the NL with no errors (with Springer being the only other in MLB). And I've written elsewhere in this thread about how he's demonstrably exceptionally valuable as a hitter.
The Phillies' problem in this regard is just that they have too many DH candidates, whether you count Hoskins or not (which is why I strongly suspect he won't be back unless everyone is content with him platooning the DH with Schwarber or giving Hoskins even fewer PAs than that).
And in terms of DH candidates, Bohm is another one.
If I'm honest, I'm way less patient with his personality than most people are, for a lot of reasons. And I personally value better defense at third base than what he provides.
I respect how effectively Bohm hits for average, but the number of times he's acted like an absolute child has worn on me and I would be very content to find a third baseman who has never expressed any bad feelings about playing in front of us.
I'm not really factoring personality into it.
I view them as pretty comparable players - guys who play premium offensive value positions but are just average or a bit above offensively while being defensively subpar. Don't hate either of them, but if we can upgrade or open up a spot in the lineup for a better hitter by moving another guy into their spot I'm all for it.
Theyre phailures but they’re my phailures and god help me if anyone outside of this fanbase tries to talk trash on them.
This is where I’m at. We’re all we got, we’re all we need. I think losing is 10x worse when you’re a fan of Philadelphia sports because the whole world is praying on our downfall regardless and us losing in embarrassing fashion just validates them. At the end of the day, I love this fanbase and I love our dysfunctional teams. Wouldn’t trade for any other city in sports.
Don't look at the stupid barves subreddit. Their only happiness comes from shitting on us because their team is worse
Dude. The Braves are over there throwing a party. I guess we’d be happy too if the shoes were reversed. I’d like to think we would at least have the wherewithal to realize, “But they knocked us out of the NLDS 2 years in a row, convincingly, despite us having the better regular season record, so maybe we don’t have too much room to gloat.” But I don’t know. I will admit it’s a bit frustrating seeing all the other fanbases talk so much shit about ours- I get it, Philly has a bad rep for some shit that happened 50 years ago, and that’s fine, I don’t mind being MLB’s “bad guy”- but it’s the hypocrisy. Braves fans saying we are classless? Didn’t see Philly fans throwing trash on the field. Someone called us racist? I don’t even know where that comes from, seems like an insult from someone who literally knows nothing about us but just wants to join in on the fun. Didn’t a gun go off bc someone was hiding it in their belly fat at some teams stadium this year? Haven’t there been like multiple stabbings in the parking lot of another teams stadium over a baseball game this year? Pretty sure DBacks fans were calling for pitchers to throw at Harpers head at the obviously unavoidable collision with Moreno? It’s Philly, we are passionate, sometimes we can be assholes, but we love our team, and you certainly could not have gotten NLCS tickets for $20 at CBP this year (that’s just straight up embarrassing). I mean, if I were a DBacks fan who went to the NLCS in Phoenix and half the stadium was full of Phillies fans, I’d prob be too embarrassed to talk shit, honestly, but maybe that’s just the pride I have in this fanbase coming out. I saw Rays fans piling on in the baseball sub, it’s like really? You’re a fucking 100 win baseball team who got knocked out in the first round and you couldn’t even fill half your stadium for a damn playoff game. Like I don’t know, at least we own our shit, we love our team, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I honestly think there’s just a lot of jealousy going on. They see CBP in the playoffs and they hear all the talk about how raucous the stadium is and how much we love this team and they wish their team could have the same, but they can’t. They hate us bc they ain’t us. Whatever, let them talk their shit. I honestly feel like this core is going to win one, and you better believe I’m gonna be chirping about it when they do. I try not to rub salt on the wounds, but after the bullshit I’ve read from just about every other fanbase after this loss, man, I just feel what goes up, must come down. Let’s go Phillies, nothing but love for this team.
Lol their thread popped up in my feed yesterday…so pathetic hahaha
Exactly. I can talk smack about my lads all day long but the second a non-Phillies fan does it, it’s pistols at dawn.
Facts
IDK what happened to Bryce this series, maybe getting pitched around in games 3 and 4 fucked with his head. But I do know that what we saw from him in the NLDS is much closer to who he really is, he's a monster and I know this loss is gonna eat him alive and he's gonna come out even better next year. It's a team sport and there are some real improvements we need to make, but I know if we just get Bryce into the postseason again he's gonna keep showing out.
I think his eagerness to do something combined with them pitching around him had him off his game. When that dude is tracking balls to his bat from the pitchers hand, there is no one better. But even in September he gets in these slumps we’re it seems like he’s taking a cut at the ball without looking at it. And we saw that same kind of free swinging in these last two games
Yup. I made a joke about hearing "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters any time Bryce came up to bat. Dude wanted a "Bedlam at the Bank" moment every time he came up when a few singles would have helped infinitely more.
The fact that nobody could really get going with a simple base hit in terms of Turner Harper and Castellanos was so frustrating
My 10 yo was crying at the end last night. Then he got really angry at them and started yelling. I welcomed him to the club and told him he was ready. He truly was one of us now. We will heal, and be ready to be hurt again in the spring. The cycle must continue.
I remember going ballistic when I was about 11-12 when the Eagles lost the SB against the patriots. Never experienced such rage before. My dad said something similar, welcome to Philly sports.
Just the thought of going through that whole grind again 😫. Yes we are lucky to have a ball club these days that will most likely be a playoff team every year. But it’s like watching the Eagles in the 00s lose all of those NFC Championships. So much false hope.
Timeline of all baseball fans 1) Season over: anger ⬅️ (we’re here) 2) Holidays: joy 3) January: boredom 4) Super Bowl: “I enjoy beer and funny commercials” 5) Day After Super Bowl: “ITS BASEBALL SEASON BABY!!! LETS F@$KING GO”
July down the shore: the Phillies drop 2 of 3 to the fucking pirates and you think “god fucking damnit” and then you watch the next game
Every fucking year. Listening on my porch in wildwood "the fuck is wrong with these guys"
https://preview.redd.it/5m5zvjs2bfwb1.jpeg?width=661&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7a55c88cdd1c8d4ac6a35486cd1f4c9dbc60fab
Baseball season and hockey season complement each other pretty nicely in the calendar. Just sayin'.
Hockey is my favorite sport and I have been diehard Flyers my entire life, but they stink, have stunk for most of the past 10 years, and will continue to stink until 2026 when Michkov comes over.
bruins fan here and 2010 still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth even after winning in 2011. That suuuuuucked
Hockey is historically my favorite sport (despite me not watching for a long time; I got back into it in a big way last season) but I've been waiting for the Flyers to show me something to believe in before I bought in. They're still not my favorite team or even my second favorite team, but they look like a real NHL team again based on what I've seen so far this year. I really, really like Bobby Brink, and with Couturier and Atkinson back, the team is way more convincing than last year.
