If you’ve watched the postseason, especially the Blue Jays, you likely may have noticed some differences between the American League champion Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies. I’m hoping the likes of Dave Dombrowski, Sam Fuld, Preston Mattingly, and Rob Thomson have been not just watching, but paying close attention.
The Blue Jays (.265) and Phillies (.258) were one and two, respectively in team batting average in the majors in 2025. In fact, most of their offensive numbers were very close. The Jays had an OPS of .760 and the Phillies were at .759. The result when you crunch and compare all of the numbers is that Toronto scored just 20 more runs – 298 to 278 – than did the Phillies. One difference comes in home runs; the Phillies hit 21 more home runs than Toronto, but they were much more spread out. Toronto had four players – George Springer (32), Vladimir Guerrero (23), Addison Barger (21), and Daulton Varsho (20) with 20 or more home runs, while the Phillies had just two (Kyle Schwarber (56), Bryce Harper (27). I’m just going to note here that Kody Clemens, who the Phillies had no use for, finished the season with 19 home runs in 112 games with the Minnesota Twins this season; just sayin’.
At times, the Phillies took on the mentality of waiting for Schwarber or Harper to “do something.” With Toronto, there is more of a “next man up” mentality and it has worked. Springer has missed the last two games with an injury and the Blue Jays offense has posted six runs in each of those games while the Phillies posted just 15 runs in four games against the Dodgers. If you listen to Dave Dombrowski, that was just because: “That was a really good pitching staff that we faced. I don’t know what you do to hit 100 miles per hour each night. You’re really hoping a guy throws a bad game against you.”
The Blue Jays don’t look like a team hoping for a bad guy from an opposing pitcher. They just go out and hit them. They put up four runs in six innings against Ohtani the other night, again, without Springer.
The Phillies need that attitude. Don’t mess with the lineup because there’s a lefty or a “tough” righty. Build a team where your best players can handle both and you don’t have to worry about making moves. The occasional night off, or if a guy has struggled against a particular pitcher in his career, those are legitimate reasons for sitting a guy. Otherwise, put them out there.
Every time that I watch Trey Yesavage, 22, pitch and think about his season, I can’t help but think that the Phillies would never let a guy take that sort of career path. Is it because they don’t draft players with the physical or mental capability of moving like that or just that they are too cautious. Consider that in his first professional outing, Yesavage pitched in front of 327 fans in the great metropolis of Jupiter, FL. Wednesday night he pitched in the second largest city in the United States in front of 52,175 fans, who were decidedly not rooting for him to pitch well. Not only did he handle it, he tied a rookie record with 12 strikeouts in a World Series game.
In the wildcard round of this year’s playoffs, the Cleveland Guardians not only put a 24-year-old outfielder, Chase DeLauter, on their roster, but started him in center field in Game 2. He also started Game 3 in center field. Not only was this kid just 24, but he was making his MLB debut in the postseason. And it came after just 149 at-bats in Triple-A. Again, just sayin’, but Justin Crawford, while three years younger, has 440 at-bats at Triple-A and couldn’t get a call to the majors even in the regular season.
The Phillies have historically been slow to bring prospects to the majors. Not every prospect turns out to be the Trey Yesavage-type, but in the immortal words of the Astrodome crowd in Bad News Bears, “Let them play!”
It needs to be mentioned as well that the Phillies pitching staff holds a fairly decided advantage over Toronto’s in statistics. Looking at team ERA alone, the Phillies best the Blue Jays 3.79 to 4.19 and they hold advantages in most other areas.
Since we have looked at hitting, pitching, and developing young players and allowing them to play, let’s take a quick look at fielding. Toronto committed 24 more errors than did the Phillies this season resulting in a .985 fielding percentage, not too far below the ,989 percentage put up by the Phillies. The Phillies also had an advantage in throwing out basestealers with only 74% of would-be thieves having success against the Phillies, while 77% of base stealing opponents had success against the Blue Jays.
And quickly, the Phillies hitters had an average age of 30.3 years, making them one of just two teams with hitters averaging over 30 years of age; the Dodgers were the other, and Toronto hitters are just an average of 28.1 years old. The Phillies do have a younger pitching staff than Toronto with an average age of 3o years of age, while Toronto pitchers average 31.1 years of age. It’s interesting that eight MLB teams have a pitching staff that average 30-years-old or more in 2025, but of those eight, just the Phillies, Blue Jays, and Yankees made the postseason. It wouldn’t hurt the Phillies to get younger.
When Dombrowski, Thomson or others talk about not needing much change to this team, think twice about that. They need not just some players moves to make them better, but they need changes in attitudes to make them better.
