Much like the Liberty Bell that is the symbol of their city, the Philadelphia Phillies have a crack in their foundation that bears the mark of a flawed structural composition. The Phillies have staved off rebuilding the past few years in order to eke a few more years out of an aging core, acquiring veteran players to keep the team a contender in the NL East. Unfortunately, GM Ruben Amaro Jr.’s maneuvers to extend the glory years instead of swallowing the bitter pill of rebuilding have left the team in a precarious state as a last place team with a roster full of bloated contracts & players past their prime.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because the Astros underwent a similar experience after their ’05 World Series run. They had built a perennial contender around Biggio & Bagwell from the 90s to the mid 2000s, culminating in the acquisition of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent & Carlos Beltran.
The sweet taste of success with deep playoff runs caused the Astros to have visions of grandeur. They had an aging roster that needed to be infused with youth. For the next several years, the Astros forestalled rebuilding in order to surround an aging core of players built around Lance Berkman & Roy Oswalt with veteran acquisitions. At the same time, the organization oversaw a farm system tumble from the best in the late 90s to the worst in the game.
The urge to remain competitive was certainly stirred by former owner Drayton McClane, who could not stomach the pains of rebuilding. So the Astros loaded up on baseball’s equivalent of the AARP to keep their dim hopes of contending alive. Carlos Lee, Miguel Tejada, Woody Williams, Bill Hall, Pedro Feliz, Mike Hampton, Brett Myers, Ty Wigginton, Brian Moehler & Kaz Matsui are among those added to the roster during those years.
The best the Astros could do was make a late push for a wildcard in ‘08, only to fade after Hurricane Ike ravaged the town in mid-September. Except for that glimmer of playoff hope, the Astros were generally mediocre or subpar before finally bidding adieu to their franchise players Oswalt & Berkman in trades in late July of ‘10, engineered by then Astros GM Ed Wade.
Everything comes full circle because Wade happens to be the former Phillies GM, who oversaw the drafting of Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels & Chase Utley, which ushered in a golden era of Phillies baseball. Along with Jimmy Rollins, they have formed the core of the club that won the World Series in ‘08 & made the playoffs every year from ‘07-‘11.
Since the ‘11 season that saw the Phillies win 102 games but bow out of the playoffs in the divisional series against the Cards, the Phils have struggled to play .500 ball, despite a high payroll & free agent shopping every offseason.
As the Astros added aging vets to keep the dream alive from ‘06-‘10, the Phils acquired players like Jonathan Papelbon, AJ Burnett, Marlon Byrd, Michael Young & Delmon Young over the past few seasons with the faint hope they could resuscitate October baseball in the City of Brotherly Love. It is the equivalent of the older guy at the bar thinking he can still pull the supermodels with a new toupee, musky cologne & a tweed jacket.
A big part of the Phillies problem is one of the worst contracts handed out in the game in recent years to 1st baseman Ryan Howard. The Astros had the albatross of the Carlos Lee contract from ‘06-‘12, giving an aging oversized player with declining production roughly $18 million a year. Like Howard, Lee should have spent the waning years of his career in the AL as a DH.
Ironically, the Astros became an AL team the year after his contract expired. The Phillies are stuck at 1st base with the 34-year-old Howard, who up to this point in August is hitting .215 with 16 HRs & a .663 OPS, after 2 injury plagued seasons hitting .219 with 14 HRs in ‘12 & .265 with 11 HRs in ‘13.
The Phillies are shelling out for past performance, as Howard will earn an unbelievable $25 million in both ‘15 & ‘16 with a $10 million buyout in ‘17 (no sane person would pick up the $23 million option that year). If the Phillies can trade Ryan Howard, they will likely have to pick up the vast majority of the contract just to get a halfway decent prospect or two.
Another problem with the team that Amaro has built is that baseball is undergoing a youth renaissance with a premium on players in their 20s, while the Phils have taken a contrarian strategy adding a lot of players in their 30s hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. For example, outfielder Marlon Byrd is having one of the better seasons in baseball with a .272 average, 21 HRS, 63 RBIs & a .799 OPS, but he is 36-years-old & still has $16 million remaining on the next 2 years of his contract. Byrd was seemingly available at the July 31st non-waiver trading deadline, but Amaro was rumored to have a high asking price & ended up not dealing him.
The Astros pushed ahead with their rebuilding plan in ‘11 by dealing a 28-year-old Hunter Pence to the Phillies for Jon Singleton, Jarred Cosart, Josh Zeid & Domingo Santana. The Astros could at least command top prospects, trading a player like Hunter Pence in his prime, instead of the probable decline Marlon Byrd is inevitably facing as a player in his late 30s coupled with his contract.
That’s why there’s talk of dealing 30-year-old ace pitcher Cole Hamels, who could bring back the top tier major league ready young talent that could speed up the rebuilding process in Philly. Still, it would be hard to part with the ace of the staff when the Phillies are already looking a tenuous future with Cliff Lee, who has been diagnosed with an elbow strain. The very real possibility of the aging lefty undergoing Tommy John surgery would not only put him on the shelf for a year, but also quell any hope of the Phillies trading him for prospects before his contract expires.
It is more likely that the Phillies try to move players like A.J. Burnett & Jonathan Papelbon in order to replenish their organization with talent, since Chase Utley & Jimmy Rollins are 10 & 5 players who have publicly stated they would like to end their careers in Philadelphia.
Another similarity between these two organizations is the decline of the farm system during the post-playoff years. The 2007 draft for the Astros turned out to be the Hindenburg of drafts, where the highest signed pick was a 5th rounder & no one drafted ever played for Houston in the big leagues. It plummeted the Astros to the worst farm system in baseball, and set them back years when the bill finally came due for their veteran spending.
Not until recently did the Astros vault back into one of the top systems in the game, mostly due to picking high in the draft & nabbing the likes of George Springer in ‘11, Carlos Correa in ‘12, and Mark Appel in ‘13. While the Phillies’ farm system is nowhere near as bad as the Astros was in 2007, it is currently ranked 25th by Baseball Prospectus.
There are a few players that are highly ranked, including this year’s 1st round pick, right handed pitcher Aaron Nola out of LSU; last year’s 1st round pick, SS J.P. Crawford; and 3rd baseman Maikel Franco. Still, the Phillies need to add more organizational talent, as consistent sustained success in MLB means having a top tier farm system, which is what clubs like the Cardinals & Red Sox have been able to do.
One thing the Phillies have going in their favor compared to the Astros is a $5 billion, 25-year local TV deal that will keep their coffers among the richest in the game. So, unlike the Astros “scorched earth” policy of rebuilding with one of baseball’s lowest payrolls, employed by owner Jim Crane & GM Jeff Luhnow to incrementally improve the team through the draft while the big league team takes its lumps for a few years, the Phillies can still allocate resources towards the major league club & be back in contention a lot quicker with smart spending & a replenishment of the organization’s talent base through drafts & trades.
It is a strange intersection these Astros & Phillies, two organizations who’ve tried to extend the battery life on an obsolescent device. Whether Ruben Amaro sees it through or someone else takes the reins, the Phillies will need to overhaul their philosophy, parting with the majority of their aging roster to build around younger players. If not, the cracked foundation will continue to erode & share a striking similarity with the city’s iconic symbol.
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