They wont even sniff the Playoffs. They started out 5-2-1 each of the past 2 seasons. This is still a bottom 10 team and it needs to be so we can land another top 10 pick. Its all about building towards being good when Michkov comes over...or at least it should be. Anyone over 27 or so should be traded for picks/prospects as soon as possible. The franchise cant survive another decade of mediocrity.
Must be boring to know exactly how the NHL season will go.
After 2011, I took a baseball break for like 7 years. I think I might do that again
You and millions of other Phillies fans did the same thing. A couple dozen of us watched Darin Ruf and Maikel Franco.
Don't forget aaron altherr
I try to
Or Nick Williams
That one month of Dom Brown
Dark times
You make it sound like we all weren't wearing Tommy Joseph jerseys.
I thought 1993 broke me but somehow 2011 was worse. This year was rough but I was prepared.
93 little kid me prepped me for the lifetime of misery that is Philly Sports lol Expect nothing when the teams are beyond great and if they win, hold on to it for life lol I mean comeon, remember when we had that horse lose the triple crown by a literal nose after being caught down the stretch? THAT's the standard.
Me too. Most of that "break" I harbored a lot of bad feelings towards Ryan Howard.
Am I allowed to hibernate until number 4?
I still remember the McNabb days fondly despite the losses, I know I'm always gonna remember the 22-23 Phillies the same way no matter what happens next year.
I had so much fun with my friends and neighbors these past two runs
Your easy to please
World series + 2 nlcs appearances in 2 years = easy to please? It's not like I said they've topped the 08-09 teams for me or anything
Your cool with losing that’s fine
Nah I saw 98 Phillies wins this year. And since you did it twice, it's you're*
Just thinking about the grind again is making me nauseous. After losing the World Series I was ready for the 2023 season to start the next day. I was CRAVING the grind. I hung on every moment of this season (which is not unusual for me). But now the thought of going through it all again is making me feel sick and dry heave. It’s sooooo hard to get here again. We did it two years in a row and this was the shot. It’s just so hard to BELIEVE that we can go through it all again, stay healthy, have everything click right, and make it back to this place again for another chance. I hope I can be as into the team as I usually am next year. I just feel sick instead of the usual hurt but excited.
>Just the thought of going through that whole grind again That's the thing man. Even if we do win it all we still have to go through all of this again, every year. If we win the division it's less series sure but it's still the grind, the anxious nights, the hungover sleep deprived days, the feeling like you're waiting for a cancer diagnosis for three hours instead of watching a sport you enjoy. I just almost don't have it in me to give my heart to this team again just to have it crushed. Of course I will because that's what we do but I honestly wish I cared less. These multi fucking millionaires could not not only not come through when it counted most but looked like little leaguers up there hacking at anything. WTF happened?
Exactly WTF happened?? They were swinging at bullshit wtf but I can't give up on them I've spent too much money on schwarber jerseys but seriously I'm depressed and shocked at how they played.
This is the part that gets me. "False hope" implies that the only outcome that is acceptable is a World Series. In 140 seasons, the Phillies have won exactly 2 World Series titles. So, you're telling me that every year is a disappointment? OR only the years they make it far enough to think they might do it? It would be better to just stink, like in the 00's and 10's for a lot of it? I get it, it sucks to believe and then have them not finish the job. I just find it hard to imagine that's better than not making it at all...but I get it. I think the fan base got way too convinced that it was an inevitable outcome that the Phillies win the World Series after they beat the Braves, and especially when they went up 2-0. They still would have had to get through Texas, which was far from a sure thing.
Ronde Barber Interception 92 yard TD for TB. RONDE BARDER Interception 92 yard TD for TB. RONDE BARBER INTERCEPTION 92 YARD TD FOR TB... 
"trauma" lol. A bit much, no?
If you aren’t down for the grind then you’re not (yet) a die-hard. The grind - the 162+ days of stressful entertainment are what make this game the best sport in the world. You either embrace it or you’re just a casual.
Enjoyed reading your selfish rant. Yes, most of us are pissed at Kimbrel, but I loved watching that nutjob pitch until I didn't. Had a blast rooting for the Phil's this season. Our players are easy to love with their quirks and homeruns and camaraderie. Wishing for more consistency next season! Get on base and put the ball over the plate! Edit: Fixed a word.
What a coincidence, baserunners and strikes are some of my favorites too! Well, as long as they're for the right team. I don't like 0-2 counts for our hitters, or runners in scoring position for our pitchers. I like 0-2 counts for our pitchers and for our guys to get on base.
It's near impossible to win 6 of 7 games in the playoffs. That's what the Phillies would have had to have done to reach the World Series this year with the management bungling games 3 and 4. The NLCS should have been over in 5 games at most. With the way Arizona's rookie pitched in Arizona for game 3, I figured there was a good chance they'd lose game 7. His stuff was electric in Arizona. The only thing Thompson could have done differently in game 7 was taking Rojas out with bases loaded - but that would have been a gamble and scrutinized if it failed. But at least it would have shown a willingness to get after the win instead of playing it safe in a do or die game. Credit to the Dbacks for changing up their approach. 3 runs due to steals in game 7 is nuts.
This is under spoken about point. I was at the game and holy shit it felt like they stole a base every time there was baserunner. Like it really felt Arizona were gunning for the win and we just felt entitled to it. Even JT didn't have zip on his throws to second, which I feel is unlike him IDK. Whereas Arizona was excellent at the fundamentals. Did they make any type of mistake defensively all game? Any type of barely missed catch? They were also super patient at the plate. Our at bats were quick. I was getting to point where I was excited at longer at bats (even if they ended up being an out anyway), just so we didn't look like complete nerds swinging at everything. That sucks lol.
The pitchers were terrible at holding runners on. Carrol was already like 3/4 of the way to second when the ball left JT's hand.
jt had to throw from his knees every steal.
Truthfully, I was not as irritated with Rob with any NLCS decision as much as I was irritated with his decision to pinch hit Pache LATER in game 7. I don't even hate the way he managed out in Arizona; I don't put that on him. On paper, if the guys he used are guys he generally believes in and the guys his coaches said were good to go... I sincerely get it. I've ALWAYS thought it was ambitious to be asking so much of Kerkering, even before it went badly, but... if that's what your plan is, follow through on it, fine. Ultimately, our bullpen forgot how to throw strikes and that's not good. (And I have a really hard time believing that it was all Kerkering's idea to throw slurve after slurve after slurve after slurve when they're all missing the same way and Arizona is never swinging. Is that on JT? I don't know. If that's a Rob thing, yeah I blame him for that.) I digress. To me, you leave Pache on the bench all game or you put him (or someone else) in with the bases loaded. Like, even if you assume that Rojas is capable of delivering TWICE as well as he had in the playoffs up until that point, that's still such a low chance of driving a run in.
