Do the Philadelphia Phillies even deserve to make the playoffs? That question is being asked by just about every fan this week, as the perennially disappointing club continues to founder on the precipice of the postseason. Everyone has seen this movie before and they know how it’s going to end. Even if the Phils back their way into the Wild Card round, it’s all but assured that their washed up core won’t go far in October. Perhaps, as crazy as it sounds, the best thing that could happen to them would be to collapse.
1964 is a year that lives in infamy in Phillies lore. A team led by future Hall of Famers Jim Bunning and Dick Allen occupied first place in the National League from Opening Day all the way until the last two weeks of the season. At that point, the squad dropped 10 consecutive games at the end of September before ultimately finishing one game short of the St. Louis Cardinals for the pennant.
The current iteration of the Phillies are starting to bear some disturbing similarities to their predecessors from 62 years ago. While they’re far away from that team’s 10-game streak of futility (although they did drop 10 straight of their own back in April to get skipper Rob Thomson fired), they’ve now lost their last three contests and have yet to lock up a playoff berth with just two games remaining.
Moreover, the current Phillies haven’t been losing nailbiters in which they’ve experienced some bad luck. On the contrary, they look the part of a sloppy, uninterested, miserable mess of a baseball team.
Boos have continually rained down from the home crowd this week, and justifiably so, considering the Phils have scored a grand total of two runs over their last 27 innings of baseball. Couple that with a trainwreck of a bullpen and untimely injuries to key contributors Luis Arraez and Jesús Luzardo, and the Phillies have concocted the perfect brew to make fans loathe them.
The Phillies, who are making it much harder on themselves, have lost again. They might have lost Luis Arraez too. Those who stayed until the end are booing. The vibes are not great.
— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) September 25, 2026
There’s only one way for the Phillies, who are being paid collectively more than $300 million this season, to turn this sinking ship around: go on a deep playoff run. Merely sneaking into the best-of-three Wild Card Series before being bounced by the archrival Atlanta Braves would not nearly suffice. Nor would an unceremonious dismissal in the Division Series that follows.
Making it beyond that would put them in the National League Championship Series; quite a feat, but that was not enough to save the 2023 squad from eternal ignominy after an epic meltdown against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Perhaps a World Series appearance would be enough to satiate a seething fanbase, but the only surefire silver bullet would be hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy at the end of the year.
Is it possible? Yes. Are they going to do it? Almost certainly not. The Phillies have far too many holes to be considered a serious contender against juggernaut clubs like the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers. Heck, the Phils threw everything they had at L.A. last postseason, and barely made them break a sweat. What could possibly make any rational observer think that this year’s outcome would be any different?
In fairness to the Phillies, they cannot absolutely positively be counted out as long as they have breath left in their lungs. Bryce Harper’s comments about being in the “driver’s seat” may have rang hollow to a scar-covered fanbase, but he is technically correct. If the Phillies do what they need to do and win their next two games, they will be in the playoffs. From there anything can happen.
However, that misses the bigger picture. Harper and the Phillies peaked back in 2022 with an out-of-nowhere ascent to the National League pennant, and it’s been all downhill from there. They had golden opportunities in both 2022 and 2023 to grab the brass ring before slipping on banana peels each time. Now, lacking playoff heroes Rhys Hoskins and Ranger Suárez, and with the rest of the team either past their primes or close to it, why would things be any different?
The Phillies might need the wake-up call of a catastrophic collapse to finally get their house in order
The Phillies will need to make franchise-altering changes if they want to get serious about winning a World Series. Embattled president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski’s gun-slinging style of massively overpaying aging free agents is what got the organization into this mess, and he certainly isn’t the right man to drag them out of it.
This is Dombrowski’s modus operandi at work. Backing up the brinks truck for star players, trading away most of the assets on the farm, and crossing his fingers that it results in a championship before he skips town. It worked for the then-Florida Marlins and the Boston Red Sox. The Detroit Tigers and now the Phillies have seen the misfortune when things don't go according to plan.
However, it’s not just Dombrowski’s flawed roster construction that’s done them in. Principal owner John Middleton’s unwavering loyalty to other people who have done nothing to earn it is just as big of a fly in the ointment. Hitting coach Kevin Long was brought in ahead of the 2022 season, and has presided over five seasons of at best inconsistent and at worst downright atrocious offensive performances. Why bother bringing in a new voice for a club that desperately needs it, when instead the Phillies could keep banging their heads against the wall?
The same could be said of a farm system that has yet to produce any meaningful homegrown talent since Aaron Nola a decade ago, and was ranked next-to-last in the sport earlier this year. Whether it’s Dombrowski himself, general manager Preston Mattingly, one of the myriad assistant GMs, or anyone else, someone should have been held responsible for the Phillies’ reprehensible player development system long ago.
Alas, it seems that accountability is not likely to come. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reported over the summer that the club is expected to extend Dombrowski’s contract some time soon before implementing a succession plan that revolves around Preston Mattingly.
No repercussions are on the horizon for the players either, considering the core of Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Aaron Nola, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto, Cristopher Sánchez and Luzardo are all locked up on big-money deals for years to come. Some of them (Harper, Schwarber, Luzardo, Sánchez) have been largely beyond reproach. Others (Turner, Realmuto) are actively torpedoing their team’s chances to win on a nightly basis.
The Phillies are in a pickle and it’s of their own making. They have too much money tied up in too many old players over too many years to burn it all down. They have practically nothing of value down on the farm with which to augment their geriatric core, and their decision-makers have not proven themselves adaptable enough to work around their limitations.
In short: they’re stuck. The plan for a half-decade now has been to run it back with the same stale roster year after year hoping to catch lightning in a bottle in October. As long as they keep getting that opportunity, they will likely not feel a need to change things.
However, what if the Phillies didn’t get that opportunity? What if they faceplanted so spectacularly over the final weekend of the regular season that they didn’t even get another bite at the World Series apple? Would that be enough to finally spur much-needed change?
It seems that nothing short of God Himself speaking to John Middleton from a burning bush could get him to fire Dave Dombrowski, but aside from that, there other levers that could be pulled. A long-overdue sacking of Kevin Long would be a nice place to start, if for no other reason than to deliver to fans their pound of flesh. Parting ways with the cromulent-but-not-impressive Don Mattingly wouldn’t hurt, either.
Still, the Phillies need true foundation-shaking change if they want to break out of this malaise. Whether that’s spending more “stupid money” in free agency, radically restructuring the player development system, trading away established pieces of an inadequate core, or some other bold move, something has to give.
With any luck, the Phillies will make this conversation moot with a solid two games to finish out the regular season and an impressive run through the playoffs. Maybe they’ll feed the hungry and broker world peace while they’re at it. However, if reality crashes back down on them and they once again bow out with a whimper instead of a bang, heads will need to roll for the good of the franchise.
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