The Phillies were already the most confusing team in baseball, and their collapse isn’t helping

Over the last couple days, I’ve searched for the lowest point of the newly postseason-minted Braves and did the same for the A’s. The articles don’t exist to poke fun at a previous iteration of the roster; they exist to make you think “look how far these teams have come! Look how far!” The idea came to me a couple of months ago, and I’ve been chipping away at it ever since.

The idea came to me a couple of months ago when I was thinking about the Phillies.

Who were going to the postseason at one point, you see. I wanted to write about how they started from the bottom and all that.

There’s no sense writing about the Phillies’ lowest point now because they might not be out of the woods yet. They might still be very much in the woods. Possibly stuck in a tree, head first, with their bottom exposed and an entire swarm of bees just absolutely going to town. Gabe Kapler might double-switch Aaron Altherr into the final game of the season, even though Altherr will say, “You know I’m on the DL, right?” loud enough for the TV broadcast to pick up, and the ensuing loss will be their 11th straight. Their lowest point still might be in the future.

I still believe the Phillies are on the right track, though. I picked them to win the NL Wild Card before the season, and their awful September hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm that much, especially when you consider how much money they’ll have available, and how they’ve advertised their willingness to use it. The Phillies will rise again.

Probably.

Maybe.

We should probably figure out what happened.

We should probably figure out if it’s going to ruin their hopes in 2019, too.

Start with the lineup. The Phillies’ current 682 OPS in September was their worst month of the season, but it certainly isn’t that far off from the 708 mark they have in 2018. So while it’s not the biggest culprit in the collapse, their lineup is also a huge reason why they won’t finish over .500. They’ve fielded a low-average, low-OBP, dinger-fueled roster all year, and they need to get better.

But ... where? Are they going to give up on Odubel Herrera and Cesár Hernandez after subpar offensive seasons? Are they going to give up on Scott Kingery and/or J.P. Crawford? Are they going to move on from Maikel Franco and assume his ceiling will always be limited by his lack of patience? Are they going to write Nick Williams’ season off as a hiccup?

My guess is they’ll cross their fingers and hope for a rebound from most of them. Note that I’m not writing that with malice, condescension, or disgust, either: That would be a viable strategy, so long as the organization has confidence that the problems are either hiccups or things that can be fixed.

That kind of means that any plan they choose will be sketchy as hell, of course.

Ah, but there’s a free agent cavalry to consider, with Manny Machado and Bryce Harper to consider. Except both players are having down years with glove, which gives us an excuse to segue into the next problem. Jeff Sullivan just wrote an article titled “The Worst DRS We’ve Ever Seen” about the Phillies, which suggests that this September might be a combination of the worst defense at the worst time. While single-season defensive stats are never as trustworthy as you’d like them to be, and other metrics put the Phillies at bad-but-not-historically-dreadful, it’s possible that there are reasons to be optimistic about the younger starting pitchers.

So the defense should be addressed in the offseason. That question comes up again, though. Where?

The biggest offender is Rhys Hoskins in the outfield, but he’s blocked at first by a very expensive Carlos Santana. The Phillies are experimenting with Santana at third base as the season winds down, but that feels a little like cleaning the kitchen by putting the dirty dishes in the refrigerator. Herrera probably won’t (or shouldn’t) be moved out of center field just because the stats don’t like him this year, but the defensive metrics are at least a little concerning, and the same could be said for Cesár Hernandez.

My guess is they’ll cross their fingers and hope for a rebound from most of them. Note that I’m not writing that with malice, condescension, or disgust, et cetera, et cetera. Just like the lineup, a plea to fix the defense has to answer a question about who should be replaced. It’s a hard question to answer.

The biggest reason for the September collapse has been the starting rotation, which has been utterly abysmal. Aaron Nola struck out 39 batters in 29 September innings, but he’s also allowed nine home runs this month — as many as Trevor Bauer has allowed all year. Nick Pivetta is 0-4 with a 5.48 ERA in September, and he’s been the second-best starter. Jake Arrieta and Zack Eflin both have ERAs in the 6s, and Vince Velasquez has a cool 10.70 ERA in five starts.

The 2016 Phillies had the momentum that you find with a gaggle of young pitchers, all seemingly ready to emerge at the same time. Two years later, Nola has blossomed into an ace, but no one else has emerged from their cocoon. Velasquez is as confounding as ever, and the finishes for both Pivetta and Eflin make them hard to count on. Veteran Jake Arrieta will be 33, with ERA, ERA+, SO%, and FIP marks that have gotten worse for four straight seasons, but maybe we should give him more credit for the good months when thinking about next year?

I’m not entirely comfortable with any of them, save Nola. They could help form a top-five starting five next year. They could send the Phillies back to 90-loss purgatory again if this month was more of an extended, in-progress belch than a hiccup.

If a part of your solution for the Phillies is to fix the rotation, the same question comes up. Where? Nola and Arrieta aren’t going anywhere, and they’ve seen enough from Pivetta, Eflin, and Velasquez to hold out hope that they’re just about to turn the corner. It’s what they did with Nola, and they were handsomely rewarded. They could also replace one, two, or three starters based on the horrid finish.

My guess is they’ll cross their fingers and hope for a rebound from most of them. Note that I’m not writing that with ... you get the idea. It’s not entirely irrational to try, try again with this exact same rotation.

It’s not entirely irrational to try, try again with the exact same roster, and that’s what’s so frustrating about the Phillies. They’re filled with players on the cusp, players who are hard to evaluate, and players with two or three compelling tools that are wiped out by two or three dreadful tools. They might have the most erratic, variable roster in baseball, with a ceiling that you can’t see from the floor.

The Phillies of next year will probably look a heckuva lot like the Phillies of this year, just with an expensive free agent or two slapped onto the roster. That could be a laughably bad idea. That could be exactly what they need to win 100 games. They’re either a duck or a rabbit, and they’ll have to choose which version of reality they should believe.

The Phillies were excellent until they weren’t, and that should be different next year, unless it’s the same. All I know is that I’m glad I’m not in charge of them. What a confusing, confusing team.