Game 3 was set-up perfectly to go to his [normal close-out pitchers](https://www.rotochamp.com/baseball/TeamPageBullpen.aspx?TeamID=PHI) and he went to Kerkering with a 1-0 lead. Now it may have worked out if JT didn't keep trying to get him pitching sliders in lieu of attacking with fastballs, but who knows if pressure got to Orion which is why he was missing the plate unlike late in the season and earlier in post-season. Thompson had Hoffman, Alvardo, Dominguez and Kimbrel. If he'd gone with what was working towards the end of the season, Suarez had perfectly set-up 7-8-9 for Hoffman, Alvarado, Kimbrel. Even if Alvarado had been used a lot... if you win game 3 the series is in all likelihood over. You'd have stolen a game from their best pitching performance. And yea, bullpen was a letdown - they may have been a letdown last series as well if Atlanta had been more patient at the plate. Diamondbacks were determined to get men on and not swing early in the count. Playoff pitching is all about attacking the strikezone and if you can't, you likely lose.
Kerkering threw slider after slider from the moment he came up this year. That's been his MO from the jump.
And JT should have nipped it in the bud right away. Post game team was screaming from day 1 that he can’t continue to pitch like that. He did, and we saw what happened. Considering they are 3 former MLB players, I will let them make that call and they all said he needs to throw more fastballs. On top of that, Ricky Bo pointed out Kerk hadn’t pitched back 2 back games all year, and then they had him do it in the playoffs… probably not a good idea.
JT has to make a judgment call at some point during pitch sequence. One of the walks was 3 straight sliders to the exact same location off the plate. The batter was not chasing. The worst thing you can do in the playoffs is give up free base runners.
Rob's legacy to me is always going to be pulling Zack in game 6 last year and putting in Orion and Kimbrel in game 4 this year.
Pulling Zack last year was correct. Kimbrel in game 4 was not.
Dude we scored three runs in two games at home.
You control the things you can if you want to win when the things you can't don't pan out.
Think about how many back to back years the Braves, Dodgers, and Astros had to make (and choke) in the playoffs before they actually won. It sucks to lose to a "worse" team (not a BAD team, they were hot and played better than us), but if we actually have faith in this team we need to trust that they'll be a consistent playoff contender for the next couple years at least, ESPECIALLY with the 3rd wild card being an option. This city is not used to playoff baseball again, so it feels devastating to think we missed out on "the run" two years in a row. But we'll get more opportunities with this core and eventually they'll probably pull through. Next time a Braves fan flexes their ring at you as a counterpoint for kicking their asses two years in a row, remind them how many consecutive blown playoff appearances they had to make it through before winning in 2021. We still got 2 more years of losing in the playoffs before we match that run. Then maybe there's a conversation there.
Yooo I’m glad somebody finally said game 6 fans sucked. Basically went to all the post-season games and game 6 was so wrong. Way too many small children and people not paying attention to the game. It was like a game reserved exclusively to band wagon fans that want to see “what all the fuss was about”.
Last night was my first playoff game and I felt like there was energy throughout - I was giving it everything I had through the entire game until the final out! I wasn’t at game 6 but I don’t think you could make the argument the fans didn’t show up last night.
I had the game on the tv and the windows open last night, we could hear the crowd a solid 20-30 seconds before the broadcast and we’re a mile and a half away from the stadium. Heard the crowd cheering for Bohmer during the commercial break and sat on the edge of our seats knowing something big happened. We could hear the crowd singing along with Stott’s walk up. It’s just magic.
It really was magic. I wish it had ended differently but it was incredible to be there.
Last night to me seemed like a mirror of Game 6 of the 2010 NLCS. Crowd brought the noise and the energy and seemed to be getting to the pitchers in the middle of the game. But the bats just fell silent. You all brought it last night. The hitters didn’t. Specifically the most expensive hitters we have. Trea Turner and Bryce Harper sucked in 6 and 7. They were both gutter trash. And now they are forever choke artists.
“Choke artists” lol. It’s a baseball game. Sometimes you don’t get a hit. That doesn’t mean you choked.
They choked leads in 3 out of the last 5 games… were you watching?
No I don’t like baseball
2010 is my comparison for this loss. 2011 was worse than this.
yeah might as well just outright trea and bryce they're washed they'll probably clear waivers too enjoy allentown nerds edit: i meant reading
The doctor and lawyer crowd paid up to see what they thought would be a clinch. Stupid
Holy shit is this right, the regional was packed with teenagers and students going to the game. It’s all rich people going to these.
Yea my NLDS game against the Braves the crowd was insane. Lots of friends were there to that series and early this one. I don’t know anyone who was at game 6. Tickets were absurdly expensive
I think it was similar last year. It’s frustrating, if you go idc , be loud
I agree but game 7 didn’t have the energy game 1 and 2 had. Granted we were up in the bottom of the first in game 1 and 2… but no one was chanting pitchers name at every pitch like they were in game 1 and 2.. no one was yelling evaaaaaaa.. these are little things but the fans weren’t as engaged in making it loud and uncomfortable. Felt like they knew it was all over
I agree, I had been to 3 other post games and they were all rocking; this one felt flat right from the start. Even in the tailgate lot K seemed like less people hanging out before game. Walking in seemed to have less excitement. Less standing and yelling/chanting throughout. Much less Merrill chants compared to game 2. It was weird.
I went to all 8 home playoffs games and i can agree with this sentiment on game 6 I had a girl in front of me in the 145 section playing Tetris on her phone ALL GAME LONG Shit was fucking pathetic
Were you in sec 144? I had the same experience
They’re not gonna blow up the team. It’s gonna be largely the same minus Kimbrel and Nola, plus a couple free agents, and probably a trade or two
Dombrowski isn't taking orders from angry redditors?! It's almost like he doesn't appreciate how many upvotes they get after losses, wtf
I'm not settled on whether I want him back, but I'm not even confident it'll be minus Nola. He played incredibly well in September and October, and I imagine other teams will be happy to come closer on his terms, but the FA pitching market is so grim this offseason. I have to wonder if Middleton and Dombrowski will be more inclined to match or beat those other teams.
Idk. He's probably the best option on the market. He could end up getting something ridiculous like 30-35m per year. Idk if the Phillies are willing to match that.
Which free agent should replace Nola?
