Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Phillies are worse than anyone could have imagined

Well on their way to 100 losses, the Phillies are bad from top to bottom.

Freddy Galvis is one of the few bright spots for the Phillies this season. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)
Freddy Galvis is one of the few bright spots for the Phillies this season. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)Read more

AT THE MIDWAY point, these Phillies are historically bad, 100-loss bad.

So much would have had to have gone right for them to approach the respectability of even 80 wins that a .500 season almost defied possibility. Still, 100 losses are a lot different from even 90, or 95.

This isn't a baseball team, it's a reality TV show.

One with a really bad script.

It starts with the producers.

Their front office is leaderless; the manager defected; and the clubhouse is poised for deadline destruction by July 31.

This is beyond bizarre.

The ownership group just hired Andy MacPhail, apparently in an effort to sabotage anything resembling normalcy, since MacPhail won't officially take over until October.

Seriously.

The company line is that lame-duck general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. will continue to judge talent and make deals, but Amaro already was undermined by interim president Pat Gillick, the former GM who took over the presidency because David Montgomery got sick. Gillick supposedly will approve or decline any major move Amaro makes.

MacPhail will act as an "adviser" to Gillick. Wink, wink.

Inconceivable.

MacPhail is the new boss. Everything that happens at the Bank will cross his desk and need his stamp. Any other way of doing business is ridiculous.

In this atmosphere, the players are asked to play.

It has been ugly.

It will be obscene.

The most popular player of their recent golden era, Chase Utley, is hurt - an injury he evidently hid from his manager - but he's the only real casualty. The rest of the team is healthy, and, somehow, still horrendous.

To understand the depth of the drop-off, and its predictability, consider a snapshot of only one facet of only one position.

Freddy Galvis is having the sort of year that would be considered a success for Freddy Galvis: hitting around .260, playing steady, sometimes spectacular defense.

Of the crop of relatively young Phillies expected to enjoy auditions of some degree this season, Galvis represents the median. He's not Maikel Franco, who is expected to be a two-way cornerstone, or Ken Giles, the closer of the future. If Galvis hits .260 or so, he probably will play shortstop for quite some time.

Galvis entered yesterday with 10 errors, a pace for 20 this season - not awful, but not great.

Jimmy Rollins, the man Galvis replaced, never had more than 14 and has six for the Dodgers this season. Rollins is 11 years older than Galvis.

Rollins is the best defensive shortstop of his era. No one expects Galvis to replicate his performance.

Rollins was the shortstop of a 73-win club last season. Galvis is the shortstop this season.

Amaro and Gillick might have predicted that drop-off. They failed to gauge how bad the rest of the wreck would be.

Utley, because of injury, provided the worst value in a series of bad contract extensions issued during the salad days. Utley, 36, has now cemented his status as the worst extension among recent deals, too. He entered yesterday hitting .190 with four homers since last September; that's 57-for-300.

Poor middle relief has the front office panicked. Justin De Fratus, 27, and Jake Diekman, 28, were supposed to be answers, not questions.

Abysmal offense and fundamentals so flawed as to be comical serve as a further indictment of the vanity 2013 hire of untested Ryne Sandberg. He was supposed to preach small ball and tight play; he got nothing. Surprised? Why?

Not only did Sandberg have no major league managing experience, he had spent only 20 weeks on a big-league staff, presumably as Charlie Manuel's third-base coach; but, really, as Brutus.

Et tu, Ryne?

Well, Ryan Howard is hitting, but not enough to make himself worth a prospect or salary relief in trade. Veteran starters Aaron Harang and Jerome Williams started well and looked like tradable gems, but lately they have been so punch-line bad, it's as if they can't bear to leave Philly. Will anyone take a high-salary closer like Jonathan Papelbon?

Interim manager Pete Mackanin has no power, since he almost assuredly will be replaced next season.

This is the circus that serves as the showcase for the young talent:

Franco, the tantalizing rookie third baseman; Cody Asche, whom Franco bumped to leftfield; slick Cesar Hernandez, who should have been starting at second base in 2014; talented, inconsistent outfielder Domonic Brown; and, of course, Galvis, who finally has been assured a starting spot.

He's doing his level best.

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch