It's time to have an honest conversation about the Phillies
And a note from me
Hello, friends.
To my knowledge, Phillies Phocus was the first of its kind. Substack has grown in popularity over the last year, and I’m proud that this newsletter was ahead of the trend, launching in May 2022.
I’ve been the sole mastermind behind the newsletter. All of the writing and research are done on my own time and for my enjoyment. However, this is no longer sustainable for me.
With this in mind, I’ve decided to add a paid subscriber tier to my Substack, which costs $5 per month and includes one or two posts per week, live video chats, and special events. I hope you’ll consider this option to support my work.
Why should you support me?
If you’ve been following my Phillies’ coverage and listening to me wax poetic about our favorite baseball team for a while now, I hope you find it interesting and worthwhile.
As a female sportswriter in a male-dominated industry, it’s important to me to be a role model for other young women in the field.
I love what I do and want to continue doing it!
If you’re unable to do so, here are other ways to support my work:
Read my latest articles at Yardbarker and Rotoballer!
Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Smith, Nick Kurtz: Fantasy Baseball Prospects Risers, Fallers
Five Undervalued Hitters and Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Adds
Talk to you soon,
Lauren
The other day, while I was driving home, my Apple CarPlay wasn’t connecting. It was dark outside, and naturally, I needed some form of sound in my car to avoid getting anxious.
So, I had the displeasure of having 94 WIP on for about five minutes, until my CarPlay finally locked in and started playing music for me. My radio is automatically tuned to that station because of listening to Phillies games.
Anyway, the host (I’m not sure who it was) was saying how the Phillies would never win a World Series with the likes of Johan Rojas, Max Kepler, etc., on their roster. I would tend to agree with him; however, something dawned on me upon hearing this.
No championship roster is ever perfect.
Don’t get me wrong, cutting dead weight from a team is essential to being a World Series-caliber ball club. Just look at 2022 when the Phillies finally decided to part ways with Didi Gregorius and Odubel Herrera.
To me, that was a sign that they were starting to take winning seriously and potentially make a run in October.
Moreover, no team in baseball is currently running away with a championship. Each roster has shortcomings. Even the reigning champion, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their rotation is without Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow due to injuries, Roki Sasaki hasn’t lived up to the hype, and Clayton Kershaw is old. That leaves, arguably, one formidable starter in Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They also trot out Michael Conforto, sporting a .609 OPS, every day in left field.
The 51-win Detroit Tigers are made up of a bunch of guys who know how to get on base. They don’t possess a ton of big-name players outside of Tarik Skubal, Javier Baez, or even Gleyber Torres. Baez was essentially non-existent in Detroit’s lineup until this year, and the rest consists of a few former first-round picks who are still making names for themselves as hitters.
This is all to say that there are multiple formulas to winning.
While the guy on WIP had every right to feel the way he did after the Phillies scored just one run in a three-game series sweep by the Astros in Houston, they scored 13 runs in a shutout of the Braves on Friday in Atlanta.
Trea Turner had two homers, Casty homered, Schwarber homered, and Otto Kemp had his first career home run, a three-run shot.
It was the kind of win that made me feel better about the team, but also made me feel worse about it. We all know that they can dominate offensively, as they did on Friday, and then disappear in the blink of an eye, as they did from Tuesday to Thursday.
Maybe that’s just baseball.
But for a team that’s now fallen short of a World Series title for three seasons in a row, they cannot let that happen again come October. That’s why it’s so easy to be doom and gloom about this team, but I don’t think they’re as bad as everyone thinks they are.
I’ve believed for most of the season that the Phillies need a near-perfect trade deadline even to have a chance in the playoffs. They need bullpen help and a right-handed impact bat that won’t immediately suck upon coming here.
That said, I find solace when I look at the rest of baseball and how the Phillies compare to each contending club. It’s easy to romanticize a team you don’t watch every day. Every team in baseball has its flaws.
If the postseason started today, the Phillies, Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Brewers, and Giants would represent the National League.
And, maybe I’ll regret saying this, but there isn't one playoff team right now that I couldn’t see the Phillies defeating in a series, especially with their rotation, Bryce Harper's return, and a successful trade deadline.
But the offense can’t disappear for 20+ innings.
So much of baseball is luck. You can have a perfect team on paper that doesn’t win anything, or you can have a scrappy team that wins it all.
The Phillies need luck on their side as we (somehow) approach the midway point of the 2025 season.
I think it bodes well that we have won series against all of those contenders (except the brewers, who swept us).
It’s also a tricky glance mid-season, because who knows what player will be returning from IL healthy, and what player will make a team-impacting IL stint again.
Silver lining to harper’s absence is Otto Kemp!
Regarding your option for paid tier:
Right now I feel there isn’t as much content as I would like to pay for. Would you publish articles you’ve written for other sources here, barring their ownership of your work?
Would you consider hosting game chats when we are the national game?
Just thinking of a few things that I would love the privilege of paying for!