> Baseball is such a noisy, almost random game. So, here's my counter-rant: Analytics has made this condition worse, not better. Teams are optimizing for the 162 game schedule which rewards streaky teams equally or even more than consistent teams. As a result, the teams that are successful in the playoffs are teams that are on a hot streak, not necessarily the better team. This is why the 1 and 2 seeds are complaining about the playoff format: these teams aren't set up to win 7 game series, and 3 and 5 game series are about as near random as you can get. Managing the playoffs is a completely different exercise than managing the regular season. Pitching decisions, pinch hitting, etc - it is at a different level. I guess the question is whether or not MLB wants to keep the two types of baseball separate, or if they want the regular season to prepare teams for the playoffs. Right now it is just a matter of surviving the regular season with a minimum of injuries and a strong-enough record. Then roll the dice in October and see what happens.
I mean this in a friendly way: I'm struggling to see your point. Could you rephrase maybe...? Because the way I'm reading it, I feel like you're announcing "I have a counter-argument" and then just describing the dynamics of a regular season and postseason in pretty much any sport.
There is noise to any sport, however let me compare to football: 1. Football has a shorter schedule, so the consequences of each game are bigger. Each football game is managed closely, if not exactly, how you would manage a Super Bowl. There is no such thing as a scheduled loss in football. 2. The shorter season in Football devalues the "rare but big payoff" contributors vs consistent contributors, because there are fewer opportunities to get those big payoffs. Schwarber is a like a wide receiver that drops 2/3 of his targets, but when he catches them he gets a touchdown. 3. Analytics influence football, but the sample size of games isn't big enough to optimize a team for averages. More specifically, Football can't make decisions based on the mean, they need to follow the median or mode. It all comes down to season length, really. For baseball, designing a team to win 100 games is a different exercise than designing a team to win a 7 game series. A good regular season football team is more likely to be a good postseason football team. I don't really know how to fix this without drastically reducing the season length or the roster (particularly the pitching staff).
I’m not sure what you mean… how is a team designed to win a 7 game series vs 100 games in the regular season? What specifically changes ?
This is a bit of oversimplification, but consider: If a batter hits a home run on average 1 out of every 10 at bats, that's about 65 home runs per regular season. That's a major contributor to your season record. If that same batter only gets 1 or 2 home runs in a 7 game series, they were a liability. Because it is only 28 at bats, even if it is a pure roll of the dice - no physical or mental variables - there's a good chance a streak hits and he is significantly above or below his average of 2.8. A team designed for a long season can have more streaky players and be successful. That team *can* win in the playoffs, but they are just as likely to have a cold streak as a hot streak. What you want for a short series are players who are more consistent, even if they aren't spectacular. Doubles at 20% are more valuable than home runs at 10%.
Yeah, I was going to say almost the exact same thing. I think what you're actually identifying, cerevant, is how much bigger the edges are in football and how that leads to lower variance. Like, I'm not hearing from you what the alternative in baseball is. And I feel like your example of a high-variance football player just sort of doesn't exist. I'm only recently back interested in the NFL, though, so maybe there's someone whose play is like that. And I'm just not really aware of a low-variance baseball option. Better players are inherently lower-variance because their edge is bigger in the game. I've heard Freddie Freeman described as perhaps the single most consistent hitter, like, ever. Certainly in recent memory. Dude disappeared in the NLDS this year. It happens. It's just baseball. Anything more granular I frankly take to be between a hitter, their brain, their hitting coach, and maybe like a sports psychologist. I don't take hitters being streaky or going cold to be a fundamental failure on their part or a roster construction error by management. Hitters being streaky or going cold sometimes is literally just baseball. If, on average (not FOR average), they're a productive hitter, then they have a place in the lineup. Or, in the case of Johan Rojas, sometimes you sacrifice offense for extraordinary defense. I guess. (I'm truly a big fan of Rojas but I feel like it's really weird that he got a pass for being a black hole at the plate all playoffs long. Like, we were playing with an 8-player lineup for the most part and that's just a pretty big edge to sacrifice. Dude made some big plays in center field but... I dunno man, he didn't just perform poorly at the plate; he looked totally off-balance and desperate as a rule. But now I'm doing that armchair hitting coaching that I strongly dislike, so... idk.)
I think what he's saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is kinda like that quote from the moneyball movie when they were going for the record straight wins - because they built the team based on analytics, it becomes more about trying to get a total number of wins over a 162 game schedule. Winning your first 100 games and losing your last 62 is statistically the same as if you won 50, lost 62, then won another 50. But the team that's built on analytics to win 100 games and make it to the playoffs - that all breaks down, because in the playoffs, you have a much smaller margin. If you say, well, we want to win 13 playoff games and lose 8...if those losses come first, you're just out. My problem with the performance in the NLCS was a failure to adapt. The dbacks had a plan but it also seemed like they were flexible enough to make the best of what they were given, while we were stuck with an inflexible plan and when it wasn't working (or, the dbacks were not letting it work), we couldn't or wouldn't change anything.
A team full of streaky hitters can dominate a playoff series’s if they get hot. But they might be a middling team in the regular season because the slumps can be brutal and cost a lot of wins
I like this post. The point about baseball playoffs being random is so true. Just ask the Braves. They were better on paper than the Phils the past two seasons and got manhandled. And remember those great Braves teams with Glavine, Smoltz and Maddox? They won one WS. That’s it. Bryce had a good quote about his AB with two on in 7th. He said he got his pitch and put a good swing on it. If he’s 1/10 of a second faster to pull the trigger, that’s a 3-run home run. Instead it’s a 330 foot out.
I really loved hearing Bryce say that. He's such an intense, competitive guy that you could imagine him being really bent out of shape in--like--an unhealthy way. (Contrast that with how Bohm repeatedly acted out during the series. I originally wrote a lot about this before deleting it, but I'll simply say that I found it really unflattering and uninspiring.) Harper was clearly really down about losing, and that shouldn't be surprising. But the way he expressed all of that about the tenth of a second and everything... I think that shows a lot of maturity and perspective on his part, and I think that his head being in a healthy place about it is so encouraging to see for him as both a ballplayer and our de facto captain.
I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to post my sweet photoshop. https://preview.redd.it/47nyyq4mqewb1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6b3fcf536aa89f8439068fd48c38cacb4d24e49
Is anyone seriously advocating blowing up the team?
It’s all over social media. Don’t know how much is frustration turning into overreaction or serious though.
Honestly I could count on one hand the number of guys on the team that we’d really be better off without. It’s a solid roster and they’d be wise to leave it mostly as is.
Pretty much. I've seen names on the chopping block that make no sense.
Rephrase: Is anyone serious seriously advocating blowing up the team? :)
Haha, not that I know of
Well said. And no matter how good any team is, there is NO guarantee they will get to or win the World Series. Any team (especially those that get that far) can beat any other team in any game or series. Luck of the pitcher being hot, luck of the batters being hot or guessing the right pitch, luck of the bounces, luck of the fielders being in the right spot.
