NLDS lessons: No more Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh in the middle of the order, and other offseason truths
It’s not that Marsh and Bohm can’t be in a playoff lineup. It’s that they can’t be batting where the Phillies have needed them to bat.
There is one non-negotiable for the Phillies this offseason. They need to find a legitimate right-handed power bat who can slot into the batting order after or between Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber. If they do not do that, they will not have a realistic path to improving their odds against the Dodgers.
If Schwarber doesn’t return, then the Phillies need two such players.
There is no getting around it. We’ve seen enough.
None of the other scenarios are realistic. The Phillies have tried to buy a bullpen every offseason since 2018. They don’t have the financial wherewithal to do it. Even if they did, it’s nowhere close to a sure-fire strategy, as we saw with the Dodgers this season. Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Michael Kopech — none of them pitched in the postseason. Veteran relievers are way too volatile and injury-prone to allow a team to base its hopes on building an elite bullpen via the open market.
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The nature of bullpens also serves to cap the value of doubling down on starting pitching. However good your rotation, you will find yourself behind the eight ball if you enter a postseason series without closer-caliber arms for the seventh and eighth innings. Again, the Dodgers know this better than anybody.
Look back at the NLDS and you’ll see there was one attainable need that might have tilted the scales of the series toward the Phillies. Brandon Marsh was 1-for-13 with five strikeouts. Alec Bohm walked six times while batting in front of him but did not have an extra-base hit.
This is two straight postseasons where Marsh has been a near-automatic out. Over the last two Octobers, he is 2-for-26 with eight strikeouts. Bohm doesn’t have an extra-base hit during that stretch. Together, they are 7-for-51 with one RBI. Of the 16 games between them, 10 have come in the fourth or fifth hole.
That should be impossible. And that’s exactly how it has looked. It’s not that Marsh and Bohm can’t be in a playoff lineup. It’s that they can’t be batting where the Phillies have needed them to bat.
Everything else is open for debate. How should they acquire such a player(s)? What position would best accommodate them? What other positions do they need to address? Should they look to be creative and unsentimental with a trade?
You can mix and match it any number of different ways. The free agent market features players who’d fit the bill at the infield and outfield corners: first baseman Pete Alonso, third baseman Alex Bregman, outfielder Kyle Tucker. They don’t necessarily need to spend big — see the Orioles’ signing of Ramon Laureano last season — but the big bucks buy more certainty.
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We’ll have plenty of time to dive into the potential offseason scenarios. The goal here is to emphasize what we know.
We know Trea Turner isn’t that player. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to figure out what, exactly, he is. It’s a big reason why this lineup feels so strange. They are paying $300 million to a player who isn’t a bona fide run producer. Don’t get me wrong. Turner is a fine player. They are much better with him than without. But you shouldn’t have to puzzle over where a guy fits in a lineup when that guy is making $27 million per year. Turner is another guy who does not have an extra-base hit in either of the last two postseasons. He is 7-for-32 with 10 strikeouts and four walks. That’s negative production from the player who is getting the most plate appearances.
We know Bohm and Marsh aren’t that player, as previously established.
We know Nick Castellanos was supposed to be that player. We also know that he hasn’t been him in a while.
The primary difference between the Phillies and the Dodgers is that the Dodgers have a half of a lineup that scares opposing pitchers, while the Phillies have two guys. Frankly, Harper and Schwarber have taken an inordinate amount of criticism, especially when you consider what the Phillies just did to Shohei Ohtani this series. With one hit and nine strikeouts in 18 at-bats, Ohtani now has a .720 OPS in 22 career playoff games, including .513 in his last 11. The problem with the Phillies is that they are overly reliant on two of nine hitters.
The best-case scenario is that the Phillies find that player somewhere in their system. If Aidan Miller turns out to be that guy, it would radically change the calculus for the next five seasons. After a slow start to the minor league season at double-A Reading, Miller finished on a tear that carried over to his eight-game stint in triple A. During those eight games, Miller had more walks than strikeouts (9 to 7), with seven stolen bases and three extra base hits in 37 plate appearances. If he is still doing those things by the end of next May, he will need to be in the majors.
But you can’t count on that. Not for next season. Anything you get from Miller is a bonus.
It is on Dave Dombrowski and John Middleton to figure out the options and make the money work. If they don’t, they’ll belong at the center of these conversations that we have at this time next year.