Phillies’ Rise to Baseball’s Best Is an Organizational Triumph
Caleb Cotham arrived here 13 days after his 33rd birthday, and there was a lot of work to do. Cotham had spent two years on the coaching staff of the Cincinnati Reds and was less than five years removed from the end of a 35-game Major League career. He was the fifth different person to hold the title of Phillies pitching coach in as many years. One of them, Rick Kranitz, would win a World Series in that role with the Atlanta Braves the very next year.
The Phillies had talent. But they were rarely able to harness it. Worse, they often watched as other teams took their former players and managed to do just that. Last month, Nick Pivetta recorded his 1,000th MLB strikeout with the Boston Red Sox. JoJo Romero has a 3.04 ERA in 72 games for the St. Louis Cardinals since being traded in July 2022 for Edmundo Sosa. After four years out of Bigs, Ben Lively is a key starting pitcher for a Cleveland Guardians team third in the Majors. Others, like Spencer Howard, Jake Thompson, Adonis Medina, and Hans Crouse climbed prospect rankings only to stumble in The Show.
No team is going to be perfect. But the Phillies learned a difficult lesson the hard way at the end of the 2010s. The star players they were spending big money on might be able to make a difference in October. But they’d never get the chance to do so if they couldn’t properly develop the supporting cast around them to fill the holes that pop up during a 162-game season — or, in the case of 2020, even a 60-game one.
On a Saturday afternoon showcase in London, one of Cotham’s first prodigies led the Phillies to their seventh win in eight games. Ranger Suárez was the fifth-highest pitcher on the Phillies’ top 30 prospects list on MLB Pipeline entering the 2019 season. He was an effective reliever that season but only pitched in three Major League games in 2020 and finished with a 20.25 ERA. His 2021 season began in Triple-A. It ended with a 1.36 ERA in 106 innings at the Big League level and a spot in the Phillies rotation he has not lost since. Even though he was not at his sharpest against the New York Mets, he exited after 5.2 innings with only two runs allowed.
That is an outing most teams would be thrilled to get from their No. 3 starter in 2024. It says a lot about Suárez and the Phillies’ entire operation that the player and team know he can be better. These Phillies operate with the poise and joy that Suárez is known for. It is a much different and better existence than the one this franchise was mired in when Cotham arrived. They did not develop into the team with baseball’s best record overnight. Not all of the 40,000-plus fans routinely pouring into Citizens Bank Park no matter the day or opponent may fully appreciate that. That is ok. But it means more to those who saw the tides turn.
It started in 2021 with Suárez’s emergence and Zack Wheeler sustaining his ace form from the shortened 2020 campaign. In 2022, José Alvarado emerged as one of the sport’s most dominant relievers after years of tantalizing frustration. Andrew Bellatti, a 30-year-old with 18 games of Major League experience, became a quality middle-inning reliever. Bailey Falter, whose fastball averaged 91 miles per hour and had largely been a two-pitch pitcher in the past, delivered a 3.38 ERA in 11 second-half starts.
Last year, Cristopher Sánchez developed mastery of the strike zone. Former top-100 prospect Jeff Hoffman became a lockdown late-inning reliever. Matt Strahm signed a two-year contract before the 2023 season that some in the game saw as a market-setting overpay. He has a 2.72 ERA as a Phillie and has done everything from start games for a month to save a series-clincher. And, this season, Spencer Turnbull has exceeded every expectation after missing all of 2022 with Tommy John and recording a 7.26 ERA in seven starts last season with the Detroit Tigers.
This extends to the offensive side, where Kevin Long deserves his flowers. When Cotham took over, the Phillies were reeling from recording the second-worst bullpen ERA in a Major League season. This year, they are eighth with a 3.44 mark. Their entire pitching staff has a 2.90 mark, better than everyone except the New York Yankees.
The 2011 Phillies led baseball by 0.18 runs with an ERA of 3.02. That team had five homegrown pitchers record a sub-four ERA in at least 10 appearances. This year’s Phillies team has three (Suárez, Orion Kerkering, and Aaron Nola). Sánchez had never pitched in the Majors when the Phillies acquired him in 2019 for Curtis Mead. It was a disastrous deal until, at least for now, it wasn’t. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Seranthony Domínguez join that group — remove a pitiful Apr. 24 performance and his ERA would be 3.94.
A lot has changed since Cotham arrived. At the end of his first season, the Phillies hired Preston Mattingly as director of player development. Per FanGraphs, the Phillies’ farm system has gone from 27th to 19th most valuable in baseball from the end of 2021 through the end of 2023. He helped reconstruct an organization that used to get less than the sum of its parts to unearth several depth players and help turn around the trajectories of players like Sánchez.
Not all of the gains have lasted. But when the Phillies have needed to call on players like Nick Maton, Darick Hall, Weston Wilson, and David Dahl over the last few years, they have generally produced much more than similar players in the past. Hitting coach Kevin Long’s work since he came over in 2022 is a big part of things. Dave Dombrowski has overseen it all since arriving in 2020.
And, of course, there is Rob Thomson, who celebrated his second anniversary of becoming the Phillies manager last Monday. By percentage, he is the winningest manager in the team’s 141-year history. Only Charlie Manuel has won more postseason games than Thomson’s 19. The expanded format is part of that, sure. So is the willingness of ownership to spend, with the Phillies crossing the luxury tax in 2022.
But as the Phillies trek through the regular season towards a seemingly inevitable Red October, it is worth remembering and appreciating. The Phillies have only had two prior stretches in franchise history where they made the postseason in three straight seasons. They still have to earn it — nothing is guaranteed in June. The Phillies know they can rise to almost any moment, though. They have done so ever since Thomson took over. Maybe that is why they are so comfortable this season. Perhaps they just are this good. Either way, this is something worth celebrating.
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