The Phillies 'Process' Rating

Grading the Phillies by Process Standards

While you're killing time at work, and probably at lunch, we'd like to give you the exclusive first look at AU's look at the Phillies season graded out on the Process scale. 

The only saving grace of this being the longest NBA summer since before the invention of the Gregorian calendar has been watching competitive Phillies baseball. Put “competitive” in quotes if you need to; it’s true that ESPN currently gives them 1.5% chance of actually making the postseason, which is actually much higher than it was earlier in the week. They haven’t felt like true playoff contenders in… a month? Two months? Regardless, they’re over .500, yet to completely fade away, and for a team still reeling from Ryan Howard’s season-ending Achilles tear in 2011, it’s actually been, well… fun. It’s been fun. Not always fun, and not a lot of fun. But overall, some degree of fun. 

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But then again, those Doug Collins Sixers teams were also some degree of fun while they were happening. (Not the last one, natch, but the first two.) That doesn’t mean they were ultimately good for the franchise, and that doesn’t mean that history looks back all that fondly on them. Is this Phillies squad the baseball equivalent of those Dougie teams? How should we be feeling about them from the perspective of True Process? Let’s investigate, via six categories whose standards defined the early and peak process years.

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Building around or towards true stars 

This was largely what the Process was ultimately about, though it took the Hinkie Sixers several years to really show it. But even when they weren’t on our roster, they were always top of mind: Elite-level players, and how to get them, whether by trade, free agency, or indeed, the top of the draft. We knew the Process was working when we drafted Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, and we knew things were really kicking into gear when we traded for Jimmy Butler and (sort of) Tobias Harris.

Do the Phillies have true stars? Kinda? Baseball’s star system obviously works very differently than basketball’s, and you can’t just build around three franchise-level players and hope to fill in the rest as you go. Still, Bryce Harper and Aaron Nola have credible claims to being top 10 hitters and pitches in the league -- even if their production has been slightly south of that this year -- and J.T. Realmuto has been more valuable in 2019 than both of them, likely to attract a handful of MVP votes in October.

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After that top three, these Phillies are a little thin on present and future star power -- squint and maybe you can see it with improving quasi-young’ns Scott Kingery or Zach Elfin, or down the line with prospects Alec Bohm or Mickey Moniak. But it feels a little like getting too excited for Evan Turner’s hot flashes, or even talking ourselves into Marreese Speights’ star potential. (No offense of course to the great Mo Beezy, noted RTRS booster.) And not like baseball’s a lottery party-worthy sport in the first place, but for better or worse, we’re probably not getting any more top overall picks anytime soon. 

Process Rating: 6

Cycling through fun weirdos

Last year’s Phillies squad, which made an early pass at respectability before wilting dramatically at season’s end, was notable for its impressive lack of flair or charisma -- aside from Jake Arrieta’s proud assholery, truly one of the blandest teams of any skill level I’ve ever followed in professional sports. They’re not too likely to film a Major League sequel with this squad, either, though at least Harper and (while he was around) Andrew McCutchen show legitimate personality, and Realmuto’s baserunner-hunting supremacy has real panache to it.

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Needless to say, the bite came, and it came in such surreal, act-of-God-type fashion -- Markelle Fultz inexplicably deciding to emulate me playing darts with his jumper form -- that it almost had to come via karmic retribution for our act of unprecedented hubris. Whatever. To think that there would be no price to pay for our peacocking victory lap around the Internet would have been naive, and to think that it even mattered would be woefully misguided. Retweet Armageddon was never about being correct, it was about being Right -- and if after six years, you still need the difference between the two explained to you, then maybe you need to stop listening to podcasts at 5x or whatever. 

But if you needed any kind of validation that Retweet Armageddon was the right move, regardless of consequences, all you needed to know was that it was graced by one of the two guys whose opinion actually matters: Joel Embiid, who RT’d none other than anti-Process paterfamilias Howard Eskin to mock his take about Dario not coming over. (He misspelled his RTA hashtag of course, though to be fair, Armageddon is definitely one of Those Words.) It was a good reminder that the Process is unlike any other fan movement in sports history, one whose us vs. them mentality actually includes the star player we’re rooting for in the “Us” category. What else could you possibly ask for? 

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Well, a sign of Hinkie’s blessing, I guess. Maybe let’s save that for the Retweet Rapture. 

But in Process terms of having the baseball equivalent of fun ten-days or veteran bench pickups passing through our lives? Eh. Corey Dickerson was effective but unmemorable before getting hurt, Mike Morin was mostly notable for his name being an anagram of the pitcher Phils fans actually wanted, and I’m still not sure Drew Smyly is even a real person. The only truly Process-worthy mid-season acquisition of the bunch is Jared Hughes, a profoundly middling middle reliever only remarkable for his routine of announcing his presence by needlessly sprinting in from the bullpen. (That Realmuto eye-roll gif may or may not have been intended at Hughes, but it no doubt reflects the feeling of everyone both on the team and watching at home when Hughes enters the game.) That’s Process, baby. 