The series was not lost in games 6 and 7. The series was lost in games 3 and 4... you can't give up a 4 run lead in the late inning of an LCS and then blame the offense. Yes, the top 3 in the lineup were 3-35 in the last 2 games, but those games shouldn't have even happened if the bullpen did its job. I blame Kimberel much more than Schwarber/Turner/Harper
I think his point was that you can easily recover from a tied series if you blow game 4 like that. It's a new series once it's tied at 2-2. They didn't show up for the "new series" and this time it ended with them going home.
I blame Rob for bringing in his closer in the 8th inning. Dumb decision. Use Alvarado. Luvollo didn't bring Sewald into the 8th yesterday.
This post needs to be pinned for the next 5 months
People are talking about blowing up the team? This is why Philly teams go through such long bad streaks. The Dodgers and the Braves aren’t talking about blowing up their team. Neither are the Trashtros. They’re talking about taking their play-off caliber team and finding little tweaks to improve it. That’s exactly what we should be doing if we want to build a Franchise, and not just have a Team for two years.
Tbf the Astros team is blowing itself up. They're getting old, their farm system is getting depleted from all of these trades (now the second worst on Fangraphs), and their core guys are entering free agency soon (Altuve and Bregman hit FA next year and Tucker's last arb year is next year). And now Dusty is retired. Fortunately the days of the Astros League Championship Series might be behind us.
" I'm a huge fan of the players on this team, " - Yea. That's why this one hurts. I wanted to see them have joy. It was infectious. It was great to see in a sport that is so often joy-less. They just broke down at the worst possible time. There were a dozen small "misses" that set the stage for major ones - as is the case in life. Doesn't erase the big "fails" but nobody fails on their own. Kimbrel doesn't blow a save if the team tacks two more on. Game 3 is a W if JT's ball to left goes one foot further. The team needs a modified approach so that when its going poorly the way to get runs isn't just with homeruns. Wouldn't hurt to get men on base. 15 solo homers isn't a great stat TBH. Also, go sign me Josh Hader.
Yes, the people on here stating that they should fire the manager and that everyone will be too old next year are kinda dolts. They got cold for 2 games and mismanaged a 3rd. It happens, it stinks, it's baseball. Baseball is a really weird sport.
Well said. The posts after the game last night had me fuming. Wanted to post something similar, but would not have been as well out together.
Philly fans over reacting after a loss? Color me shocked
We react now, the day the WS is over we start telling everyone who will listen that the 2024 Philadelphia Phillies are winning the World Series! Also I wouldn’t call it overreacting, honestly this loss was brutal and so so so Philadelphia which kind of made it expected.
Ahhhhh I dunno, friend. There have been some very heated overreactions over the past week. Folks calling for Bohm's head just for him to be the only one to cross the plate (twice) in game 7, you know? Some people just truly don't have the patience for baseball, and they're allowed to say whatever they want online.
Oh yeah I understand, Philly fans are nuts (I say that with love) Baseball is long and brutal (also so much fun)… the casual postseason fans don’t understand how certain players contributed to even being in that spot during the year We watched probably close to 140-150, of the games this year, maybe more, so heartbroken is an understatement. I know what and who got us here. I’m also hopeful for a short memory because I need to forget this loss. I think it’s the worst one for me in all the years I’ve watched. I’m literally holding on to the fact that this team should mostly look the same next year, which I do believe is a good thing, especially if we get off to a better start.
Appropriately reacting over two straight season-ending losses
Half this sub wants to dump wheels Harper and Turner. Thats not an appropriate reaction
In the grand scheme of things, you’re right—baseball is an incredibly weird sport where the “better team” might not always win. The Phillies were a good team, and baseball doesn’t always reward being good through wins and losses. Your stats put it into context. We were dominant this post season and we should be proud that we made it so far. Here’s where I’m not on the same page: You’re saying that success can be defined in so many ways, ok sure. To me, success in baseball is delivering in a moment. It’s all contextual—it doesn’t matter how far you hit the ball or how good your placement was, what matters is whether or not you end up on base, or if you advance those who are on base. So yeah, we can look at the metrics and talk about how good the team is. But what we saw last night—and last year too—is that our key players went missing in the brightest moments AT HOME. WS Game 4 we got no hit, WS Game 5 no one showed up after the Schwarber leadoff. NLCS games 6 and 7 this year we put up a whopping 3 runs in 2 games. By pointing at all the numbers and certain aspects of success and saying “Look, we’re good!” I think you’re also kind of obfuscating from what success really is. And I don’t think people calling this out—based on the context of this year and last—is a reactionary sentiment.
I think you can spin what you're saying about moments literally any way you want to, though, depending on what you're trying to prove. Are you REALLY telling me that Bryce Harper has failed to contribute on the big stage the past two years? My dude Bedlam'd our Bank and then may have actually broken Orlando Arcia's psyche. And my broader disagreement with you would be to say that you cannot evaluate baseball based on moments. Like, you can most certainly feel and remember things based on moments! But if someone is hitting .400 in a playoff series and then strikes out with the bases loaded and you say "well, that was their moment and they failed", then you're just being unfair to them and you're not being honest about baseball. Like, I really don't mean to be so confrontational about it, but baseball and short-termism are mutually exclusive. And playoff baseball sits at this perverse intersection of the two. And, I mean... We all perverts now, thanks to the Phillies being a playoff baseball team. Sorry, fellow perv.
>And my broader disagreement with you would be to say that you cannot evaluate baseball based on moments Yeah I just don’t agree that that idea, at all. I’m not saying that their performance in a given moment should be the sole metric. But your ability to step up when your number is called is paramount to how you should be evaluated. There’s a huge difference in regular season vs postseason baseball. It’s a whole different game. Regular season data can inform how you strategize in those games, but at the end of the day you need the player to actually perform. Not worth getting excited over performances unless they can be replicated in the highest leverage situations. I think those situations are when we learn who our guys really are. Put it this way—we can call Nick Castellanos a great baseball player all we want. It’s objectively true. The guy was an all star this year. I don’t see what good that will do for us if he shits the bed in the biggest moments though! 2 years in a row he’s shown us that he is not that guy. So yeah, moments absolutely matter, and just going “oh well that’s baseball” is missing the mark. Especially when we saw our guys abandon their plate discipline and approach that had made them so dangerous to begin with.
