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The Seattle Mariners have reportedly hired CJ Gillman as a hitting coach to join their 2027 big league coaching staff, per Ken Rosenthal, Chandler Rome, and Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic. Seattle is still searching for their manager for the upcoming campaign, but felt strongly enough about Gillman to bring him on regardless.

It’s not a complete surprise, given the organization’s familiarity with Gillman. Though he spent the 2026 season as the Director of Hitting for the Washington Nationals, Gillman spent 2022-2025 as a Minor League Hitting Coordinator for the Mariners organization. Prior to that, he served in a similar role for the 2020-21 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, after assistant coaching roles for over half a decade at both his alma mater of Dayton University and the Air Force Academy near(ish) his hometown of Littleton, CO just outside of Denver.

Gillman is a junior, Charles Junior, to be precise, whose father “Chuck” coached baseball for decades at Columbine High School, leading CJ to a state title in his time there. CJ took on the same mantle, and was led to the Air Force Academy in part to coach his younger brother Tommy, after a stint of undrafted free agent time with the Colorado Rockies and two years with the indy ball outfit, the Windy City Thunderbolts of the Frontier League.

The perspective from Gillman has long been “Do Damage” when working with hitters, and as The Athletic notes, the Nationals made massive strides in just that. The Nats have had a reputation of laggards for years developmentally, which was transformed in the past season as their big league and minor league bats took consistent, noticeable strides forward. Seattle hopes to see similar improvements, as well as the added benefit of familiarity, as Gillman has already worked with many of the key players who’ve since graduated onto the M’s roster from the minors, including Cole Young, Colt Emerson, Lázaro Montes, and Michael Arroyo.

The Phillies are not going to be able to turn themselves into the Milwaukee Brewers. Nor should they want to.

Just because a team wins a title doesn’t mean everyone should rush to imitate everything they are doing. The Brew Crew’s run to their first championship in franchise history was magical, and likely not repeatable for anyone else. Heck, it was the 8th time in 9 seasons they had reached the postseason and the first in which they even got to the World Series.

Needless to say, the Phils should not aspire to be a small market baseball team. It’s good that they want to spend money on players. And even if they wanted to scale back, they are committed to a number of high-priced, immovable players replete with no-trade clauses and 10-5 rights. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things the Phillies can learn from the Brewers’ blueprint of success.

How has Milwaukee piled up two straight seasons of 100+ wins and, at long last, a World Series title on such a small budget? How did they finally navigate the October crucible?

Here are two things the Phillies should emulate.

Offensive Philosophy Shift

The Phillies dismissed longtime hitting coach Kevin Long following their wild card loss to the Braves and have replaced him with Peter Fatse, who was the hitting coach in Boston under Alex Cora. Both were fired in April after the team’s dreadful start. The Phils also announced Joe Cronin, also from the Boston organization, will join as an assisting hitting coach.

The goal, as outlined by Dave Dombrowski at his end-of-year press conference, is to make the Phils’ hitting apparatus function similarly to Caleb Cotham’s pitching machine that is streamlined from the farm system all the way up to the big leagues. Fatse will also be tasked with trying to get Phillies hitters to adapt a more patient approach more like the one they exhibited in the first three weeks of August rather than the free-swinging mess we saw for most of 2026.

Brewers hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach is getting his flowers right now, and well he should. He helped guide a Milwaukee lineup that finished with the second-fewest home runs in the Majors but the second-most runs scored. In an interview with MLB Network during the World Series, Vogelbach explained why Brewers hitters were able to be so productive with so little power.

“It takes a special individual to be OK with taking strikes, and these guys are OK with it. They grind out at bats, they’re not scared to go 0-2, they know what they want. They don’t try to do anything else other than what their plan is going up there.”

More than anything, it’s a mindset and I think the mindset of these guys is special.“

Vogelsong was asked about hitters always wanting to get their “A” swing off and whether that actually is the right approach, especially against elite pitching.

“Homers are thrown, they’re not hit. You have to be ready for the mistake, but at the same time, you have to take what the pitcher gives you. Facing the Dodgers and the Padres and now this Rays team, sometimes you have to slow torture guys… take singles, walk, run the bases, and manufacture runs that way.”

That sentiment about players always wanting to get their “A” swing off resonated with me about these Phillies hitters who, it feels like, is obsessed with always getting off their “A” swing, no matter what.

