Parent: If Phils keep waiting, the wilting is sure to come
PHILADELPHIA >> Andy MacPhail boldly proclaimed his pessimism Friday. His Phillies team, as currently composed, probably isn’t good enough to compete for a World Series, Honest Andy says...
Or at least that’s what some media people said MacPhail was saying.
That’s what the club president gets for talking to the media once or twice a season.
Apparently, the spoken opinion by MacPhail Friday that was twisted through so many microphonies and a few articles went something like this:
“If you think that you are close to the ultimate prize and you’re one piece away, then your appetite for giving up something big to acquire that piece is pretty substantial. If you’re a team like we are now, we’re in the postseason if the season ended today. But what if we’re in a one-game playoff? From my perspective, you have to be a bit more judicious with your playing talent if you think you have a longer haul to get to the postseason.”
In other words, the prez pegs this Phillies club with just enough talent to maybe compete through the dog days summer for a playoff spot, one that will be vulnerable in a one-off wildcard game, one that certainly can’t compare in a five- or seven-game series with either the Dodgers or the Braves.
It doesn’t take the rare MacPhail assessment to reveal that. A few long looks at the Phillies and the major league standings shows the same sort of harsh truths.
The club isn’t good enough to win it all.
The starting pitching, with Aaron Nola finally kicking into a long-term groove but with Jake Arrieta ignoring an injury while also ignoring his past several mediocre outings, has been trending toward ineffective.
Zach Eflin and Jake Pivetta are slipping badly, too. The bullpen has been and still is a dinged up detriment, even with Hector Neris having a positive impact as a closer ... which he didn’t do Saturday night. One out away from closing out what should have been a win over the Washington Nationals, he gave up a home run to Juan Soto for a blown save.
Otherwise, the pitching staff essentially can’t be good enough unless the hitters outslug the opposition on almost every given night, and in case you haven’t noticed, these Phillies don’t have one
.300 hitter in the starting lineup. They also employ the likes of Andrew Knapp, Brad Miller, Roman Quinn and Sean Rodriguez more or less as “bench players.” This on a team that added the priciest of free agents and a few other silver pieces to move from the collective salary dregs to No.
13 overall in major league payroll.
Not a lucky number, that. What does it tell the bluntest of team presidents?
“We’re uneven,” MacPhail would say. “We play real good against a good opponent one day and not so good the next. I don’t know that that’s a complete surprise when you consider that the roster has been overhauled.”
Yes, the roster was overhauled.
Yes, Aaron Altherr and Nick Williams played their way off the team.
Yes, Odubel Herrera played with fire one nasty night in Atlantic City and played his way off the team, too, at least for this season.
Oh, and one of those fine jewels that were added, Andrew McCutchen, wrecked a knee. That most injurious of occurrences came after seven bullpen pitchers paid visits to the Injured List. Two valuable ones, David Robertson and Pat Neshek, are currently doing 60-day IL tours.
The luck hasn’t been there for the Phillies.
The performances haven’t been, either.
They might mathematically still be counting as a playoff team behind the Nationals in a National League wildcard “race” that would make most AL execs snicker, but these Phillies certainly don’t look or act like a playoff team.
Except, of course, when Nola has been pitching. He went six strong Saturday night in chasing what should have been a third straight winning decision. That didn’t completely wipe away the washout of a loss the night before, however, as Kapler indicated in his pre-game assessment Saturday.
“We’re not where we want to be right now, but we have the talent here in this room to get where we want to be,” Kapler said. “So we keep making minor adjustments along the way with a full trust in the possibility that we get rolling to where we want to be in the second half of this season . ... It’s realistic. There is real talent in our lineup.”
Sure there is, even if more often than not Bryce Harper and Maikel Franco aren’t up for the offensive challenge of outslugging their pitchers on a nightly basis. There simply hasn’t been enough else to pick up the offensive slack.
For that reason alone, it’s probably worth it for general manager Matt Klentak to keep beating his iPad in search of pitching help. Just a little more than two weeks left until the trade deadline. Of course, the fever pitch is going to be dulled a bit when the club president decrees the search not worth the trouble of spending any top prospects for much-needed help.
So what then ... “Wait ‘til next year!” ... ?
“Whether we need one piece or multiple pieces is immaterial for me as the manager of this club,” Kapler said. “My job is not to evaluate what we need from the outside, my job is to work on the talent that we have on the inside and use all the resources we have at our fingertips to make our group we currently have better. The talent is there.”
And the clock is ticking.