Can Dave Dombrowski Fix 3 Big Issues for the Phillies This Offseason

The Philadelphia Phillies just suffered another early exit in the MLB postseason against the Atlanta Braves in the Wild-Card round, with questions that are starting to mount about President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski and whether the team will still be together in the future and changes to be made on issues that occurred this season.  So where does the team go from here? Can Dombrowski fix the three issues?

Philadelphia’s lineup is mainly top-heavy, with a lot of power; however, the lineup lacks a clutch hitter to move the runners home and that seemed to be a huge issue that plagued the Phillies all year. The team traded for second baseman Luis Arraez from the San Francisco Giants; however, that move did not move the needle for the runners-in-scoring-position issue, if much at all.

Now, could this be a coaching issue? There is some evidence to support that the approach is not there and most of the lineup is swinging the exact same and has the same problem with each other.

 

The team is swinging way too much out of the zone and chasing at a high rate. In years past, there have been times when the Phillies did lead the league in strikeouts and in chase rates. This year it was lower in the strikeout category, but it was still very noticeable how much the lineup as a whole is still chasing balls out of the zone. There was a 30.4%  chase rate for this season. The Phillies ‘ batting average is .235 for the year.

Hitting coach Kevin Long is in charge of the offensive approach, and there seems to be a disconnect in what Long is trying to teach about putting the barrel to the ball. At times, when the lineup is trying to do too much, it looks very ugly and the kind of method that Long is trying to deploy in their swings is not working.

The Phillies’ bullpen has been a glaring issue once again under Dombrowski and has yet again failed to address the need for a high-leverage reliever, instead banking on right-handed reliever Orion Kerkering to get those key outs. Kerkering was too up and down during his three-year tenure as a big leaguer before being sent down to the minor leagues recently. Right-handed reliever Jonathan Bowlan,was also put into those high-leverage situations but did not work out either.

Right-handed Brooks Raley was put in high-leverage situations, but again did not produce consistently. The one bright spot was right-handed reliever Alex Mcfarlane; Mcfarlane has really good stuff and a fastball that touches 100 mph and gets big outs. Overall, it was not enough to really boost the bullpen. The team sat at a 4.38 ERA for the entire season.

There were many attempts at acquiring that type of pitching, whether it’d be free-agency signings or in-house guys. Neither panned out overall.
The Defense
There was a lot of bad on offense and defense this year for the Phillies. Defense is probably the unit with the most horrendous stats all this year; granted, they improved in some areas, but overall it was terrible for the team. Too many times, a ground ball that should not go through went through the defense; too many routine ground balls were mishandled and balls were thrown away or into the dugout. 

Again this was evident in the teams playoff loss against the Braves and most of the errors that were committed this season, really reared its ugly head in this matchup.

The next decision Dombrowski has to make is about his current stars on this team. The Phillies have not won a playoff series since 2023, and responsible for that are right fielder Bryce Harper, shortstop Trea Turner, and designated hitter Kyle Schwarber; it seems they cannot all coexist, and no results have been achieved since the World Series run in 2022. So there is something to be changed there.