The Phillies were obviously not a patient team, and haven’t really been during the Harper/Schwarber era. Their 34.8% chase rate was 4th-highest in MLB last season. Milwaukee’s 29.1% was the lowest. As a result, the Phils saw the 11th-fewest percentage of pitches in the strike zone last year, while the Brewers saw the 5th-most. But this excellent thread looking at Milwaukee’s hitting philosophy also shined a light on why the Phils have been easier to pitch to the last couple years, too.

Last year, the Phillies were tied for 3rd in the percentage of swings in which they were “early,” on all pitches. Look at the Brewers way down there at the bottom.

In the postseason, they were early more than any other team.

Philadelphia hitters have been befuddled by off-speed pitches, particularly changeups, for a long time. On off-speed pitches during the regular season last year, which includes changeups and split finger fastballs, Phils hitters were earlier on their swings more than any other team in baseball.

Their on-time rate for off-speed pitches was tied for 18th and their average miss in distance (3.9 inches) was tied for 9th-most.

Their goal, obviously, was to be ready to mash fastballs for homers, but it didn’t work. They were still tied for 24th in on-time rate for fastballs (including sinkers and cutters), and 25th in on-time rate just for four-seamers.

Part of the reason for that is it appears hitters are always looking to get off their “A” swing and trying to attack fastballs. All. The. Time. The Brewers, on the other hand, stand farther back in the batter’s box than any team in baseball and are willing to be a little late on the fastball if it means being able to see spin and spit on pitches out of the strike zone.

Of course, you need power. What the Brewers did in the regular season and, in the playoffs in particular, is exceedingly difficult. As Jayson Stark noted in his recap of the Series for The Athletic…

The Brewers’ three home runs were hit by Sal Frelick (none in the regular season after July 11), David Hamilton (one after June 6) and Cooper Pratt (one against a left-hander all season). Which means …

They got no home runs from their Nos. 1-2-3-4-5-6 hitters — and they still won the World Series.

On one hand, seven other World Series champs have done that. On the other hand, according to STATS, none of those other teams played in the live-ball era (since 1920). Unbelievable.

Unrepeatable, is more like it.

The goal should not be for the Phillies to go homerless during a World Series from their 1-6 hitters. They’re not winning very many games if they do that. But it’s clear they cannot continue to sell out for power that just isn’t there most of the time and is especially scarce against great October pitching.

Is this a solvable problem with this current group of Phillies? That will be Fatse’s first job out of the gate. Can he convince hitters to stick to their plan at the plate, be patient, stop worrying so much about using their “A” swing every single time and be more reactive?

Clearly, you don’t want to stop Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber from swinging for power, but a bit more judiciousness would be welcome. As for the rest of the lineup, none of them are home run hitters, so they need to be following this model.

Fixing the Bullpen is Job 1B

If fixing the offense is Dombrowski’s No. 1 item this off-season, adding to the bullpen is 1B.

To his credit, he did make a couple of moves last off-season he truly believed would make the Phils’ bullpen more dynamic.

There was no way he could have foreseen Brad Keller being lost for half the season and most of 2027, and he did swing a nice trade, jettisoning Matt Strahm for Jonathan Bowlan. Bowlan wore down as his workload went beyond his previous norms, but was one of the few dependable arms for most of the season. But Dombrowski also was depending on a Jose Alvarado bounceback, which was no sure thing, and thought Tanner Banks could repeat his out-of-nowhere 2025 season. Neither happened. Orion Kerkering also fell apart over the season’s final month and was unusable over the final two weeks.

The run-scoring environment in the postseason is much harder. We’ve seen past Phillies’ offenses fall apart once the calendar flips to October, which puts more pressure on the pitching staff, particularly the bullpen. As has been well chronicled now, the last time a Phils reliever successfully converted a save opportunity was in Game 4 of the 2023 NLDS against Atlanta by Strahm.

Runs were even more at a premium in 2026 and virtually every postseason moment was a high leverage situation for Milwaukee this October, as noted by Stark.

The Brewers played 120 innings in this postseason. The game was within two runs at some point in 110 of them. That is 91.7 percent of the time. And if that feels like it’s a big percentage, it’s because it’s a really big percentage. In fact, according to STATS, it’s the highest percentage by any World Series champ in the wild-card era (since 1995).

Milwaukee’s bullpen run was historic, the fourth-lowest ERA (1.38) in playoff history (the 2022 Astros, you’ll remember, didn’t give up a single run throughout October). The Brewers would not have survived without an otherworldly performance by their ‘pen, even with the outstanding starting pitching they received. The Phillies have fallen apart because both their offense and their bullpen have faltered the last three years. If even one of those facets of the team had been functional, they likely would have at least won a few more rounds in 2024, ‘25 and ‘26.

