Guest Feature from Kevin Lagowski
Guest Feature from Kevin Lagowski
Ranking Each Non-Playoff Phillies Season Since 2000 on the Disappoint-O-Meter
The Philadelphia Phillies do not have a long history of playoff success, something that you probably already knew unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last 140 years or so. But not all seasons of malcontent are created equal, as sometimes things are moderately fun even without a taste of the postseason in a given year. Other times, though, it’s absolutely infuriating. So, without reaching too far back into history to talk about teams that none of us remember, I’ve decided to focus on the Phillies’ non-playoff seasons since Y2K.
The amazing 2022 run was just the Phils’ sixth playoff appearance this century, coming far too long after the 2007-2011 stretch that spoiled us all and made us think that the Phillies would be good forever until the bottom completely fell out. So, for this exercise, we’ll be talking about the seasons running from 2000 to 2006 and from 2012 to 2021, 17 seasons in all that we can gripe and grouse about. And we’ll be ranking things using my patented Disappoint-O-Meter (alternate name Pain-O-Meter) on a scale of 1-10, with half points in play. We could do this chronologically, but the best way is to probably just start at the bottom (i.e., least disappointing) and slowly work our way up to aggravation. It’s tough to gauge disappointment versus the team being simply bad, but I’ll do my best. Also, the bold text at the end of each entry will tell you their record, how many games back they finished in the NL East and the wild card, and the overall Disappoint-O-Meter score I’ve assigned. Ok, here we go.
2000 - Not so much disappointing as it was just another kick to the lifeless bodies of Phillies fans in the vein of the “Stop, he’s already dead” Simpsons meme/gif. A season so putrid that I wrote a whole collection of articles about it on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, the best thing you could say is that this team’s 7-17 April record offered zero chance of being disappointed later in the season. Record: 65-97. 30 GB in NL East, 29 GB in WC. Score: 2.0
2020 - It’s difficult to evaluate Joe Girardi’s first season at the helm because this, of course, was the 60-game Covid season played in empty stadiums. So, with such little excitement from the jump, can we say it was truly disappointing when the team lost 7 of its last 8 games to finish one game out of an expanded playoff field? In a normal year, that’d be disastrous, but 2020 just had the feel of a glorified BS exposition, and the whole campaign should be stricken from the record. No World Series credit for you, Dodgers. So, meh. Record: 28-32. 7 GB in NL East, 1 GB in WC. Score: 2.0
2003 - The Phils pushed their chips into the middle by signing Jim Thome before the final season at the Vet, and the results were pretty exciting all year long. They never seriously contended for the division, but the Phillies were solidly in the wild card mix until an awful conclusion to the season. So that bumps the score up here slightly, but 2003 felt more like the foundation of something than a missed opportunity. Record: 86-76. 15 GB in NL East, 5 GB in WC. Score: 3.0
2001 - Jockeying with the Braves for first place for much of the season, this team just couldn’t crank it up enough down the stretch to get there. Scott Rolen’s final full season as a Phil and Pat Burrell’s first full season ended up going to waste. It’s kind of amazing that they hung around with the pitching they had (Person, Daal, Wolf, etc.) so you can’t be too heartbroken. It was at least nice to get back over .500 for the first time in seemingly forever. Record: 86-76. 2 GB in NL East, 7 GB in WC. Score: 3.5
2016 - Pete Mackanin tried, but he would have had to be some kind of miracle worker to get anything out of this club. Surprisingly, and I didn’t remember this until I went back and looked, the Phillies were over .500 in late May before things caved in. From there, nature took its course, and they were just also-rans with no room to disappoint because any expectation was folly. Record: 71-91. 24 GB in NL East, 16 GB in WC. Score: 4.0
2006 - Ryan Howard’s colossal MVP season didn’t pay off, as the team suffered a 6-game and a 7-game losing skid in June and played catch-up for the rest of the year after that. They had their moments and got back in the wild card race, but they never had the inside track and it always felt like a long shot after the ‘June swoon’. Cole Hamels had a decent MLB debut over 22 starts, portending hope for the future. Taken in a vacuum, it wasn’t an overly disappointing season, but you’ve got to add a point or two based on the fact that it marked the 12th year in a row that the club had missed the playoffs (not gonna count the 1994 strike wiping out that postseason.) Record: 85-77. 12 GB in NL East, 3 GB in WC. Score: 4.0
2014 - After things seemed to bottom out in 2013, the team finished with an identical record in 2014. In truth, this team never really had a chance, as the core of the World Series team was deteriorating before our eyes. It was an old club, and the prospect pipeline was dry and wasn’t offering any immediate help or chance for excitement. I’ll give this a middling score, based on how simply forgettable it was, as nobody really expected anything close to a playoff team. Record: 73-89. 23 GB in NL East, 15 GB in WC. Score: 5.0
2002 - Coming off the promise of 2001, this was a step in the wrong direction. The Scott Rolen trade was a necessary move, but it certainly didn’t help the team on the field. Vicente Padilla emerged as a legit arm, but Jimmy Rollins dipped in his sophomore season. Pat Burrell had what would turn out to be his finest offensive season, but it ended up not mattering. Record: 80-81. 21.5 GB in NL East, 15 GB in WC. Score: 5.0
2004 - The inaugural campaign at Citizens Bank Park saw the Phils finish at 86-76 for the third time in four seasons under Larry Bowa, who was actually canned with two games to go because he never could get them over the hump. It’s not hard to see why things went wrong; just look at the ERAs in the rotation: Kevin Millwood 4.85, Eric Milton 4.75, Brett Myers 5.52, Randy Wolf 4.28, Vicente Padilla 4.53. All of those guys started at least 20 games, torpedoing big years by Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu to ensure that Year 1 of CBP would end without a playoff appearance. Record: 86-76. 10 GB in NL East, 6 GB in WC. Score: 5.5
2017 - After a modicum of progress in 2016, the Phils reverted once again in 2017, with the team’s very green offense failing to break through and the pitching staff an absolute mess behind Aaron Nola. Seriously competing for a playoff spot shouldn’t have been expected, but neither was the third worst record in MLB, which is what happened. Record: 66-96. 31 GB in NL East, 21 GB in WC. Score: 6.5
2013 - Oh boy. All vestiges of the glory era went out the window during this season, as a garbage club got Charlie Manuel fired and forced to sadly walk his hoagie out the door. But hey, maybe Ryne Sandberg could turn things around? Stay tuned on that one. This season is really hard to classify, though. On one hand, the shock of them missing the playoffs had occurred the previous year, so it wasn’t unexpected. On the other, things got so bad that we had to rely on Domonic Brown being essentially the only bright spot on the team. Does that mean it was disappointing, or just lousy? Eh, I’ll throw a dart. Record: 73-89. 23 GB in NL East, 17 GB in WC. Score: 7.0
2012 - One year after being easily the best team in baseball and missing a golden opportunity to add another title, 2012 absolutely stunk. In reality, we should have seen the writing on the wall after the playoff collapse the previous October and Ryan Howard’s horrific injury that signaled a shift in fortune. But when you’ve won five straight division titles, it wasn’t going to be an easy pill to swallow regardless. Not even an excellent season by Cole Hamels could get them anywhere near contention, which is bound to happen when nobody on the club even records 70 RBI. It was that kind of year. Just a harbinger of doom, this season. Record: 81-81. 17 GB in NL East, 7 GB in WC. Score: 7.0
2018 - Gabe Kapler took charge and the club started to roll. They surged into first place in July and held it as late as August 11th, but then the wheels fell off. The Phillies went 15-31 in their final 46 games when merely treading water during that time would have had them in the race come the final week of the season. Instead, they were essentially out of any kind of playoff discussion about a month after they had been in the driver’s seat. What happened anyway? Well, Jake Arrieta really faded, and the rest of the rotation wasn’t much good after Aaron Nola. As a whole, the offense lacked any kind of real punch, as well. Really, though, should we have taken this team seriously when it gave 200+ plate appearances to Andrew Knapp? Ultimately, a 14-win improvement from the previous year felt like it didn’t matter thanks to the epic stumble in the final third of the season. Record: 80-82. 10 GB in NL East, 11 GB in WC. Score: 7.5
2005 - The Phillies hired a baseball lifer named Charlie Manuel and managed to win two more games than they did the previous season. This team got 17 wins from Jon Lieber, saw Chase Utley fully announce himself as a stud, received a Rookie of the Year appearance by Ryan Howard in just 88 games, and had other valuable contributors throughout the lineup (remember Kenny Lofton’s one season as a Phil?) Ultimately, though, it was just an agonizing playoff miss, punctuated by Billy Wagner giving up a crucial home run to Craig Biggio in a game I was at in September. The Phillies went on to finish one game behind the Astros for the wild card, meaning that this game basically flipped their records. This is why I’ll never forgive Billy Wagner. There was one positive takeaway, at least, as Ed Wade got fired after the season, and on my birthday, no less. Record: 88-74. 2 GB in NL East, 1 GB in WC. Score: 7.5
2015 - After a season and a half on the job, maybe Ryne Sandberg could start to turn the tide, some people ignorantly thought. Didn’t happen. The Phils posted their worst record since 1972. The debut of Aaron Nola was just about the only ray of hope here, as the team said goodbye to Cole Hamels and Chase Utley. The season was punctuated, of course, by manager Ryne Sandberg up and quitting, in a move that seemed to haunt the club for years after. It was an all-around embarrassment, more so than a disappointment. But it’s gotta be really high on the list based on sheer ugliness… Record: 63-99. 27 GB in NL East, 34 GB in WC. Score: 8.0
2019 - Spurred on by the huge offseason acquisitions of Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto, the Phillies made the leap from 80 wins all the way up to…81 wins. Seriously, though, this team was doing what was expected of it and led the NL East into early June. Then things came crashing down, lowlighted by a 7-game losing streak later in the month. They’d never seriously contend after that, Gabe Kapler got the axe as the organization as a whole looked incompetent, and it felt like another ‘broken record’ situation in Philly. Record: 81-81. 16 GB in NL East, 8 GB in WC. Score: 8.5
2021 - The Phillies got an MVP campaign from Bryce Harper and a Cy Young-caliber season from Zack Wheeler that should have netted him the award but didn’t, and this is the best they could do? An 8-game winning streak at the start of August ratcheted up the excitement, but the Phils went 23-27 from that point on as the Braves absolutely blew past them en route to the division and an eventual World Series win. A huge wasted opportunity as the postseason skid reached ten years. Record: 82-80. 6.5 GB in NL East, 8 GB in WC. Score: 9.0
As for 2023, I shudder to think where it would rank on this list if the Phillies end up missing the playoffs this season. The talent on the current roster and its massive payroll would conspire to put this near the top of the Disappoint-O-Meter, so let’s hope we don’t have to end up worrying about that. So, until the next time that I come up with some other sort of cockamamie rankings system concerning the Phils, I bid you adieu.
Exclusive new artwork from Dhwani Saraiya.
Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper:
Tweets of the week.
Phillies twitter (Phillies X?) is a lot of fun when the team is rolling. When the team struggles, things get… different. Underneath the atPhillies final score tweet on Monday, I found some great plans to fix the Phillies, courtesy of fans on the app:
Team’s half a game out of a playoff spot in July? Fire the manager who took them to the World Series last year. (Rob Thomson did, admittedly, have an awful day on Monday.)
I like this one because it recognizes that Thomson alone isn’t the issue. We’ve actually got to sell every player at the deadline. (But also fire Thomson, of course.)
https://twitter.com/PotatoCam69/status/1683649817094897666?s=20
DFA Josh Harrison (whatever), DFA Trea Turner (uhhhhh what), fire Thomson (sigh).
https://twitter.com/yutasgoated/status/1683649662195060750?s=20
Maybe what we really need is a change in ownership?
https://twitter.com/BajaBlasted420/status/1683672122189545476?s=20
Trea Turner to LF? Not a very detailed plan here:
https://twitter.com/MorranJake/status/1683652907567132673?s=20
This week in 2008.
The 2008 Phils were 54-47 at the end of July 23, tied with the Mets for first place in the NL East and one game ahead of the Marlins.
On July 17, the Phillies acquired Joe Blanton from the Athletics in exchange for three prospects: Adrian Cardenas, Josh Outman, and Matt Spencer.
The next day, they opened up the second half with a 4-2 win over the Marlins. Jamie Moyer continued to own the fish, allowing two runs in six innings. Ryan Howard hit his 29th home run, and Brad Lidge pitched a 1-2-3 9th for the save.
On July 19, the Phillies lost an afternoon game to the Marlins despite two Pat Burrell HRs (24, 25). The L dropped them to 12-18 in day games at this point in the season. They were 41-27 at night.
Phils lost to the Marlins, 3-2, in extra innings on July 20. They fell into a first-place tie with the Mets at 53-46. Cole Hamels in this game: 8 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 R, 7 K.
The Fightins had an off day on July 21. Brett Myers rejoined the club on July 22 after a stint in the minors. Myers would go on to post a 7-2 record and a 1.80 ERA in his next 11 starts.
Joe Blanton made his Phillies debut against Johan Santana and the Mets on July 22. Blanton allowed five runs in six innings and the Phillies trailed 5-2 in the ninth, but they came back to win 8-6. So Taguchi and Jimmy Rollins hit clutch doubles. Brad Lidge improved to 22/22 in save opportunities.
Mets caught the Phils for a first-place tie again on July 23, after beating the good guys 6-3.
Phillie you forgot about.
Ken Heintzelman: 40-55, 3.75 ERA, 4.07 FIP, 1.35 WHIP, 3.4 BB/9, and 3.3 K/9 in six years with the Phillies (1947-1952).
We don’t hear much about Heintzelman nowadays. He started his career with the Pirates, lost three years of his prime due to military service 1943-1945, and joined the Phils in 1947. He was serviceable for the rest of his career, with ERAs in the 4.00’s most seasons. But in 1949, Heintzelman’s best year, he outperformed Robin Roberts as the ace of the staff (17-10 record with a 3.02 ERA as compared to Roberts’ 15-15 record with a 3.69 ERA).
Heintzelman was on the 1950 Whiz Kids team, though at age 34 he was certainly no kid. He retired from the Phillies after the 1952 season, and passed away in the year 2000.
This is the section of the newsletter where I make you look at dogs.
Thank you for reading and GO PHILS!
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