Kaputski

How gracious of the Phillies to complete their post-season before the Eagles concluded their bye week. Unbelievable. Oh wait, it’s the Phillies so it’s entirely believable.

 

Now we can all go back to being fixated on football. Seriously, how demoralizing, yet apropos. Make the playoffs with an incredible stretch drive, and then get swept in the divisional series by some wild card team that didn’t exist twenty years ago. It’s par for the course for the Phillies and their fans.

 

What is so depressing is the realization that having made the playoffs (note, not championships just making the playoffs) ten times in their 125 years, that the recent 14 year drought between 1993 and 2007 is not some anomaly but about average for this franchise. Will we have to wait another 12.5 years for another NL East title or wildcard? 2019? My kindergartener will be heading off to college.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly, there was a lot of optimism for the ’94 and even ’95 teams, but they were never able to recapture the magic of 1993. Will it be the same fate for the 2008 Phillies? Who knows, but they will have some interesting off-season decisions.

 

Is Myers a starter or a closer? Is Rowand coming back? Can they fill the hole at third base? Will they try to unload Pat the Bat’s $15 million again or did he produce enough in the second half of the season (as my brother says, “produced like an above average major leaguer, but not $15 million worth of production”). Will we have to see Adam Eaton in the starting rotation again next year? Will Gillick make as many terrible pitching personnel decisions as he did last year?

 

As always, wait till next year.