The Phillies’ quest to “fix” the offense will obviously be the lead story this off-season, but Dombrowski and the front office have to be obsessed with finding as many potential impact relievers as possible this winter. They need to make a bunch of trades, even if it’s for players buried on other teams’ 40-man rosters. They need to do a better job of developing their own relief pitchers and come into spring training relying less on hope and more on stuff. And you don’t have to break the bank to do it.

The Brewers got Trevor Megill for cash and a player to be named later in 2022. They got Chad Patrick from the A’s for a washed infielder, Abraham Toro. DL Hall was part of the Corbin Burnes deal, so that was a high profile trade, but they drafted Aaron Ashby in the 4th round signed Abner Uribe as an international FA at 18 years old for $85,000. All of them finished with 1.3 WAR or better this year and were dominant in the playoffs.

Fixing the bullpen should not be a secondary concern.

It’s possible we see solutions to some of these problems come quickly, as team presidents and general managers try to get transactions done ahead of the end of the collective bargaining agreement and pending lockout on December 2.

But solutions must come.

Infielder Demetrio Crisantes (Dbacks No. 1 Prospect) is taking full advantage of the Arizona Fall League invite after rocketing through the Diamondbacks’ system in 2026. The Tucson native was drafted in the seventh round of the 2022 MLB Draft out of Nogales High School, and made it all the way up to Triple-A Reno after spending 2025 with the High-A Hillsboro Hops.

Crisantes began 2026 on a rehab assignment with the ACL Diamondbacks, but was quickly back in Hillsboro and was promoted after just four games. He didn’t slow down in Double-A Amarillo – a level that is often ‘make or break’ for many prospects – slashing .319/.413/.548 with 19 extra-base hits through 35 games with the Sod Poodles. That was enough to earn the 22-year-old another promotion, where he played 50 games with the Aces and hit a cool .278/.343/.412 with 17 extra-base hits.

During that time, he also made two of his favorite plays of the season.

“I hit (for) the cycle this year,” he said.

“And then when we were in San Antonio, I made this Derek Jeter play at second base, which was pretty cool, too.”

While it was a lot of travel, all of the promotions proved to be the highlight for Crisantes.

“I learned a lot this year, which was a blessing, and I didn’t expect this year,” he said. “I just wanted to go out and stay healthy and play a lot of baseball, and I got lucky enough to go to Triple-A and pick the brains of guys that play in the big leagues.”

Crisantes was really able to lean on Pavin Smith, Tommy Troy, Santiago Espinal and LuJames “Gino” Groover – all of whom played part of the season in Phoenix. They offered him some lessons, but the biggest lesson he learned was to “just be consistent with my game.”

“Just keep it loose, try to have fun,” he said, “but also take it seriously and just learn from the big leaguers.”

One of the biggest benefits of the Arizona Fall League is getting to spend time with prospects from other organizations. And there’s another player on the Salt River Rafters who had a crazy season of promotions like Crisantes – Rockies C/1B prospect Jack O’Dowd. 

O’Dowd – son of former Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd – was undrafted out of the University of Texas and played a year of independent ball before signing a minor league contract with the Rockies last offseason. O’Dowd started in Single-A Fresno and ended in Double-A Hartford.

“Yeah, we’ve talked about it a little bit,” Crisantes said. “We both said it’s a grind, but it’s a good grind to have and it just gets us closer to the big leagues.”

But beyond O’Dowd, there are a bunch of other players from the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins and Washington Nationals that Crisantes gets to talk baseball with.

“I mean, it’s awesome,” he said. “You get to see organizations that we don’t play against during the seasons since they’re on the East Coast, and you start picking brains from other organizations, as well, and you learn a lot more things than what you would if you weren’t part of the AFL.”

And his own personal goals for the Fall League?

“Just to stay healthy, get more at-bats, get more reps at second, try to stay consistent with my defense – get that better and better each day – and just end this AFL on a healthy note.”

So far, Crisantes has been playing well. In 14 games for the Salt River Rafters through Wednesday, he is hitting .281/.349/.421 with six doubles, a triple and six stolen bases in as many attempts.

But in addition to getting more baseball reps, the Fall League is also a unique opportunity for Crisantes to play in front of his hometown crowd.

“It’s awesome, just so that my family can be here and hopefully one day when I’m in the big leagues here with the D-backs, they can come to every game at Chase Field,” Crisantes said. 

