Philadelphia Phillies: A look back at a decade of honeymoons, nostalgia and reconstruction
The Phillies try to keep hopes alive, but eventually committed to a full rebuild
The front office tried to fight the rebuild in 2014, adding some big names like A.J. Burnett and Marlon Byrd, but the Phillies were just a team filled with players past their prime. Ruben Amaro, Jr. failed to relinquish the assets that their mediocre team possessed in order to prep for the future. Instead, the team struggled to connect on the field and off the field with new manager Ryne Sandberg, and finished last in the division for the first time since 2000.
The lone bright spot of the 2014 season came in June, when the Phillies drafted two major linchpins to the organization: Aaron Nola and Rhys Hoskins.
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The true transition to youth came in the 2014 offseason, when the Phillies shipped homegrown franchise legend Jimmy Rollins to the Dodgers for Zach Eflin. They also drafted Odubel Herrera in the Rule 5 draft , and followed up by drafting Scott Kingery in the June draft.
The 2015 season was all about transactions, considering they finished last in the division, again.
Hamels, Papelbon, and Utley were all traded before the deadline, through which the Phillies acquire Nick Pivetta, Jerad Eickhoff, Jorge Alfaro, and Nick Williams. This was also the end of the short-lived Ryne Sandberg managerial career, who resigned on June 26.
In Cole Hamels’ last game as a Phillie, he threw the sole no-hitter of his career against the Cubs.