For a last-place club, too quiet of an offseason
PHILADELPHIA » Throw it onto an advertising board. Print it on bumper stickers and hand them out at gas stations. Stamp it onto tshirts and then duck for the stampede of new fans.
The 2018 Phillies … they’re that much closer to 2019.
How’s that for a sales pitch?
Excited yet?
Not that the Phillies had a useless offseason before crowding into Clearwater, but they didn’t exactly pull many muscles while attempting to improve a 96-loss baseball team. Yet that, they have implied if not said, is their plan for the next offseason, when they will have enough motivation and momentum to make it rain over a deep class of free agents.
John Middleton, that three billion dollars of his not yet having had much of an out-of-wallet experience, has barked that he will try to buy the Phillies back into contention or that he will die trying. Of course, he has trusted Andy MacPhail to run his baseball operation, and for that, Phillies fans were insulted by an inexcusable end-of-season vow. As MacPhail warned last October, “We’re not going to be chasing any unicorns.” Apparently, “unicorn” is a code word for a “starting pitcher.”
For a franchise that as recently as seven years ago was positioned to contend for decades, the way the Red Sox and the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Cardinals always contend, the Phillies decided to make a tragically wrong turn. That’s when they chose to rebuild, with Pat Gillick announcing that it could take a while.
In that, it was fitting that their equipment truck almost got trapped in Super Bowl parade traffic as it tried to roll toward Florida last week. The Phillies, who once regularly sold out every game, their outfield standing room included, were so blatantly ignored by the public last season that they barely could draw 20,000 people to any September game.
Will that change this season?
Well, depending on the weekend shore traffic, maybe a little.
Though the Phillies will look way too familiar for a team that finished last five months ago, they did make some changes that could help. The most practical was to pay Carlos Santana $60 million to draw walks and to try to hit 30 home runs in each of the next three years. A very good player with the Indians, Santana should improve the lineup with his command of the strike zone alone. The financial commitment for him to man first base eliminated any career-path confusion for Rhys Hoskins, who will move to left. And it allowed Tommy Joseph to slip to the bench where any team in such a small ballpark can benefit from some right-handed power.
But what the Santana signing mostly did was provide the Phillies with cover. For if Middleton is sincere about contending sometime soon, he can charge into an offseason where Bryce Harper and Manny Machado could be available. Not only will he be able to offer cash, but he can point to Santana as evidence that he intends to build a winning roster, not just spend for headline-makers.
The Phillies also changed managers after last season. And they did so with dramatic, message-sending, franchisebending flair. While it may or may not work, they exchanged 66-yearold baseball traditionalist Pete Mackanin for 42-year-old, new-agethinking, first-time manager Gabe Kapler. One of the more enduring baseball truths is that no one pays to watch anyone manage. But Kapler is so over-the-top enthusiastic about his new job that fans almost certainly will stop in mid-channelchange to listen whenever he goes onto one of his motivational rants.
That, too, will push the Phillies that much closer to what they hope will come next.
“I’m excited,” MacPhail said, in a Clearwater press conference. “We have young players who deserve the opportunity to play. We owe them the opportunity to see if they can play.”
Hoskins has the potential to grow into stardom. J.P. Crawford will have a chance to play shortstop on a regular basis, though he might never be as capable on the field and in the clubhouse as Freddy Galvis. Maybe this is Maikel Franco’s year. There will be a deeper bullpen, if that excites. But why does that not sound as encouraging as when the Phillies built that Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Joe Blanton rotation?
In Florida last week, Matt Klentak strongly implied that he still may add starting pitching. He has no choice. There is not an analytic ever concocted that can rationalize losing as often as the Phillies did last season and then dragging the very same starters back to spring training.
“No one has ever had enough pitching,” MacPhail said. “That is something we will look to improve like every other club. But by and large, I’m satisfied.”
By the end of last season, Aaron Nola was showing All-Star potential. If that trend continues, and the Phils move either Aaron Altherr or Nick Williams for another starter, and if Klentak spends on a free agent, the perception of the Phillies will change. But until then, there will be one, just one, way to look at the 2018 Phillies.
They are young, but growing. They are adding pieces, if slowly. And they are that much closer to 2019.
Hold the applause.
Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery