How did the Phillies avoid the pitfalls that befell the Mets and other big-spending teams in 2023?
Juxtaposed against those teams’ failures, the Phillies’ success underscores a truism: Writing big checks isn’t a substitute for a smart front office, ripening farm system, and players who fit.
John Middleton swapped his sport coat for a red “Take October” T-shirt, traded his trousers for athletic shorts, and flung on a pair of beach flip flops. Then, he waded into the vortex of the Phillies’ playoff-clinching party to get a proper champagne shower.
Is there a better perk of owning your hometown baseball team?
“He loves it,” Bryce Harper said, chuckling. “Any time John gets in here and he hangs out with us, man, he’s part of it.”
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A little later Tuesday night, as Middleton blinked away the bubbly and attempted to offer clear-eyed perspective on the season, he was told that the Phillies will have the highest payroll of any playoff-bound team. At $255,667,114, as estimated for luxury-tax purposes according to Spotrac’s accounting, they rank fourth behind the Mets ($375.8 million), Yankees ($294.5 million), and Padres ($283.5) — all of whom are about to call it a season.
Middleton’s eyes widened. He beamed a smile. Seven months ago, in an interview with The Inquirer, the billionaire former tobacco magnate said this about why he pushed the Phillies’ franchise-record payroll to greater heights after reaching Game 6 of the World Series: “How much money did the ‘27 Yankees make? Or the ‘29 A’s? Or the ‘75-76 Big Red Machine? Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Nobody cares about whether I make money or not.”
Probably true. But an owner who willingly swims in the deep end with, say, New York baseball tenants Steve Cohen and the Steinbrenner family must derive satisfaction from seeing his cash go farther than theirs.
Because an overarching theme of the 2023 regular season, which fittingly ends with the Phillies visiting the Mets this weekend, is that money doesn’t buy wins. Not by itself, anyway. See Exhibits A, B, and C:
Cohen took the Mets’ payroll to unprecedented levels last winter by signing Justin Verlander and pairing him with Hall of Fame-bound co-ace Max Scherzer. By August, both had been traded as part of an organizational re-set.
The Padres’ stable of stars includes two generational talents under contract through 2033. But recent reports out of San Diego backed whispers in clubhouses across baseball that Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. aren’t pals.
Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge are the best pitcher and power hitter in the American League. But the Yankees only narrowly avoided their first losing season since 1992.
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Juxtaposed against those teams’ failures, the Phillies’ success underscored a baseball truism: Writing big checks isn’t a substitute for a smart front office, a ripening farm system, and perhaps most important, players who fit like a jigsaw puzzle.
“I’m proud,” Middleton said. “I think we’ve done a remarkably good job, really starting with Bryce’s signing [in 2019]. Because it’s not just scouting the talent. You can kind of tell that from the back of a baseball card. It’s the character.”
It’s a lot of things. How did the Phillies avoid the pitfalls that befell other big-spending teams in 2023? Middleton, several players, and a few rival scouts and executives weighed in this week.
Supporting the stars
Given his fascination with stars, Dave Dombrowski could have gone into astronomy. Baseball worked out well, too. He’s the only executive to lead four organizations to the World Series, a distinction that will eventually land him in the Hall of Fame.
One of Dombrowski’s guiding principles: build around stars.
“I really believe that you win with star players,” he said last winter after the Phillies signed Trea Turner to a $300 million contract. “I had somebody tell me that, philosophically, from an ownership perspective, ‘We disagree with you. We don’t believe in star players.’ You can’t win with star players alone. [But] usually I have found, where I’ve been, there’s been star players that have won.”
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Dombrowski has a way with free-spending owners. But it’s not like Middleton wasn’t shelling out big bucks before Dombrowski took over in December 2020.
Former general manager Matt Klentak was at the helm when the Phillies took the plunge for Harper and Zack Wheeler. In 2018, Middleton famously told USA Today that the Phillies were ready to “maybe even be a little bit stupid” about spending money.