Process Rating: 3

Suffering through tragicomic injuries

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Process season without an injury or two that felt like karmic retribution for someone on the team stealing a dinosaur egg or pagan idol. Something both crippling in its pain and spectacular in its drama. The Phillies have had their share of dings, and having basically the entire bullpen on the DL -- with the telling stat of David Robertson, Tommy Hunter and Pat Neshek making about $27 million total and contributing a combined 30 innings this season -- feels fairly Process. 

But we’re a little lacking in that season-defining injury, the one that happens early (if not before the season altogether), maybe gives us a couple flickers of false hope of the player coming back before season’s end, and then just kinda rolls into next year. McCutchen’s torn ACL was a tremendous bummer, but true midseason injuries haven’t usually been a part of the Process M.O., and the injury part just wasn’t quite stunning enough to really capture the imagination. As far as we can tell, no one’s missed time with an undiagnosed allergy or with undiagnosable swing amnesia just yet.

Process Rating: 4

Having Galaxy Brain long-term strategy to argue with reactionaries about

Nothing defined The Process more than the Us vs. Them nature of defending Our Once and Always Dark Lord Sam Hinkie and his next-level long-term plan for the Phillies’ rebuild, which inspired legions of followers, throngs of haters, and endless sports radio debates. The Phillies are an interesting comparison because their galvanizing figure isn’t the GM but the coach: Gabe Kapler, who came in hot to his first-ever managerial gig last year, with super-aggressive lineup switches and bullpen usage, pissing off the conservatives and intriguing the progressives. He may go down in history as the only coach to ever be booed at his first-ever home opener, which certainly feels pretty Process. 

Of course, two mostly full seasons later, it’s still a little unclear whether Kapler’s next-level maneuvering -- which has slowed down considerably from the hyperactivity of his early 2018, anyway -- is really worthy of HInkie-level devotion. While the Me, An Intellectual wing of Phillies Twitter is slower to call for Kapler’s head, I’m not sure they’re/we’re really convinced that he’s actually good yet. (Or maybe if baseball managers even matter all that much in the first place.) And if/when the Phillies miss the playoffs for the eighth straight year, it’s entirely likely that he’ll be the first casualty of the fallout. Not Hinkie-worthy then, but perhaps a Philly figure who will also end up vaguely iconic in his own way.

Process Rating: 6.5

Losing close games in excruciating fashion

The story of the Process Years is also the story of countless memorable defeats that the Sixers have suffered, from Emmanuel Mudiay to Harrison Barnes to basically every combo guard that can shoot. The Phillies have certainly had plenty of losses, but not many games that stand out as unforgettably gutting. The most dispiriting L I can remember was when we led the Marlins 7-0 and somehow ended up on the wrong end of a 19-11 drubbing, but even that one you could’ve turned off in the 7th. Maybe the walk-off walk to Pete Alonso a couple Fridays ago? The 15-inning loss to the White Sox? Eh. In baseball, every loss is its own sort of excruciating, so it’s hard to even say. 

Process Rating: 3.5

Knowing the best days still lie ahead

Random and occasionally tragic fun aside, this was what always got us through the peak Process years: Knowing that our patience through the losing would be rewarded when we got to this point, where the stars and assets the Sixers acquired over the years built our team into something resembling a true contender. Can we talk ourselves into this being the case with the Phillies team too, knowing that better days are still to come? 

I guess the answer is “maybe but not really.” There’s sort of a script there for this just being Not Our Year if you want to follow it -- the bullpen going down, Harper adjusting to Philly, the young pitching working through early struggles -- but the path forward to all that self-correcting seems muddy at best. Miscellaneous injuries happen. Harper might just be one tier short of a true superstar. Our young pitchers might not have a next step to take. Meanwhile, the Braves and Nats are both already better than us and clearly have the kind of electric young talent that good teams are supposed to build with. By comparison the Phillies are just kinda there, overpriced and understaffed.

So: A Doug Collins team, then? Or post-Larry Brown Iverson years? Not a world away, certainly, though at least in baseball simply spending more is always an option as long as the ownership can stomach it, and basically anyone can win once you get into the playoffs. Maybe next year they add a pitcher or two, the lineup gels a little better, the bullpen slows down on the off-road biking and free solo rock climbing, and the team actually squeaks into a Wild Card spot. It’s all possible, of course. But none of it is particularly Process. 

Process Rating: 3

until next time...

-K