Can the Phillies overtake the Braves in the NL East? They believe, as Atlanta churns its roster.

After two straight October conquests, the Phillies aren’t 14 games worse than the Braves. But how close are they to overtaking them in the regular season? And does it even matter?

For the second year in a row, the Phillies ousted the Braves in the NLDS.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published Dec. 8, 2023, 10:59 a.m. ET

The first time around, the Braves discovered that the Phillies were like an object in the rearview mirror: Closer than they appear.

When it happened again, the Phillies were in the Braves’ blind spot.

Does anyone doubt that they have a chance now to zoom past Atlanta — maybe with Bryce Harper rolling down the window and waving to Orlando Arcia?

The Phillies definitely believe. Never mind that they finished 14 games behind the Braves in each of the last two seasons. They vanquished their chief rival in back-to-back divisional-round playoff series, proving the canyon between them in the regular season is more like a crevice.

Now, consider how the teams have acted in the offseason. The Braves burst out of the free-agent gates with a $162 million offer to poach Aaron Nola, a source said last month. But the Phillies sprung for $172 million over seven years to make sure the homegrown No. 2 starter ever goes to Truist Park only as a visitor.

Since then, the Braves have churned their 40-man roster, trading nine players and non-tendering seven. They’ve added to the bullpen with Reynaldo López, Aaron Bummer, and Penn Murfee; traded for young left fielder Jarred Kelenic; and continued to explore the market for starting pitching.

The Phillies, meanwhile, are patiently working to improve the margins of the roster, comfortable with returning the vast majority of last season’s team.

“I think part of it,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said this past week from a fifth-floor suite at the winter meetings in Nashville before leaving the Gaylord Opryland Resort emptyhanded, “is that we have a good club.”

As good as the Braves? Quite possibly.

Dombrowski is quick to note that the Phillies are entering their first full season with Harper at first base. He began playing first in July, a move that improved the outfield defense by opening the designated hitter spot for Kyle Schwarber. But Harper made only 36 regular-season starts at first. The Phillies went 21-15 in those games, a 95-win pace.

Team officials believe that’s more indicative of the roster’s capabilities.

But the Phillies also got out to painfully slow starts in the last two seasons. This year, they were 25-32 on June 2, after which they went 65-40, a 100-win pace.

The Braves ridiculously went 71-34 during that stretch and maintain a core of Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna, Michael Harris II, Sean Murphy, Spencer Strider, Max Fried, and National League MVP Ronald Acuña Jr., many of whom will stay together through the end of the decade. But Atlanta also was led by a historically mighty offense that is unlikely to match its record-setting .501 slugging percentage. Regression would seem inevitable.

The Phillies see room for growth, especially because they anticipate that Trea Turner will be more consistent after struggling through the first four months of his first season in Philadelphia.

“I think you’re going to get a better [Bryson] Stott, a better [Alec] Bohm,” manager Rob Thomson said. “The younger guys, I think they will improve a little bit. You got a full year of Trea that’s going to be Trea, hopefully. You’re going to have Harper for a full year, hopefully.”

So, while Dombrowski seeks a righty-hitting outfielder and a reliever to pick up some of the 69 mostly high-leverage innings pitched by Craig Kimbrel, who signed with the Orioles, manager Rob Thomson will dig in on how to avoid another poor April and May.

Thomson has a few theories on what went wrong this year. Several key players, including catcher J.T. Realmuto, left spring training to compete in the World Baseball Classic. Ranger Suárez strained his elbow while preparing for the tournament; Taijuan Walker didn’t pitch as much as he would’ve in a normal spring. Rhythms were thrown off and routines disrupted.

It also didn’t help that Harper was still recovering from Tommy John elbow surgery and Rhys Hoskins tore his ACL late in spring training.

But Thomson also wants to do a deep dive on the Phillies’ preparation for the season. Within the next two weeks, he’s planning to meet with the coaches over Zoom to discuss improvements to their processes.

“We still have to do our due diligence to look at spring training and see if there’s some areas there that we can improve on so that we come out of spring training just running,” Thomson said. “Just try to work through some ideas on how to do that.”

Nobody is more bullish on the Phillies’ potential than Thomson. And it’s difficult to imagine that anyone took their NL Championship Series collapse any harder.

Since the Phillies coughed up 2-0 and 3-2 series leads against the underdog Diamondbacks and lost Games 6 and 7 at home, Thomson has replayed moments from the postseason, sometimes in his head, others by rewatching actual games.

Thomson admits he has questioned himself about certain moves but isn’t interested in sharing those second-guesses. (Bringing in Kimbrel with a two-run lead in the eighth inning of Game 4 one night after he gave up a walk-off hit must be high on the list.)

“Not just that series but other series, too,” Thomson said. “A situation will pop into my head and I’ll go, ‘OK, I’ve got to look at that.’ I just rehash it a little bit.”

One thing that Thomson couldn’t watch: the World Series.

“Not a pitch,” he said.

Too painful?

“Yeah, it was,” Thomson said. “I’m still upset about it, to tell you the truth. I really like our roster. I felt like we had a great chance at winning a World Series, and it really hurts me that we didn’t. It hurts me more than it did the year before when we did get to the World Series and didn’t win it. Because I just thought we were good. We were good enough.”

Jot down that sentiment as the biggest reason Dombrowski isn’t concerned with running it back.

In hindsight, Dombrowski said he regrets not making more changes to the Red Sox after they won the World Series in 2018. Other than Kimbrel, who coincidentally walked away in free agency then, too, Boston returned almost the exact same team — and missed the playoffs in 2019.

“I really went out of my way to bring some players back that might not have been as important where we could’ve made some moves,” Dombrowski said this past week. “I don’t know that I would go to that same extent again because I think a little bit of change is good.

“But there’s a little bit more danger if you win it all. We didn’t win it all [last year]. I don’t get any sense of contentment. I think there’s still a great sense of hunger to win this thing.”

The Braves are surely hungry, too. Kelenic, 24, got off to a solid start last season but missed two months with a broken foot after kicking a watercooler. He’s expected to split time in left field with Vaughn Grissom and round out a talented positional core.

But after striking out on Nola, it would be a surprise if the Braves don’t acquire a starter, through free agency or a trade. After all, the biggest reason they flopped again in the playoffs was that they ran out of pitching behind Strider and Fried.

“Look,” general manager Alex Anthopoulos said, “nobody has the exact formula. If they did, the same team would be winning year after year. That’s what makes baseball great. You’re constantly looking for answers.”

It’s clear, though, from consecutive October conquests, that the Phillies aren’t actually 14 games worse than the Braves. The only questions are how close they can come to overtaking them in the regular season and whether it even matters.