It didn’t take Dombrowski’s nine-figure deals for J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, and Turner for the Phillies to rank among the highest payrolls in the sport.
Indeed, two rival team officials credited Dombrowski more for his work under the hood.
Dombrowski realized quickly, the executives said, that the Phillies’ organizational infrastructure lacked the sturdiness to support a top-heavy roster. It was more like a Jenga tower, caving in on its weak foundation.
Among other things, Dombrowski noticed a disconnect between player-development and scouting. He hired Preston Mattingly to lead the farm system and synced it with scouting director Brian Barber’s army of talent evaluators.
The result: a more functional feeder system that this season graduated center fielder Johan Rojas, lefty starter Cristopher Sánchez, and most recently, hard-throwing reliever Orion Kerkering after adding Bryson Stott to the mix last year.
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“You get three guys — one a starter, one reliever, and one position player — in any given year,” manager Rob Thomson said, “I think your system is doing a tremendous job.”
Under Dombrowski, the Phillies enhanced the major league staff, with well-regarded hitting coach Kevin Long and infield instructor Bobby Dickerson, and hired Cressey Sports Performance co-founder Brian Kaplan, who assists major league pitching coach Caleb Cotham while overseeing the development of pitchers in the minors.
Dombrowski also built out the training/strength and conditioning staffs. It’s no coincidence, according to Wheeler, that the Phillies are tied for the second-fewest players (15) on the injured list. Through Friday, they lost 884 manpower days to injury, including Rhys Hoskins’ season-ending torn ACL in March. By comparison, the star-crossed Angels and Yankees both lost more than 2,100 days; the Mets and Padres nearly 1,600.
“Our training staff, they come in really early, they leave really late, and they put in a lot of time and effort to us as players, as people,” Wheeler said. “They’re a big part of us, keeping us on the field.”
And it has nothing to do with the payroll.
“Dave’s done a tremendous job in rebuilding the organization,” Middleton said. “The minor league system, with Brian Barber’s drafting and Preston Mattingly’s development, is as good as we’ve ever had it in the history of the Phillies. Dave tells me all the time, he says, ‘We have four or five guys who will be GMs at some point in their career.’ They’re really good.”
Chemistry counts
It’s one thing to spend money on a collection of superstars. It’s quite another to spend it wisely.
“The character that Dave has brought into the team, whether it’s Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, they bring more than what they do on the field. And that makes us better,” Middleton said. “Because when you’re playing six days a week for six months together, you’ve got to be a cohesive unit. If the clubhouse isn’t good and working well, then you’ve got a problem, and the character is what helps elevate everybody else.”
Especially in Philadelphia.
Because big Northeast markets with passionate fan bases aren’t for everyone. According to a source, it’s a big reason the Phillies signed Harper instead of Machado in 2019. And Middleton gives Klentak credit for hitting on Harper and Wheeler, in particular, in free agency.
“We really haven’t missed in a big way,” Middleton said. “And our big signings have all been really, really good.”
In Schwarber, the Phillies identified a player with the disposition to handle the uniqueness of Philly and the leadership qualities to aid teammates who are less comfortable (Castellanos last season, for instance). He’s such a galvanizing presence that Thomson said he has never come across anyone quite like him.
“It’s [about] being a family,” Schwarber said. “You put together a really good group of guys who believe in the same thing. ... I’m not saying that’s not what other teams do, but we spend a lot of time with each other. We believe in each other. We love each other. That’s what it’s all about.”
Said Wheeler: “That goes to the front office, too, bringing in the right guys, doing their homework. They’re bringing in guys who are dogs that just want to win.”
Schwarber said he hears from players on other teams who have noticed the Phillies’ culture. As Turner puts it, “It’s hard to fake that.”
And it goes beyond merely stacking one big contract on top of another.
“I think a lot of guys saw last year,” Schwarber said, “this is a place to be.”