“Just growing up and going to Chase Field and hopefully one day playing there is just going to mean so much to me,” he continued. “So thank God the D-backs drafted me, and (I’m) just excited to see what the future (holds).”

He has one memory of Chase Field in particular that stands out to him.

“I got a bat one time,” he said. “I think it was from Will Venable. We were on the field and I was asking about his bat. He knew I wanted it. He told me to take it, and I was like, ‘Wow. That’s definitely a lifetime memory.’”

As Crisantes continues his push towards the majors, he wants fans to know one thing about him:

“That I’m here to win, I’m here to compete, and come say hi to me. I’ll say hi back. I’m a chill dude, don’t be shy. And hopefully one day I’ll help the D-backs win.”

In so many ways, Gary Sánchez brought me back to baseball.

The summer between junior and senior year of university, baseball had become a very secondary thing for me. Navigating summer jobs and accommodations, what I wanted to take in my final year of undergrad, what kind of jobs I was angling for… these things were front of mind. And then Gary got called up, and it was different than his cup of coffee in 2015. Boy, was it different.

Twenty home runs in 53 games, a nine-win pace adjusted to 600 PAs, and a 43 percent strikeout rate. The Yankees ended up five games out of the playoff race, winning just 84 games, but boy did it feel like Gary was going to single handedly drag them into October. He finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting, and for whatever else his career would come to, the Yankees seemed to have a new franchise cornerstone. More than that, for a pretty bad team at the time, the newly-christened Kraken was now must-see TV.

Ten years on, Gary Sánchez has a World Series ring.

The 2017 season was maybe the best we would ever have it in the current era of Yankee baseball. The trio of Gary, Aaron Judge and Luis Severino, with Greg Bird pulling his own weight and then some, the club seemed set to dominate the AL for the better part of a decade. Judge is really the only one who hit his potential, a multi-time MVP that will go in the Hall of Fame but very well could do it without a single title.

Wednesday night was an emotional one for many reasons, not the least of which is that I really really really really really really do not like the Tampa Bay Rays as a franchise, to the extent that my attempt to engage with baseball rationally sometimes goes away. While I don’t necessarily view the Brewers as giant-slayers, with the best record in baseball and a pretty chalk run through the postseason, I appreciate them knocking off the Dodgers and have been quite pleased with the way their fans seem to embody the Midwest so well that I worry about parody.

And I’m happy for Christian Yelich, who has given so much of his time and sweat and his back to the franchise, even if I find him wearing an actual C a little too Jason Varitek-y for my taste. But mostly, I’m happy for Gary.

He emerged in 2017 as one of the best catchers in baseball, with appearances at both the All Star Game and Home Run Derby. He collected a single MVP vote with a Silver Slugger, and delivered one of my favorite hits in post-dynasty playoff history:

It would not ever be better than that. Gary would alternate between good and bad seasons at the plate for the next five years, while his defense became less and less reliable. I always felt Gary’s biggest problem was that he would tinker too much, going to the now-common one-knee down stance before the majority of baseball would, then spending 2019 focusing on blocking the ball while he bled runs from a framing perspective. He left the Bronx in that ill-fated deal with the Twins that brought Josh Donaldson to the Bronx, and since then he’s been a perfectly serviceable backup catcher for three franchises.

It never worked out for the Kraken the way that it should have. In another universe he and Judge have delivered the Yankees to the promised land, and we’re adding Sánchez to the next run of Top 100 Yankees we do. Instead, he’s in the supporting cast of the best team in baseball, while Judge is THE star of a show nearing the end of it’s run.

Congratulations, Gary, I’ll always love you.

The Brewers may be suffering from a case of Foam-o.

Since winning the World Series on Wednesday night, the party continued on Thursday with a stop at Lambeau Field to watch the Packers and bled into Friday for their championship parade through the streets of Milwaukee — and there hasn’t been much time for sleep.

“Not at all,” Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski told Fox 6 from his perch on the parade bus. “We’re running on probably two, three hours.”

After beating the Rays in Game 6 in Tampa on Thursday night for the franchise’s first-ever World Series title, the Brewers took the Commissioner’s Trophy back to Milwaukee and had the perfect place to unveil the hardware to the locals: Lambeau Field.

Led by veteran pitcher Brandon Woodruff, players walked out on the field in Green Bay to thunderous applause during the “Thursday Night Football” tilt between the Packers and Panthers, with outfielder Sal Frelick partaking in the Lambeau Leap and jumping into the crowd.