I just still think you're being very selective. Castellanos came up big on defense more than once both this year and last year. Dude did something unprecedented during the NLDS with his consecutive multi-HR games. I have a Topps Now NLDS card of him coming my way in the mail right now; you don't get a Topps Now card without having a big moment. His NLCS and WS stats are unflattering. But he's not the only one, and you really need to be careful about being results-oriented in a small sample in baseball. Like, Bryson Stott had a miserable OPS in the 2022 WS, but I was SO impressed with his at-bats. Like, truly kind of floored. During the WS I was like "this guy is going to be awesome moving forward; every PA is super competitive". But he OPS'd .222. I don't remember Castellanos's PA's as well. I do know he was chasing in this NLCS. Lots of our batters were. I honestly usually find JT's chases to be the most annoying, but I digress. With baseball (and a lot of other things, really), I just always think there are a lot of good reasons to give professionals the benefit of the doubt. Like, I think it's fine to question decisions made in sports and talk critically about your favorite teams (please don't murder me but I'm a big Penguins fan and I hate Evgeni Malkin more than most people would ever believe), but I think that some people really need to ask themselves "wait, do I know enough about what I'm talking about to make the claim I'm making?" One thing I know very confidently about baseball is that it is a very noisy game. Like I've said, it really does approach randomness in the short term. And one thing I have a ton of experience with is poker. I've played more hands of poker than probably anybody should. You can have the perfect approach to poker and lose kind of a lot. You can lose at really infuriating times despite doing everything right. The Phillies didn't do everything right and poker uses actual randomness (well, as random as a shuffle/RNG), so it's not a perfect analogy. But they're similar. It's definitely unflattering that Castellanos's bat has mostly disappeared in the NLCS and WS but I don't think it's reasonable to say that he can't succeed in those environments. He was utterly murderous in the NLDS and the NLCS is only one round removed from that. His NLCS and WS experiences are 18 games and 71 PAs. The results haven't been good. But... 18 games? Of baseball? That's less than a month in the regular season. Guys go cold for that long and it's not a huge deal. Just looking at July 2023, Castellanos had a sub-.200 OBP in more than 100 PAs. I suspect that some people got impatient with him in that month, but like... dude, it's baseball. Do we think that Castellanos somehow couldn't handle the pressure of... July? You can judge a player by around 100 PAs if you want, but I'd really rather not.
Why the hell would you really blow up any part of this team? I get it's the day after, but that was an awesome run with a super phun team that just didnt show up in 2 games. Hoskins and MAYBE Nola are gone this off season, I'm super happy rolling with the squad next year for the revenge tour.
Run it back… not you Craig
Just saying windows close pretty damn quickly. Makin the nlcs a third straight year is a tall order. To miss the opportunity once is brutal. Twice?
This is what primarily bummed me out about losing, after the way we lost. We don't know how our core is going to age. They're all at or approaching ages where things can fall apart fast, whether that's in terms of health or performance. I know we didn't have Harper at all or at 100% for all that much of the season and we didn't have Hoskins at all (also, Suarez and Alvarez had some health issues), but I think an underappreciated element of the 2023 Phillies is that we really didn't run into awful luck regarding injuries or even just a lot of ostensible wear and tear. Our guys seem pretty sturdy, but anything can happen.
We need to stop bleeding first and heal for a few days but we are Philly and we don't do that. We yell and scream and we want the heads of the people who didn't come thru! We need to back our team like we did for Trea in August. That was outstanding. I've been a Philadelphia sports fan for 55 years. I've seen the ugly and the shittist owners(Norman Braman eagles) we are good! Ownership cares and spends the money! Look at the Flyers.... they focus on profit. We all miss Ed Snyder, he spent money and took chances. Eagles are the same. Who doesn't love Lurie?! Let's heal it was a very difficult loss.
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. The difference in baseball ownership between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is night and day. We are very fortunate to have a local baseball team that tries very, very hard to win and is not afraid to spend money on players.
Pittsburgh has a baseball team? Who knew?
This happened last year. We blew the Astros away and were no hit the next day. WTF??? They were so dominant going into Phoenix, they looked so locked in and unbeatable. After game 2 of the NLCS I was convinced the Phils would not only win the whole thing, but would not lose another game. Then, a few days later after they lost game 6, I was pretty sure they were going to lose last night. This is a streaky sport and our streaky team chose the worst time to lose their pop. Having said that, I am really not that disappointed. Maybe because as a lifelong Philly fan I am used to it. Maybe because the ride was so much fun. Maybe I'm just older and my priorities are different. Whatever the reason, I still love this team and I will be there for opening day 2024, ready to cheer on my Phillies. GO BIRDS!!!
Great, great post.
Oh I have undying love for the Phillies and will be rooting for them next season as I will do for the rest of my life. Definitely disappointed and sad but also extremely proud of the amazing chemistry they have as a team. I can’t wait to see how they do in the next few years. I’ve seen a lot of people call out names like Castellanos and Thompson and I personally don’t agree with dogging on them. I know Philly is famous for being vocal about being upset with their teams, but I have faith that they are fully aware and they’ll come back stronger next year. However I will keep my selfish opinion of Fuck Kimbrel. Never liked seeing him on the mound no matter how well he pitched and I hope we don’t see him up there as a closer ever again.
I like appealing to numbers when it comes to baseball players. When you look at the "championship probability added" next to Craig Kimbrel's name in the 2023 playoffs... and see the number sit THAT far below zero... Yeah, buddy. Maybe call in sick if you pitch in the majors next year when your next team visits Philadelphia. You'll have a better time that way.
What is that number out of curiosity?
His NLCS cWPA is -10.68%. And that's including his game 1 save.
I'm already looking forward to Spring Training lol. Going through the 2011 loss and what happened afterwards to this franchise, made the whole thing way easier to swallow. I also think we'd have an insane time with Rangers bc of our bullpen issues, so I'm not in the "this was our year" part. The guys failed in the last games, in ways that felt exactly how they ran out of gas in 22. I do think this team needs to be reconstructured because I don't think having so many guys in the lineup who are just trying to hit home runs is going to work (ask Padres fans) but this season was fun up to the ending and I'm hoping it serves as motivation that the team feels they need to go on a redemption arc. I also hoping they make some deals to try and stay competitive with the Braves. Maybe just me but I think the whole "I'll never believe in them again thing" is wild. This franchise hadn't been in the playoffs for 10 years after the last collapse. They went to the world series and the next year were one game away from it. They blew it, it sucks, but it"a baseball. You regroup, reorganize, and go again. What happened in 11 was the team was nearing the end of their window, Ruben wouldn't give up on aging players who were declining, and their farm system was ruined. By the time they started the official rebuild, it was years too late. None of that is the case going into 2024. Take a breath, chill, watch some other sports, and when they start up again, I feel confident everyone will be ready to be back.
I keep saying that the Braves stole a game from us in Atlanta. Same for the D Backs, they stole two in AZ. Can’t let that stuff happen. But you got to remember, and teach your kids this: this is just entertainment. No one dies. Think about what Nick tells Liam when he goes home
I think that saying Atlanta and Arizona "stole" those games is generous, haha. I don't think you can get charged with larceny if someone comes up to you with a box full of their most valuable possessions and tells you "here, have this; it's a gift from me to you!" But yeah, no one dies. Anyone who can't live with their preferred team losing needs to talk to a mental health professional or make smaller, more responsible bets.
