Manager Gabe Kapler and his coaching staff have not helped most of the Phillies’ players improve this season | Bob Brookover

The good thing about the Phillies’ being on YouTube is it’s more difficult to switch back to the game once you have changed to something else. The other good thing is that you remember you have YouTube on your smart TV and you can watch videos of Matt Foley, Saturday Night Live’s flabby motivational speaker.

If Chris Farley were still alive, he’d surely be telling the Phillies right now that “there’ll be a lot of time for watching the postseason when they’re living in a van down by the river this October.”

Hopefully that lightened the mood a little because nothing else you’re about to read here is funny. The subject is manager Gabe Kapler and his coaching staff. We are not here to fire him or them. That’s a decision left for general manager Matt Klentak, team president Andy MacPhail, and managing partner John Middleton.

We are here to evaluate what Kapler often says is his responsibility as a manager and his staff’s responsibility as coaches.

“I maintain that our job is to develop the players that we have in the room,” Kapler said recently when asked about potential roster moves.

Let’s examine then how well the development has gone this season from a team and individual perspective.

Start with the fact that after 115 games last season the much less talented 2018 Phillies were 13 games above .500 and still tied for first place in the National League East.

Sure they went into an epic tailspin a week later, losing 28 of their final 40 games to finish under .500 for a sixth straight season, but there are plenty of reasons to believe this year’s Phillies team appears more likely to continue that streak of losing seasons than end the club’s playoff drought at seven seasons.

You can count FIP – fielding independent pitching – among the reasons. A year ago, it was a statistic the Phillies loved pointing to when discussing their pitching staff. Sure, they finished 18th in baseball using the antiquated measurement of earned run average, but they were seventh in baseball and second in the National League with a 3.83 FIP, which we were assured was a better predictor of future outcomes.

We have not heard much about FIP this season and perhaps this is why: The Phillies’ 4.99 FIP entering Saturday’s game in San Francisco was last in the National League and 28th in baseball. Only Seattle and Baltimore were worse.

From an individual standpoint, the Phillies do not have a single pitcher who has appeared in at least 10 games with a FIP under 4.00. You could make a case that the only pitchers who are better this year than they were last year are Hector Neris and Jose Alvarez.

As for the offense, there has been a slight uptick as a team this season, but not nearly to the level that was expected from either the fans or the Phillies.

Last year’s team averaged 4.3 runs per game and was hitting .235 with a .317 on-base percentage and .709 OPS through 117 games. This year’s team is averaging 4.7 runs per game and hitting .244 with a .320 on-base percentage and a .738 OPS. The Phillies were 21st in runs per game last season and they were 17th this season before Saturday’s games.

The primary reason for the modest improvement is easy to figure out: No player who has played at least 100 games this season, with the possible exception of Rhys Hoskins, is having a better season in 2019 than he had in 2018.

Through 111 games this season, catcher J.T. Realmuto is hitting .269 with 25 doubles, 15 home runs, a .319 on-base percentage, and a .767 OPS. Last season after the same amount of games, he was hitting .287 with 28 doubles, 20 home runs, a .349 on-base percentage, and an .853 OPS.

Through 116 games this season, Bryce Harper is batting .249 with 30 doubles, 22 home runs, a .385 on-base percentage, and an .841 OPS. After the same amount of games last season, he was hitting .236 with 20 doubles, 29 home runs, a .379 on-base percentage, and an .882 OPS. His 22 home runs through 116 games is his lowest total since his rookie season of 2012.

In theory, the power numbers should have been on the rise for Realmuto and Harper this season because they are playing more games in hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park.

Through 105 games this season, Jean Segura is hitting .283 with 24 doubles, 11 home runs, a .330 on-base percentage, and a .763 OPS. A year ago after 105 games, he was hitting .309 with 26 doubles, eight home runs, a .338 on-base percentage, and a .773 OPS.

Through 116 games, Hoskins is hitting .247 with 24 doubles, 24 home runs, a .386 on-base percentage, and an .884 OPS. At the same point last season, he was hitting .257 with 29 doubles, 25 home runs, a .366 on-base percentage, and an .870 OPS. You could argue he has improved, but in a year when balls are flying out of the park at a record pace, his power numbers have remained about the same.

Switch-hitting second baseman Cesar Hernandez is hitting for a higher average this season, but his on-base percentage is down by more than 30 points and it’s entirely possible this could be his last season with the team. Maikel Franco’s numbers were all way down when he was demoted to triple-A Lehigh Valley, which was pretty much an admission that the Phillies’ attempt to change his swing path had failed.

Scott Kingery is the one offensive player who has improved this season, but one is a lonely number when you’re trying to build a postseason roster.

The area in which the Phillies have shown the most improvement this season is on defense. It helps that they have the best defensive catcher in baseball, and the work being performed by first-year infield instructor Bobby Dickerson appears to have also helped the cause.

The Phillies still have seven weeks remaining to improve on their myriad problem areas. They still have a chance to make the postseason for the first time since 2011. Maybe this year they surge from this point on after sagging last season.

If they do not, however, the first order of offseason business for Klentak, MacPhail, and Middleton will be to determine how much of the blame for the Phillies’ failure to improve individually and collectively should be pinned on Kapler and the coaching staff.