The Brewers kept the party going on Friday with their parade — with the route including a mural of iconic announcer Bob Uecker, who died at the age of 90 in 2025.

Misiorowski caught a beer tossed from the sidewalk and proceeded to chug it. Outfielder Garrett Mitchell stopped to take a photo with a baby who probably won’t remember it. The Barrelman mascot and the Famous Racing Sausages got their moments in the sun.

“This is amazing, a lot of fun,” Misiorowski said. “It’s awesome to have this city behind us, and celebrate with us. It means a lot to these fans so it’s amazing.

“This is the pinnacle. This is what you play for.”

Welcome to the 2026 edition of Ranking theRockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for theRockies in 2026. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest. 

No. 31, Jeff Criswell (0.1 rWAR)

Drafted in the second round of the 2020 draft by the then Oakland Athletics, Jeff Criswell’s journey through professional baseball has not been a particularly smooth one.

After two seasons of solid results working his way up through the Atheletic’s minor league affiliates, Criswell was dealt to the Rockies before the 2023 season for reliever Chad Smith. He spent the entirety of 2023 at Triple-A Albuquerque where he struggled with spikes in both home runs and walk rates.

In 2024, the Rockies moved Criswell to the bullpen. While his home run rate remained elevated, his strikeout numbers ticked up enough to earn him a call up to the Major League club.

Criswell’s career hit another speed bump in the form of Tommy John surgery in March of 2025. He spent the entirety of the 2025 recovering from that surgery and entered this season looking to re-establish himself in the Rockies bullpen.

By the end of April, Criswell was given the green light to return to game action with a minor league rehab assignment.

Officially, that rehab assignment lasted just under a month with Criswell making nine total appearances between High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A. All told, he threw 10.2 innings with a 5.91 ERA. He was removed from the injured list and optioned to Triple-A on May 28.

Criswell did not, however, have to wait much longer to return to the big leagues. A little over a week after he was optioned, the Rockies recalled him to take Keegan Thompson’s roster spot.

Criswell looked sharp in his first two outings.

In addition to allowing no runs in an inning each against the Chicago Cubs and The Athletics, his fastball velocity was sitting 95-96 MPH, just like it had been in 2024. He walked a batter in each game and wasn’t particularly efficient, needing over 20 pitches to get through each inning, but those were minor concerns in the context of his return from surgery.

Despite that small sample size success, Criswell was shuffled down to Triple-A to make room for a fresh arm on June 13.

His second stint in Albuquerque lasted only 8.2 innings. Again in search of a fresh arm for the bullpen, the Rockies recalled Criswell on July 11. Criswell opened this second stint with the big-league team with a two inning appearance against the Cincinnati Reds.

This outing did not go nearly as well as his previous two for the big-league squad.

His first pitch of the game was smashed to the wall in the center-right field gap resulting in an inside-the-park home run for Spencer Steer.

That would not be the end of the damage as Criswell went on to allow three more baserunners including a home run by Elly De La Cruz in the ninth inning.

Unfortunately, a slight dip in velocity during that appearance against the Reds (down to 94.3) was a precursor for a return to the injured list. The next day, Criswell was placed on the 15-day IL with a right shoulder strain.

When his time on the IL was up, he was optioned once again to Triple-A where he finished out his season with the Isotopes.

All told, in his return from Tommy John, Criswell managed to throw 41.2 innings across 35 appearances between four different levels of the Rockies organization.

The results were not always pretty, as evidenced by his 5.73 minor league ERA and his 10.35 Major League FIP, but he has was able to get prove that he could take the ball and flashed the strikeout upside that made him an interesting relief option heading into 2025.

In 2027, Criswell will be 28. He has done enough to put himself in the mix for the bullpen heading into the spring. He will need to solidify a spot in the pen come next season or will likely see his 40-man roster spot given to a younger prospect.

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A lot of conclusions will likely be drawn from the Milwaukee Brewers’ romp to the 2026 World Series title. There will be a lot of talk about small market vs. big market teams and how the Brewers showed you don’t need a big payroll to win a championship.

That’s not the point of this article, but I will point out that money isn’t necessarily the end-all in terms of building a champion, but it will hinder the Brewers’ ability to sustain this success when some of their key players leave for big paydays elsewhere.

Instead, I wanted to focus on the Brewers’ roster and how it was built and see if there is anything the Phillies can learn.

