Phillies Teaching Us A Lesson

[Yossarian]

The lesson I am getting in watching Philly is:

You need two solid TOR type starting pitchers and a competent bull pen. 

You need power bats at the top and middle of the order (Schwarber, Harper, Hoskins).

You need your best players to show up in big games

You need solid defense. 

This should get you deep in the playoffs

[Frobby]

I don’t really take any lessons from Philly.  Lots of different types of teams have done well in the playoffs one year or another, and have won in many different ways.  

[e16bball]

5 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We also traded away Lopez and Mancini. And sure… people can point out their numbers, but point out the players that had to take on larger roles like Khreibel

In what sense do you feel that Krehbiel had to take on a “larger role”? He didn’t throw more innings after the Lopez trade, and he didn’t pitch in higher-leverage situations.

The majority of the “larger role,” at least in terms of overall leverage, seems to have been shouldered by Bautista. Which worked out well for us. I think some was probably taken on by Tate, Perez, and Baker — all of which also worked out well for us, as they were all better than Lopez too. 

Krehbiel absolutely fell apart in August and September, but I don’t see any evidence that it was related to a role change. 

5 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

or players that we had to play because we had no better options like Mountcastle and Hays. 

I’m not sure I follow you here. Trey was one of the worst players in all of baseball in August/September. In what way would he have been a “better option” than Hays or Mountcastle, who were worth half a win (Hays) to more than a full win (Mountcastle) more than him over that span? We also had Stowers up for much of that time, who was also absolutely a better option than Trey in terms of his production in that span. 

Unless we’re assuming that switching teams is the vast majority of the reason that Trey slumped and Jorge struggled — and that instead of being bad, they would have been good if they’d just gotten to stay in Baltimore — I’m not sure what basis there is to criticize Elias on these deals. He got meaningful potential future value for two guys who turned out to provide absolutely zero (or even negative) present value. That seems like he cashed out at just the right time, to me at least.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

7 hours ago, osfan83 said:

The Phillies won 4 more games than us over a 162 game season. 4 games! That's a couple of bad calls, a bad bounce, a bad weather game or two away from the same record. 

The lesson? Don't worry about being just a WC team. Build a team to get into the playoffs 7 out of every 10 years, then take a shot in these short series. The Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, are all better than the Phillies. But a hot streak might win them the title.

 

 

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, foxfield said:

I agree that the Phillies are teaching a lesson that WC teams can excel in the playoffs.  I would not extrapolate that to mean the O's should have mortgaged the farm or not made the trades they did at the deadline because they might have been successful like the Phillies.  I mean sure...it could have happened. (and I don't think you necessarily meant that)

The Phillies were built to win a WS and were so disappointing that they fired their manager.  They played well enough to eek in and given the chance they have blown away their competitors and landed in the WS.  I think there is much more separating the Orioles and Phillies than 4 games.  
 

The lesson is that teams built to compete for a WS spend the regular season jockeying for position, but once the playoffs start, teams built to win it, can do so from any spot in the field...even if it means going on the road a lot....in order to get there.

Solid point.  The Phillies underachieved and got into the playoffs.  The O's overachieved and missed the playoffs.

[spiritof66]

6 hours ago, tabletop said:

Phillies payroll is one of the highest in baseball. They have way more talent than the Orioles did on their roster. As a previous poster said the team the O's should be taking lessons from is the Astros. Which I am pretty sure they are.

They got there in different ways, but I'm not seeing a big difference between those teams' current finances. The Phils' 2022 ML payroll was $172.16 million (the second highest in MLB and second highest in the NL East, behind the Mets), and the Astros' was $154.8 million, the sixth highest in MLB and the highest in the AL West).  Those numbers are way beyond where the Orioles might be headed. 

I was a little surprised to see the title for this thread since the Phillies are constituted so differently from the Orioles: high-priced sluggers who hit homers, weak infield defense, two or three strong starters but not much after that, a so-so bullpen, and weak IF defense. I guess the two teams are similarly well situated behind the plate, but that's about it.