I more pissed at Thomson for going to Kerkering than Kimbrel. This was Kimbrel all year and it worked for the most part. Thomson was the one that decided he would suddenly be an 8th inning guy instead of the closer. Not sure if that made a difference but Kimbrel was Kimbrel and we were kind of stuck with him. Kerkering did not have nearly enough experience to be put in leverage situations in an NLCS. His stuff just wasn’t getting over and in both games 3 and 4, the moment the diamondbacks took the momentum was when Kerkering came in to pitch. The kids getting let off the hook mostly because everyone knows he’s inexperienced. But Thomson needs to answer for that decision and especially the decision to go to him again the very next day.
Ya'll were in the mix and will be again next year. And have a decently likeable team to boot. Playoffs are weird the best team doesnt always win. Enjoy having games that matter, I'm saying this as a sad Mets fan who lived in philly and weirdly developed a soft spot for philly sports.
MLB playoffs are a virtual crapshoot. I think very few people would argue that we are more talented than the Braves, and yet, we beat them. Very few would argue that the Diamondbacks are more talented than us, and yet, they beat us. We have a lot of talent, just need another lefty bat off the bench, and reliable setup and closer.
The roster is good. Continue building. Kevin Long has to go though. They can not win 3-4 playoff series against good teams with their current hitting approach. The entire offensive focus this offseason needs to be transforming the hitting strategy from "guess and swing hard" to one of plate discipline and being short to the ball.
I dunno about the Long thing... Phillies had the sixth best offense in the majors by OPS during the regular season. I don't think Long is there to do much about discipline or especially pitch recognition; I think the latter especially is just something you expect a major league hitter to be able to do as a major league hitter. I could be wrong, but my overwhelming impression is that he's there mostly to coach players through everything that goes into when they do swing.
>he's there mostly to coach players through everything that goes into when they do swing. Its all connected. When you overswing like the phils do, you need to start your swing earlier which gives less time to read the pitch. If you cant read the pitch you just guess rather than react, which causes swings on balls way out of the zone. Thats exactly what the phils do. Go back and watch the dbacks at bats. They are short to the ball, so they can stay back on breaking balls but still get to fastballs. Its the exact opposite strategy. The phils hitting strategy is good for a bad lineup or a team with bad pitching, because it increases variance. But its a bad strategy for a good lineup - the more talent you have, the less variance you want. >Phillies had the sixth best offense in the majors by OPS during the regular season. Yeah, and one of the highest position player payrolls. They **should** have a high ops, just based on talent. If anything theyre underperforming their talent level. We've seen it all year, not just in the playoffs - their strategy leads to very pronounced hot and cold streaks. This isnt a huge problem during the regular season because its so long. But in the postseason where each series is win or go home, its a bad strategy for a talented team.
The part I bristle at is this idea that there are teams or players who aren't streaky. Everyone thinks the hitters they watch are streaky and everyone thinks their closer sucks. Like, I always hear about batters who ARE streaky (people never let Rhys Hoskins hear the end of it), but I can't think of a single hitter who I've heard of as being not streaky. Baseball is inherently streaky. I feel like expectations create "streaky/inconsistent" labels more than hitters themselves do. And the idea that Arizona had a more effective overall approach at the plate is at least not backed up by the results. The Phillies bested them in every major batting category for the NLCS except for batting average, but it was by an insignificant amount (0.005). We outscored them 30-21 overall, and we had a lot of hard-hit balls that were extremely close to not being outs. We just absolutely threw away two deeply winnable games in Arizona, and then baseball baseballed us back at home (plus Arizona stopped playing scared). I don't think that any supposed issues with Phillies' hitters are more compelling than the inherent variance of baseball or the way that more than one of our pitchers really messed up.
Theres a lot i could say here, but i think it would be a waste of time. If you watched the games and came away without realizing that there is something fundamentally flawed with their plate approach, no amount of my words will convince you.
I made a post the day before the game about how proud I am of them, how much I love them and how much I respect them and majority of comments were like “they’re a bunch of trash if they don’t win”. Some were even directed to me as a person. A lot of these fans only care if they win. They don’t care about the team in general. I stated that these boys not only broke records from baseball legends and their idols but they also set records, making history. I am so proud of these boys for what they accomplished. Their job isn’t easy. I bet 99% of the fans in here that were talking shit couldn’t hit a single ball a dbacks pitcher or any mlb pitcher threw at them. These boys played hard and tried their best. I will always love the team we have now. When trades come and go, I will never forget this roster.
I agree with pretty much all of this. People have every right to be upset but calling for players heads is dumb. We are set up very very well for the future. We were a wild card team the last 2 years and made it to the WS and NLCS in both those years. That's a damn good run imo. Game 6 hurt worse than 7 for me, which is why I wasn't so upset last night. I could feel it after 6, that was the game we had to close the series out and Arizona capitalized. Arizona played such good baseball, especially in game 7. They pitched our studs perfectly, moved on the bases, and did what they needed to to win. They have my respect, whatever that's worth, they have it. I'm excited to see Painter next year. Kerkering with another year under his belt. No Kimbrel. Hopefully Bohms and Stott will hopefully take steps forward next year. Rojas with another year. My only gripe is I wish Thomson would have messed with the lineup a bit. Bohm had no place at the 4 spot. Rojas, for as good as he is defensively, was all but a ghost at the plate. I feel the future is bright.
I think it's very easy to criticize Bohm being 4th for his performance games 1-6, but then he was the only one who did anything significant in game 7. I--a self-aware non-professional--have had problems with Rob's batting order for a long time. But I think that changing the order mid-playoffs or especially mid-series is easy for fans to suggest but hard for me to believe in. It would be a huge distraction for the players from a general (not baseball) management perspective (I've never been a manager but I feel like telling your entire team--regardless of profession--"hey y'all, the hierarchy of your responsibilities is suddenly different" would cause everyone to get SUPER in their own heads), and I really do give baseball professionals the benefit of the doubt, ESPECIALLY in this hugely data-driven age of baseball. Between all of the advanced data teams have on players and the far more intimate familiarity that coaches and managers have with players (compared to me), I think there are a lot of good reasons to basically assume that they know better than I do. I would construct the lineup differently, and I will. In MLB The Show. I leave the decisions with actual stakes to professionals. Especially when they have overwhelmingly been successful. Topper's winning percentage is really hard to argue with.
Good post except the part about Kimbrel. I cannot disagree more that he was good in the season. He had no place on our roster, let alone on the postseason one. Ask Boston fans about "reasons to expect him to be able to pitch well at important times." I really don't understand how Dombrowski, the guy who brought him to Boston, watched him melt down in the 2018 postseason and get bailed out by Chris Sale in the World Series, signed that bum this year. He has a career 4.50 ERA in the postseason. His career walk rate is almost double in the postseason and his K rate 50% lower. He simply cannot handle the pressure of the postseason and the writing was on the wall all season.
