The Phillies are steam rolling towards the playoffs with the end of the 2023 season fast approaching. Baseball Reference has the Phillies with a 98.4% chance of making the playoffs which would be the second year in a row. Dave Dombrowski and Sam Fuld have been at the helm of the Phillies front office since December of 2020 and have been one of the leading catalysts for this recent Phillies organizational turnaround. It is no coincidence that the Phillies have made the playoffs two times out of Dombrowski and Fuld’s first three seasons with a World Series run in 2022 and a team that has the look to be able to do it again.
But Phillies fans are not unfamiliar with front office incompetence. From 2015-2020, Andrew MacPhail and Matt Klentak led the Phillies front office through a dreadful time in Phillies history. It was an uneasy time watching the front office continuously make mistakes, slap “band aids” on the roster, neglect any sort of farm system development, and have the major league team sink further into despair. Thankfully, the Phillies have an owner in John Middleton who wasn’t happy with the results and made a change. Dombrowski came in and completely changed the outlook and energy of the organization. He is a proven winner and has clearly brought his winning ways to the Phillies.
The NL East as a whole has seen great success over the recent years. The Phillies, Braves, Nationals, and Mets have all made World Series appearances in the last eight years with the Braves winning in 2021 and the Nationals winning in 2019. The Marlins, while they have not made the World Series, have always been a tough out and has played better than expected for many years. However, as we stand today, there is clearly a couple teams in the NL East with a front office that is more savvy, forward looking, and successful.
So, where do the Phillies rank in the hierarchy of NL East front offices? Let’s rank the National League East’s Front Offices by competence.
5.) The Washington Nationals
The Nationals GM Mike Rizzo led the organization to a World Series victory in 2019 but it has been all downhill since then. A team that had names like Juan Soto, Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, and Anthony Rendon is now unrecognizable with headline names on the major league roster of Joey Meneses and C.J. Abrams. It’s not all bad for the Nationals though, according to MLB.com, they have the eighth ranked farm system in baseball with three top 100 guys. A high-ranking farm system is all you can ask for when trading away the team's best players seemingly year after year. Generational talents like Soto don’t come around very often so a front office that trades him away has to be “dinged” in a ranking. That all being said, results are the most important thing to look at, and after the 2019 season the team has been dreadful. With a record of 208-325 there hasn’t been much for this organization to be excited about.