Phillies' not-so-secret postseason weakness revealed before NLDS

After a long five days of waiting, the NLDS is about to get started (finally!) when the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets take the field on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park for Game 1 of the best-of-five series. The two NL East foes are extremely familiar with each other after playing 13 times during the regular season and will have their thoroughly researched game plans in place for pitchers and hitters.

Heading into a postseason series like this, teams examine details of their opponent's tendencies and drill down to the minutiae below the surface-level stats to find any weakness they can expose. While the Mets will have done their research well before they arrive at The Bank on Saturday, this Phillies team has one weakness that's not a big secret.

Phillies' not-so-secret postseason weakness revealed before NLDS

As MLB.com's Manny Randhawa identifies in his write-up on how to beat each team in the Division Series, the Phillies had a heck of a time this season laying off the curve, or any other breaking pitch, for that matter.

Fastball? No problem. Anything else? Big problem.

"Phillies hitters feasted on the fastball during the regular season, collectively finishing third in the Majors with a .364 xwOBA against them," Randhawa explains. "But when it came to non-fastballs, the Phillies had the fourth-highest chase rate (35%) and a 16th-ranked .278 xwOBA."

He adds that the Phillies saw the highest percentage of breaking pitches, at 32.9 percent, than any other team this season. According to Statcast, they had the fourth-highest overall chase rate in 2024.

It was a problem that reared its ugly head during last year's playoffs. Over the last five games of the NLCS, they chased 36 percent of pitches out of the zone (subscription required), per The Philadelphia Inquirer's Scott Lauber.

The issue was highlighted again in September when they struck out 40 times over a three-game series in Milwaukee against the now-eliminated Brewers. That astronomical number included back-to-back games of 16 strikeouts, the first time in franchise history that has happened. They followed that up with 41 strikeouts over four games in New York against their upcoming NLDS opponent.

Considering that the Phillies finished September "tied for the third-highest chase rate over any month by any team this season," according to Randhawa, it's not a big secret how Mets pitchers will attack the Phillies in this NLDS matchup. The question is: Can Phillies hitters stick to a game plan and make the Mets come into the zone?