5 Phillies most to blame for disappointing 2024 season

José Alvarado

A former infallible stud in the Phillies bullpen, José Alvarado had an underwhelming 2024 season, to say the least. After consistently putting up sub-3.20 ERAs along with a dominating strikeout rate close to 14 batters per nine innings in each of his previous two seasons, the Phillies looked to Alvarado to take his game to another level when he was elevated into the closer’s role for this year. He had shown success in the past when handling ninth-inning duties, so Philadelphia truly expected him to prosper in the role and run with it.

However, Alvarado ended up struggling mightily over the course of the 2024 season. Things got so shaky for the 29-year-old reliever that he was eventually moved off of the role following a horrendous July, especially after the deadline acquisition of closer Carlos Estévez from the Los Angeles Angels.

In the end, Alvarado posted a 2-5 record with a 4.09 ERA and 1.25 WHIP, while giving up a career-high 28 earned runs and six home runs over 61 2/3 innings pitched in 66 relief appearances. His normally unhittable stuff became hittable, while his 9.2 K/9 was his lowest strikeout rate since his debut season back in 2017.

Due to his inconsistency and ineffectiveness throughout the regular season, the Phillies chose to stay away from his usage during their 2024 postseason run. Alvarado eventually appeared in just one game in the NLDS and, as expected, ended up yielding two runs in just 2/3 of an inning of work.

Had he been the Alvarado of old, especially the version that we witnessed as part of the Phillies’ 2023 playoff run, Philadelphia wouldn’t have had to rely on other arms to get things done in high-leverage situations during this year’s NLDS. Those arms all happened to end up imploding, playing a huge role in the collapse this postseason. Alvarado will now have the offseason to hopefully reestablish his reliability for 2025 to help stabilize the relief corps again.

Kevin Long

When the Phillies’ bats were clicking during the first half of the season, no one appeared to be worried about offensive production for the most part. However, when several players, including stars Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, endured some prominent slumps down the stretch, the growing problem was never truly rectified in the end. In doing so, the Phillies posted just an underwhelming 33-33 record following the All-Star Break as they trudged into the postseason.

With their struggles at the plate, the onus was on hitting coach Kevin Long to find a remedy for the situation prior to the playoffs, before the games started to really count. Opposing teams began to exploit the Phillies’ weakness of their propensity to chase, as many of the players failed to adjust as a result.

In particular, they had huge problems with non-fastballs, leading to the fourth-highest chase rate of 35 percent in 2024. As highlighted by our very own Michael Fisher, the problem was present during last year’s playoffs and also became evident once again during the last month of the 2024 season.

Either they didn’t work on the issue, or Long wasn’t successful in getting the Phillies to change their plate approach. As a result, they ended up striking out a whopping 38 times over four games in the NLDS against the Mets. That in itself led to many rallies being snuffed out as the Phillies couldn’t get anything going for a potential comeback in most cases.

Hopefully, it will be an issue that will eventually be resolved heading into 2025. But for the 2024 year, it pretty much led to their undoing in the latter half of the season.

Rob Thomson

In his three seasons as manager of the Phillies, Rob Thomson has shown to be quite successful with his moves and decisions within the game. After all, he has led the team to three straight postseason appearances, while coming close to a World Series title in 2022 as well.

But with his deployment of closer Craig Kimbrel last postseason that may have essentially done the Phillies in, it just showed that not everyone can be perfect at all times.

Unfortunately, some of that misjudgment carried over into the 2024 season, as Thomson made some questionable calls over the course of the year. The most prominent one being the continued use of Taijuan Walker in the rotation despite his obvious ongoing struggles throughout the season.

When he finally relegated Walker to the bullpen, the damage was already done, and it was enough to prevent the Phillies from finishing first in the league to get a more favorable matchup in the playoffs. In addition, not resting Harper enough down the stretch when he had an apparent nagging injury ultimately limited his effectiveness in the end.

More significantly, Thomson made some key mistakes during the NLDS, in particular during the Game 4 elimination. Looking back, if he had the chance to redo some of his decisions, there’s no doubt he would have done things differently.

The good thing is that Thomson is a smart man and should be able to learn from the things that did not work and make sure he won’t repeat them again in the future. The bad part is that 2024 is already over for the Phillies, so he won’t have his chance for redemption until the very next year.

Dave Dombrowski

Finally, this list wouldn’t be complete without including the one who could have been the difference-maker for the club, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Even before heading into the 2024 season, Dombrowski had always had his vision of winning and that you needed stars to help make that happen.

Well, during the 2023-24 offseason, the Phillies made a number of free agent signings and waiver claims, but none of them turned out to be of any significance. In fact, one of their biggest signings in utilityman Whit Merrifield turned out to be a huge flop, as he was released midway through the 2024 season.

Nevertheless, Dombrowski had the chance to make up for everything at the trade deadline to reshape the Phillies in the best possible way down the stretch and heading into the playoffs.

With potential game-changers in Brent Rooker and Luis Robert Jr. available, the Phillies settled with outfielder Austin Hays. Hays ended up being a negligible acquisition as he failed to stay healthy, along with providing little in production when he did get into game action.

The Phillies also got Carlos Estévez, along with lefty Tanner Banks, to shore up the bullpen. Although they did a decent job down the stretch, things could have been even better with some big-name relievers such as Tanner Scott and Michael Kopech also moved at the deadline. As a result, Philadelphia really missed out on some potential star power that Dombrowski has always emphasized who could have been potential difference-makers for the club.

In the end, all three deadline acquisitions actually failed to produce when the games mattered most. Hays appeared in two playoff games and struck out three times in four at-bats. Banks appeared in just one game and gave up one run on two hits in one inning of mop-up work. Finally, Estévez fared the best among the three, but still ended up giving up the key hit in Game 4 to Francisco Lindor that ended the Phillies’ season. 

Overall, it appeared as though the Phillies remained status quo, and perhaps even regressed a bit this season despite all the moves they made. As a result, Dombrowski will need to make up for it with a productive offseason to get the Phillies back on track and in the right direction in 2025.

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