Phillies Enter Dangerous Territory with their Fan Base

The Philadelphia Phillies salvaged a series split against the New York Mets behind another strong start by right-hander Zack Wheeler on Sunday.

Unfortunately, after botching an opportunity to gain ground in this key weekend series against their first-place division rivals, winning the series finale felt like a meaningless consolation prize.

Poor leadership from manager Joe Girardi, failure from first baseman Rhys Hoskins to make the simplest routine outs, the persisting failures of the bullpen, wasted individual accomplishments, and an injury to slugger Bryce Harper made this series seem like a bad rerun.

Prior to this weekend, the long-shot hope of staying competitive in an underperforming division was just about the only reason to remain optimistic about the Phillies. However, blowing an opportunity to gain ground in the most incompetent ways possible makes it that much harder to believe.

Will Phillies fans become apathetic?

Over the last decade, the Phillies have been an average team that becomes more frustrating by their tendency to “to fail in spectacular fashion,” as stated by Matt Gelb of The Athletic. Their horrendously sloppy play has spurred heavy criticism from the fan base all season, but an even bigger issue looms.

The smallest crowd in the history of Citizens Bank Park for a Phillies game without pandemic restrictions watched a victory over the Washington Nationals on Sunday, June 6. The best attendance numbers they’ll see this season came largely due to fans wearing the opponents’ colors against the New York Yankees the following weekend. Without a drastic change in on-field product, the Phillies can’t reasonably expect a significant increase in attendance this summer.

It’s gotten to the point that sports talk hosts are discouraging Philadelphia sports fans from ruining their moods by watching the Phillies. Overwhelming negativity is pouring out on social media. Harper’s recent pleas to improve the team ahead of the July 31 trade deadline even contained an admission of futility in the organization’s minor-league system.

Slipping further away in the standings will put the Phillies in danger of apathy: something that will be difficult for an organization that hasn’t profited from playoff baseball in over a decade to handle just after they have opened up their ballpark to full-capacity crowds once again. Add in the fact that Major League Baseball is not in the best shape overall.

This was supposed to be over.

The Phillies lost to the Miami Marlins 9-1 on April 23, 2015, in front of what was then the smallest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history at 17, 097. Fan favorites Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Carlos Ruiz all sat for the day with batting averages under .200 while a starting lineup that featured no members of the 2008 World Champions (for the first time since) took the field behind starter Dustin McGowan. That miserable afternoon was indicative of the irrelevance that the organization would have to endure in the coming seasons.

Television ratings and attendance numbers dropped. The team showed no life. The organization’s “rebuild” didn’t generate very much conversation from fans or media. The only Phillies jerseys you ever saw on the streets of Philadelphia had the names of old, broken-down heroes of a past era. It was an unfortunately familiar position for an organization that suffered through a similarly barren period during the late 1990s.

However, after a relatively competitive season in 2018, the Phillies made one of the biggest free-agent splashes in professional sports history ahead of the 2019 season by inking Harper to a $330 million contract. The drought appeared to be coming to an end, and an opening weekend sweep over the defending NL East champion Atlanta Braves had the city of Philadelphia believing that they were going to see the Fightin’ Phils in the World Series again.

The Uncertain Future of the Phillies

Harper’s arrival was supposed to be the beginning of a new era. However, the organization has since proven that they are nowhere near the same caliber as other large-market MLB franchises like the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, or even the small-market teams like Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Rays, who have all been to the postseason at least once in the last decade.

The addition of Harper and other key acquisitions like Wheeler and catcher J.T. Realmuto have been successful by some standards. The success of individuals has not come remotely close to covering up the fact that the organization simply doesn’t draft or develop prospects well enough to compete for a World Series.

Their incredibly flawed defensive make-up and mind-numbing incompetence in the bullpen have kept the fifth-highest payroll in the majors at a 36-39 record. Worst of all, the reality is that this isn’t an apparently fixable problem within an organization that no clear short-term or long-term direction.