For every baseball fan over the winter, there’s a sense of jealousy with every deal that goes down. You want a reason to celebrate, to talk about baseball during the months that the equipment is all in storage, to be even more excited for the arrival of spring. And national reporters do their best to sow intrigue and entertainment and just straight-up incorrect statements in order to make this part of the calendar more palatable.
When a big free agent is on the loose, all you as a fan need is a sliver of hope, maybe a mention that “other teams are said to be involved,” to think that a big free agent has a chance of signing with yours. The Phillies were the mystery team once. They could do it again!
But no, not this time. They were never really close.
Shohei Ohtani famously mentioned Philadelphia and in his next breath distanced himself from the Phillies, which was all a lot of people needed to count the Phillies out. That and the very little chance they had to sign him in the first place, based on how his interest had been gauged.
Yoshinobu Yamamato is something of a different story, however. The Phillies have been confidently mentioned as one of six or seven teams with genuine interest in the frontline starter with the staggering pitch selection and a cutter that could pull you off stage. Their meeting with Yamamato was said to be going down imminently. But their place in line as far as true contenders for Yamamato has been downplayed, and expectations should be… managed, at the very least.
Despite all this, the Phillies expansion in Japanese markets was characterized as former beat writer Jim Salisbury described them earlier in the off-season.
“I know they don’t have history with Japanese players, but why not start one?” Salisbury asked after noting the team’s “legit” interest in Yamamato back in November.
This is very true. There are two Japanese players in the entirety of Phillies history: Tadahito Iguchi, brought in from the White Sox to fill in for an injured Chase Utley in 2007, and So Taguchi, who signed a one-year bench deal prior to 2008 and was included on the postseason roster. This is hardly a reflection of the amount of baseball talent in Japan during these times, but the Phillies have just never been major players in that arena.
We have learned that this may be changing. In both Japan and the Dominican Republic, the Phillies have been reported to be expanding their interests. In the Dominican, their training complex has been outfitted with more staff, more resources, and more training camps. In Japan, Todd Zolecki reports that they’ve “beefed up” their efforts to scout and develop players. These are the kinds of efforts that can go pretty unnoticed in their fledgling years, but the impact of such developments could wind up paying off big time in the years to come. The point is to, at the very least, get in the game.
Currently, the Phillies have a roster at the major league level that has gone on two consecutive deep playoff runs, having appeared in the last two National League Championship Series, with endings that varied from victorious to dumb. That said, this is a team that has had a chance to win it all for two straight years, which is more than a lot of organizations can say. Upon the arrival of future Hall of Famer and current president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, the focus shifted to bringing in supporting established players to stop letting the years of Bryce Harper’s prime slip away with no trophy.
John Middleton found a reason to cross the luxury tax threshold: Dombrowski caught a lot of people by surprise by signing Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos, players like Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm found roles to play, a trade that brought in Brandon Marsh made the Phillies better, more defensive team. The Phillies may feel that, barring some minor tweaks, this roster that has found ways into the playoffs the last two years is perfectly capable of doing so again.
And in that way, at the major league level, the Phillies are set–or as set as you ever are with a big league roster. This could be viewed as phase one of Dombrowski’s era with the Phillies:
- Get them back to the postseason
- Keep going back to the postseason
Now, the trick becomes, how do you stay a postseason team over the next decade?
This is a tall task. In baseball, prospect development is a slog. There is a non-zero chance you’re going to invest in a class of young players and only two, or one, or none of them are going to wind up being impact players at the highest level. That said, by giving yourself a wider radius in which to find talent, you have a better shot at finding it. Beat writer Alex Coffey recently listed a handful of 17 to 19-year-olds who could be graduating from the Dominican complex in the coming year. But to plan that far ahead is less about exact names and more about the systems you have in place to find and develop players.
Right now, Bryce Harper is still in his prime. Trea Turner is in his prime. With Schwarber, Castellanos, Realmuto, Nola, Wheeler, the Phillies are rich in guys who have proven they are capable of playing on a playoff team–or in some cases, even of leading one. Younger guys like Bohm, Stott, and Marsh let you think a little more clearly about the future, and if they can get even better than they’ve been.
But it only takes one look at the books (as though we’d ever get one) to recall the lengths of the deals to Harper and Turner and now Nola, guys around whom this team’s success is currently structured. Hell, Harper wants to die in a Phillies uniform and he wants a contract extension to reflect that. Well it may feel great to have them both here now, or at least it started feeling that way on August 4 of last season, but we all know the twilight years of their very long (and potentially longer) contracts aren’t going to see them in their primes. You pay for the present with years in the future. That’s just how it works.
Also money. The Phillies are also paying in money.
So, with phase one potentially complete, phase two could be underway as the future is considered in new directions for the Phillies. Now, I know what you’re thinking–what phase is winning the World Series? And the answer is phase one, as well. But winning the World Series is harder than putting it on a checklist. You have to nail a lot of the roster-building aspects within your control, and get lucky on the aspects outside of it. Signing Nick Castellanos for additional power is something you can decide to do. Nick Castellanos landing in Arizona before game three of the 2023 NLCS and claiming he couldn’t see the ball anymore is not. It’s just something that happens, and is bad.
So the closest thing to winning the World Series the Phillies can plan to do is set themselves up, in the best way they see possible, to win it. And they have done that–they are on the carousel, reaching for the key. Their team isn’t without its flaws, but Dombrowski has stated he has the resources available to him from John Middleton to operate as he sees fit. That is what you want to hear a president of baseball ops with Dombrowski’s reputation, experience, and history say. The Phillies haven’t grabbed the key yet, and hell, maybe this group of guys never will, but they have the chance to do so and will continue to.
That’s why it feels like a good time for phase two. You never want a pro like Dombrowski to stop improving a major league roster as he sees fit. But having established a lineup that can hit and a pitching staff that can get outs at a rate that can get them to late rounds of the playoffs means, barring any unforeseen mayhem, it’s an opportune time to think about the more distant future. It’s time to build the foundations from which the next era of deep playoff runs will come.
And for the Phillies, the future could now come from international pools into which they have only begun to expand.
