Summary judgments: Daryl Morey’s logic, the Phillies schedule, and Quadzilla

Updates, additions, and clarifications for the record as the Phillies flood the basement and Joel Embiid tweets about other people’s playoff games.

I usually agree with 90 percent of what Daryl Morey says, much to the consternation of some loyal emailers. So I was delighted that he threw me several bones to chew on during his annual we’re-awesome-but-need-to-do-better year-in-review news conference.

My first point of contention was the wisdom of signing and/or trading for aging superstars who have not won anything recently despite playing alongside other superstars.

My second point arises from a line of argument Morey deployed while addressing the first point. Or, rather, the lines of argument.

I always get suspicious when people invent strawmen. By the end of his news conference, Morey was a regular L. Frank Baum. Even worse, the strawmen didn’t even work.

» READ MORE: The Daryl Morey Doctrine faces its greatest test: Should the Sixers catch an aging star?

On several occasions, he structured a counterargument in the following form:

Morey: People once said you can’t win a championship with X (big men, old superstars). People once said you can’t win a championship without Y (continuity, depth). Therefore, Z isn’t a big concern.

One excerpt:

“Again, just to talk about storylines, everyone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s the teams with depth that win!’ Well, of course you go back a little bit, and you have recent teams that won without much depth, like the Lakers recently,” Morey said.

“You have teams without continuity that have won recently. We’re not going to have continuity. Hopefully, we’ll have continuity going forward a little better. We’ll have continuity with our stars and our head coach. But we’re going to have a lot of change this offseason,” he said.

“So it’s good that recent teams like the Lakers, like Toronto, like the Milwaukee Bucks — who made big changes the year they won the title — they didn’t have a ton of continuity those years. Long story short, there isn’t a formula. Everyone wants to find a pattern, and there isn’t one. The pattern is have really good players and have them [be] better than all the teams you’re going to play. We’re not going in with a prescription or proscription of what to do.”

Cue Judy Garland singing, “If I only had a point.”

While it’s true the Bucks added Jrue Holiday and Bobby Portis before their 2020-21 title run, they also had a pair of superstars who had been together for eight seasons plus three key role players who were in their third year in Milwaukee (Brook Lopez, Pat Connaughton, Donte DiVincenzo). Likewise, the Raptors already had a roster worthy of a No. 1 seed when they added Kawhi Leonard, Marc Gasol, and Danny Green to Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Serge Ibaka, and Norman Powell.

It’s actually somewhat concerning if the Sixers are looking at any of those teams as an aspiration.

The Raptors won a title and then went right back to being the Raptors, while trending downward. The Lakers won a title in a glorified school cafeteria gym when the fans were cardboard cutouts and half the players were, too. But they tried hard in last year’s conference finals?

The Bucks were an aspiration, until they decided they needed another superstar and traded away a better all-around player to get him.

The better example of what the Sixers are trying to pull off might be the Knicks. Jalen Brunson, DiVincenzo, Josh Hart, and Isaiah Hartenstein are in their first or second year with the team. But, hey, they still are two superstars short of a Happy Meal.

» READ MORE: The Phillies are off to their best start since 1993. How will they handle being frontrunners?

My first thought when I saw the Phillies schedule this spring: They better be at least five games over .500 by mid-May …

Like, bare minimum. They’ve far exceeded expectations, so don’t take any of what follows as cold water. But don’t pencil them in for 110 wins, either.

I had them at 100 on opening day, and this was more or less the start I envisioned. Maybe not 26-12 with the best rotation in the bigs. But they certainly needed to rack up a bunch of wins before the sun came out for good.

As of Thursday, the Phillies had played the second-easiest schedule in the majors, judging by cumulative win-loss record. Granted, the earlier it is in the year, the more an opponent’s winning percentage is going to reflect getting swept by the Phillies. Plus, the Dodgers have played the fifth-easiest schedule and are only a half-game behind the Phils in the NL standings.

Congratulations to Aidan Miller for earning a coveted bookmark in my Prospects Worth Following folder …

Guy looks like the real deal. And, I mean, he looks it. One morning this spring, I was standing in the clubhouse in Clearwater when I overheard a veteran player refer to a Phillies prospect as “Quadzilla.”

That afternoon, when Miller stepped into the batter’s box for a Grapefruit League cameo, I did not need a field guide to identify the mysterious creature before me.

Miller is only 19 years old. He’s a little baby Quadzilla. Which is kinda the point. The Phillies drafted him at No. 27 overall out of high school, which isn’t usually a combination that leads to a fast track to the majors.

But Miller isn’t your usual high-schooler, either. When Mickey Moniak was 19, he looked like he still practiced shaving on a grapefruit. Miller has a big-league frame. He’s also starting to put up big-league numbers.

In his first 18 games at single-A Clearwater, Miller has three home runs, eight steals, and a .966 OPS. He has struck out 15 times in 85 plate appearances, but he also has seven walks.

The strikeouts will be something to track — he struck out in both of his Grapefruit League plate appearances, for what it’s worth. So will the defense. He has been playing shortstop but looks more like a third baseman.

I don’t think it is out of the question that we are talking about some combination of Alec Bohm, Miller, and Bryce Harper at third base, first base, and DH at some point in 2026.

» READ MORE: A sizable shortstop, Phillies prospect Aidan Miller shows the work ethic of a ’throwback’

Bonus fun fact: Miller went to J.W. Mitchell High School in New Port Richey, Fla., which also happens to be the place where, in 2008, a young David Murphy was covering a girls’ soccer game when he received a phone call informing him that he’d been hired to cover the Phillies.