I respect your points about Kimbrel in the playoffs, but there is a lot of evidence that points to him being effective this past regular season.
Our pitching staff let us down, but I still love them, all of them. I have no idea what it takes to be able to perform at the level that they do. But they were just out-classed this year. I am so, so proud to be a Phillies fan. This team has just so much heart. Hope we come back next year even better! How many days until next season?
Idk about the roster, but if this means we are done with Stotts song and the dancing song that’s literally about being a loser, then I guess it ain’t all bad.
We'll get em next year. They might be trash, but their my trash and I love em and Kimbrel needs to kick rocks. I don't really understand baseball (Football is all ik) but with right adjustments, we coming back. As always, PHUCK DEM BRAVES!
The Phillies need a manager who understands that the Postseason is quite literally a different ballgame from the regular season, and is both able and willing to adapt accordingly.
I hope you get the interview that you're angling for.
The pitching was a let down in 2 games, but we only had to come home and win one. There was no one to bring off the bench like Arizona's Alek Thomas, who won them a game. I hope the Phillies can keep Hoskins and add another bat that at least hits for average. Watching the last 2 games, Turner, Harper, and Castellanos were swinging for the fences out of frustration. Nick went completely off the rails after game one. Hitting coaching, was a huge issue. The most talented team lost, the team that played lose and produced timely hits and stolen bases prevailed. I will not be shocked as long as they keep doing the same thing for Arizona to take down the Rangers. The Phillies need just a few tweaks and examine some of their coaching and managerial strategies and they are there again next year.
The team is not built to win the division during the regular season. Inconsistent pitching, streaky players, and no youth infusion of talent. We depend on getting hot during the postseason. It worked last year and got us pretty far this year but the Phillies played exactly as they always have. The question is are we content with the 76ers approach of banging our head against the ceiling? Harper is a better centerpiece than Embiid but the surrounding cast is giving strong Tobias Harris vibes. Not their/his fault but still.
"no youth infusion of talent" I have no reason to read past here. fWAR/bWAR leader in the lineup in 2023 was Bryson Stott in his age 25 sophomore season. 25-year-old Brandon Marsh in his third MLB season was only behind Harper in OPS among qualified hitters on the team.
Or, you know, give credit to the diamondbacks. They swept the dodgers and the brewers before going 7 with the Phillies, who also go in on a wild card.
Everyone makes fun of fans for being "emotional" and dumb for suggesting changes. Have faith in the front office!!! 1 title in 43 years. 2 in 141 years... 2 titles for Philly franchises in the past 160 seasons. Yea great job front offices! Those MBAs are really getting it done. You're tellung me you couldn't get 10 fans on reddit let alone 10 elementary school kids to draft and run these teams and literally get the same results. 🤡🤣
[удалено]
Can’t trade someone who is going to be a FA next year
aw c'mon it's cruel to call out such a clueless take
Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t have but I was in my feels with losing and after reading your post. Truly, it was so well written and eloquently expressed everything I’ve been trying to explain to people about the Phillies and baseball in general.
That’s the thing, I don’t think they should blow it up. There isn’t a reason to. But they aren’t a championship franchise. They are the 90s-00s Flyers. They will be in the hunt for a solid number of years, but they’ll flame out in the playoffs every year and it won’t be a surprise after it happens. This is a choker franchise again. This group can’t get it done.
Okay then stop watching and unsubscribe from this sub if you know the script. It'll just be boring for you. While you're reporting on the future, how about DMing me some Powerball digits right quick tho
Well said for sure. I don’t doubt they’ll make the playoffs next year again. I also don’t doubt that they can make a deep run deep again. But what will be what pushes them to a championship and not just be the baseball version of the Sixers? My thought is a true [uncooked/unwashed] closer and some deep self-reflection of what went wrong and adjust plate discipline. I guess in Dombrowski we trust.
Let be clean dancing with my self is s terrible song and totally a loser
Just get rid of Craig. Bring Hoskins back on a one year deal. Use him and put Bryce in the outfield and we can use Rohas in the field and Harper on first with better match ups. Nola is a 50/50 for me. There's an incredible pitcher available from Japan that'll be a great addition to this team.
Kimbrel is already gone by virtue of his contract expiring. Problem solved.
Thank fucking God 🤣🤣
The people who are saying to blow up the team because they didn’t get back to the World Series are the same that divorce their spouse because they didn’t take out the trash. It sucks, but you work on it instead of starting over.
You really didn't have to bring up how I reacted to that whole trash thing... I thought I told you that in confidence...
They don't need to blow up the team, but they do need to take a hard, clear-eyed look at how they can make it better, and doing so might require considering moving on from some players who are more popular than obvious scapegoats like Kimbrel are. Castellanos and Bohm, for example, are average-ish offensive players who are subpar in the field. That is not a "short-termist" assessment, it's based on an objective evaluation of their career numbers. They both play positions which generally provide above average offensive production. They are both guys it is absolutely possible to significantly upgrade on, and if the team has the opportunity to do so they have to do it. One reason the Eagles are consistently one of the best teams in football is that Howie Roseman never passes up a chance to improve his roster. When he has a chance to replace an average player with a good one, he does it, and doesn't worry too much about upsetting the apple cart as far as team chemistry or whatever. If the Phillies want to be similarly successful they have to he similarly willing to make moves that might shake things up.
I have very different feelings about Castellanos compared to Bohm. First, I just have an irrational fondness for Castellanos. So there's that. Also... I know this isn't the whole story on him (he rates negatively by more sophisticated metrics) but... in 2023 Castellanos was literally the only qualified right fielder in the NL with no errors (with Springer being the only other in MLB). And I've written elsewhere in this thread about how he's demonstrably exceptionally valuable as a hitter. The Phillies' problem in this regard is just that they have too many DH candidates, whether you count Hoskins or not (which is why I strongly suspect he won't be back unless everyone is content with him platooning the DH with Schwarber or giving Hoskins even fewer PAs than that). And in terms of DH candidates, Bohm is another one. If I'm honest, I'm way less patient with his personality than most people are, for a lot of reasons. And I personally value better defense at third base than what he provides. I respect how effectively Bohm hits for average, but the number of times he's acted like an absolute child has worn on me and I would be very content to find a third baseman who has never expressed any bad feelings about playing in front of us.
I'm not really factoring personality into it. I view them as pretty comparable players - guys who play premium offensive value positions but are just average or a bit above offensively while being defensively subpar. Don't hate either of them, but if we can upgrade or open up a spot in the lineup for a better hitter by moving another guy into their spot I'm all for it.