One thing that's contributed to the Phillies' success hasn't been talked about enough. As I said to some Phillies' fans (and may have posted here) after the Phillies hired Joe Girardi, there is one potential advantage to hiring Girardi as your manager: the relief everyone will feel when you fire him, which may give your team a nice bounce. 

[Orioles0615]

8 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Who didn't already know this?

Technically our GM said this when we sold at the deadline and said we didn’t match up well with playoff teams 

[Just Regular]

Is Dombrowski a Hall of Fame executive?

Among still active guys, my guess is Beane, Epstein and Friedman are favorites, then maybe also Dombrowski or Cashman.

I might guess Theo Epstein over the field as Manfred's successor...there's not much left for him to do with a Club, and he might like the double threat angle for his eventual candidacy.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Orioles0615 said:

Technically our GM said this when we sold at the deadline and said we didn’t match up well with playoff teams 

I think a lot of different things went into the decision to sell and the decision to not buy.

I certainly don't think that the loss of Mancini (622 OPS, -.6 rWAR) and Lopez (90 ERA+, 0 rWAR) hurt them.

[Pickles]

5 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think all of those people would also agree that a WC can win the WS.  We have seen it often enough.

Sure, but it kind of belies their original point.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Sure, but it kind of belies their original point.

I don't think so.  I don't think even the OP thinks the O's gameplan should be to squeak into the playoffs as the third wild card.

In order to continually make the playoffs the O's will need to make some big moves and get more talent.

The O's finished 83-79 with a pythag of 79-83.  Work still has to be done.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, Frobby said:

I don’t really take any lessons from Philly.  Lots of different types of teams have done well in the playoffs one year or another, and have won in many different ways.  

I would caution anyone from taking away the lesson that you just need to get in and then anything can happen. 

If you're a wildcard team that has a 50-50 shot at any of the four playoff rounds you have a 6% chance of winning the Series.  If you're a Division winner with a 60% shot at winning any of your three playoff rounds you have a 21% chance.

Division winners have significantly higher odds of winning it all, even if in individual cases the wildcard sometimes wins, and the best team has just a 1-in-3 or 1-in-4 shot.  You are absolutely better off as a 97-win team winning the division than an 87-win wildcard.

[JR Oriole]

The Phillies may only have won 87 games, but they won 87 in a division where two other teams won 101.  That is not easy to do. Put them in the AL or NL Central and that win total is much better than 87. Also, they went 65-46 since they canned Girardi.....so a 95-win pace over 2/3rds of a season. If you look at their roster, they have a lot of proven talent. Schwarber is a beast and Harper is a first ballot HOFer.  These types of players cost money to sign and I applaud them for doing so as opposed to counting pennies in the back room and always finding reasons not to pony up and pay people. 

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't think so.  I don't think even the OP thinks the O's gameplan should be to squeak into the playoffs as the third wild card.

In order to continually make the playoffs the O's will need to make some big moves and get more talent.

The O's finished 83-79 with a pythag of 79-83.  Work still has to be done.

I agree.  Obviously, this team has to improve, but a lot of that is going to come internally.  Or it better, or they're screwed either way.

However, I guess it just depends on what you're definition of "big" is.  This team/organization doesn't need to make huge personnel changes, or sign huge nine figure FA contracts to do it imo.  We just improved by 31 games and the biggest acquisition was roundly criticized and not all that "big."

I'd like see them retain Lyles, or replace him with some they prefer in the same role/money, and go after the best starting pitcher they can get in addition.  I'd like to see them add a bat that made sense.

But I don't believe they need to hand out 100 million+ contracts, trade multiple prospects, or even more absurdly imo,  trade 4-5 ML contributors.

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, JR Oriole said:

The Phillies may only have won 87 games, but they won 87 in a division where two other teams won 101.  That is not easy to do. Put them in the AL or NL Central and that win total is much better than 87. 

Are you forgetting that the 69-93 Marlins and 55-107 Nats also played in their division?   As a whole, their division was 16 games over .500 outside the division, .519 baseball.   That’s pretty trivial.  The Phillies themselves played .539 ball inside the division, .535 outside of it.   So, there’s no reason to think their record would have been much different in another division.   

As a whole, I find that people greatly exaggerate the effect that playing in one division or another has on a team’s record.