Similar to the Phillies, the Brewers have been regular postseason participants in recent years, making the playoff field in eight of the past nine seasons. And like the Phillies, they came up short of the World Series every year. This lends some credence to the belief that sometimes all it takes for a postseason loser to become a winner is just one more year.

But while the Phillies have been criticized for “running it back” in recent seasons, the Brewers have evolved greatly since their run of playoff seasons began in 2018. That season, their best players according to WAR were NL MVP Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, and the pitching staff was topped by Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley.

Since the Phillies’ run of postseason appearances began in 2022, I’ll take a look at the Brewers of that year, who missed the playoffs by one game. Yelich was still around, but his numbers had greatly decreased. Instead, the middle infield combo of Willy Adames and Colton Wong led position players, while co-aces Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff headed the rotation.

Fast forward to this year’s team, and the WAR leaders were Brice Turang, Jackson Chourio, Jacob Misiorowski, and Logan Henderson. What do all of those players have in common? All are products of the Brewers’ farm system who have been called up in recent seasons.

I don’t think I need to point out that the Phillies haven’t been turning out young players of that caliber in recent seasons. Instead of Chourio and Miz, we’ve gotten Johan Rojas and Orion Kerkering. (They desperately need Andrew Painter’s second half to be real and for Aidan Miller’s back to hold together.) The Phillies have been forced to compensate by heavily investing in free agents. Sometimes that works out well, but even in the best case scenarios, you get locked in to paying big money for a player’s decline phase. (Only seven more years of Trea Turner!)

As for the on-field product, the Phillies’ and Brewers’ lineups were quite different. The Brewers don’t rely on power hitting (31st in the league in homers) and don’t have any players who you’d consider lineup carrying superstars. But what they do have is a lot of very good hitters and few weak spots in the lineup.

Compare that to the Phillies who often struggled to score runs if either Bryce Harper or Kyle Schwarber weren’t on hot streaks. Bryson Stott is a fine enough player, but he should ideally be like the team’s sixth or seventh best hitter rather than having the third best OPS on the team.

Many people complain that the Phillies are loaded with players who just “swing for the fences” and don’t work walks, and they’re half right. The Phillies don’t walk all that much, but they don’t actually hit for power either. It’s not good when the two guys who walk at a high rate are also your only real consistent power threats. The Phillies have too many hitters who aren’t particularly good at any one aspect of hitting and seem to be guaranteed to go through horrific slumps for months at a time.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the Phillies season was that in August, they actually seemed to figure it out. While they were helped by a series of lesser opponents, they led the majors in walk percentage that month, and not coincidentally, they scored the third most runs in baseball, despite ranking just 24th in home runs.

Around the time the calendar flipped to September, the Phillies’ offense collapsed. Maybe it was just because they faced better competition or maybe opposing pitchers adjusted, but part of it seemed to be an abandonment of the patient approach they utilized August. That isn’t entirely surprising, because the Phillies don’t have a lot of hitters with a history of taking walks, and often times when they hit adversity, players will fall back on what they think got them there in the first place.

They didn’t strike out all that much, but the balls they did contact were not finding grass, with a league-low .130 BABIP. Maybe the poor showing was mostly due to luck, but it also felt like the Phillies were boom or bust with runners on base. Their overall numbers look fine, but that’s because in some games, they’d seem to get ALL the runners home and then go 1-15 with RISP over the next three.

Pitching wise, the Phillies’ rotation matches up favorably with the Brewers, and I’d take Jhoan Duran over Brewers’ closer Trevor Megill. But the Brewers were able to capably hold leads in the innings in between, something the Phillies couldn’t seem to do with consistency. As with the hitting, it would have been nice if they had guys in the minor leagues they could have called up (Alex McFarlane was a rare success) and if one of their few young pitchers (Kerkering) didn’t completely melt down.

So then, is there anything the Phillies can actually learn from the Brewers?

The Phillies need to get more out of their development system, but that isn’t a revelation. Hitting development has been an issue for a long time now, and it seems like dramatic steps need to be taken to fix it. Will the Phillies accept this uncomfortable truth and make the necessary changes? Perhaps they should take a revolutionary step of hiring people from organizations that have been good at development?

As for the players they do have, it sounds like Don Mattingly recognizes the problem with the offense and seems to think that with a full year as manager, he can improve things.

Can Mattingly actually make that happen are we in for more talk about walking more and patient at bats, only to see them revert back as soon as that approach hits a bump in the road?

Unless the Phillies are willing to make these changes, it feels like they won’t be the team celebrating at the end of the season any time soon.