That is the 12 months the Phillies win the World Sequence.
Whereas I wholeheartedly imagine that to my core, I’ve had related emotions every of the final two seasons, and been confirmed flawed. In every of the previous six common seasons, the Phils have elevated their win complete, solely to fall one step shorter within the playoffs.
Getting into the 2025 season, the core of the roster is one other 12 months older, and Father Time usually doesn’t smile on rosters as they age. Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner are on the opposite aspect of 30 years previous, so it’s comprehensible to really feel as if the sand is slipping by the hourglass.
These conflicting feelings had been on the middle of a wonderful article written by Corridor of Fame baseball author Jayson Stark of The Athletic who requested the query, “Is their arrow pointing up or down?”
On the newest version of Hittin’ Season, Stark joined the podcast to speak a bit extra about his article and, from the place I sit, there are extra causes to take an optimistic view of the Phils than a pessimistic one.
It’s arduous to label the Phillies a staff of chokers, regardless of their latest postseason failings.
In 2022, they had been a principally mediocre staff within the common season earlier than a remaining week push earned them a wildcard spot that didn’t exist till that season. To say they snuck into the playoffs is an understatement. Nonetheless, as soon as within the event, they caught fireplace and performed three weeks of the clutchest baseball we’ve ever seen on this metropolis.
In ‘23, they had been higher within the common season, incomes the highest wildcard spot, and had been rampaging by the postseason once more till Video games 6 and seven of the NLCS, an inexplicable collapse that may hang-out town endlessly.
Final 12 months, they’d a dominant first half, performed .500 ball within the second, gained the NL East going away after which acquired curb-stomped by the Mets within the divisional spherical. The bats went silent, the bullpen imploded and the remaining is historical past.
So what is going to this staff’s legacy be in the event that they don’t discover a solution to win the World Sequence in 2025? Will that magical 2022 season be considered a fluke? Will it’s downgraded in our reminiscence banks because the excessive level of an underachieving staff that ought to have gained all of it sooner or later?
Possibly it’s unfair to label this Phillies group underachievers in the event that they don’t work out a solution to win the World Sequence this 12 months. It’s, in any case, exceedingly tough. The 2011-14 Detroit Tigers, a staff additionally constructed by Dave Dombrowski, had three Corridor of Fame gamers on the roster (Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera) of their primes, with a star-studded roster supporting them, and but they solely reached one World Sequence of their 4 playoff appearances. They misplaced that World Sequence, too.
I imagine the Phillies WILL win all of it this 12 months. But it surely’s honest to say their legacy hangs within the steadiness in the event that they don’t.