How The Underdog Phillies Have Toppled Superteams, And Why The Astros Are No Different

PHILADELPHIA, PA — As World Series week commences and Philadelphia prepares for Red October's turn to Red November, the pundits are having a field day with the Houston Astros, the heavy favorite. They are whispering about Dusty Baker's long awaited championship. About Justin Verlander's Hall of Fame career. About what a dynasty "really looks like."

For the Phillies, it doesn't matter. They've heard it before. In fact, they've heard it for three straight postseason series. The Phillies have elite talent, but. Always a but. First it was the Cardinals' Gold Glove defense and shutdown bullpen. Then it was the torrid firepower of the array of five-tool players in the Braves lineup. Then it was the Padres, who weren't "flawed" like the Phillies were.

Those are easy summary judgements to make of those respective clubs, when the bedrock of your analysis is echo chambers of projection models and tunnel-visioned overreliance on sabermetrics.

Here's a glance at ways in which key aspects of the Phillies game subverts the lens that national media looks at the game, and realities of postseason baseball in particular.

Workhorses, not stables

In an era of stables of multi-inning relief options, openers, and short starters, the Phillies are an aberration.

When the Tampa Bay Rays pioneered and perfected the technique of the opener — a relief pitcher who throws the first inning or two of a game before getting to a "starter" who typically doesn't go more than two or three innings himself — several years ago, many saw it as a trend of the future. After all, starting pitchers are throwing fewer and fewer innings, went the prevailing logic, perhaps an inevitable consequence of year-round baseball through a pitcher's developmental years and the toll taken on the human arm when it attempts to routinely throw in the upper-90s and low 100s.

The Rays rode the opener to the American League pennant in 2020. The Yankees basically used it to win the 2017 winner-take-all Wild Card game. The Dodgers have employed it at various points through multiple deep postseason runs. A bizarre Los Angeles Times article in 2021 that seemed to conflate the sport's economics with in-game strategy decisions painted it as "Wall Street Baseball."

The Phillies don't use openers. They don't deploy bullpen games unless they absolutely have to. They have relied both during the regular season and the postseason upon two of the best pitchers in the game, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, and a strong number three starter in Ranger Suarez, to go deep every time they pitch. They hope they win at least two of those three games, then they cobble together the other games the best they can.

It's a pitching corps that more closely relates to the 2016 Cubs with Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, and Kyle Hendricks, or the 2001 Diamondbacks with Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, than it does with the mix and match array sourced from a deep stable of high-powered arms. All of the Phillies competitors this postseason have boasted such a stable.

That's not to say that teams like the Astros and Padres couldn't do what the Phillies do, too. The Astros' Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez are just as powerful a 1-2 punch as Wheeler and Nola. But the reason the Astros won 106 games is because they have tremendous depth, depth that helps them in a 162-game series, but does not neccessarily help them win a best of 7 postseason series. Wheeler and Nola can start twice each.

Bullpen usage

The Phillies don't have a "stable" in the bullpen, either. It's constantly cited as a reason their opponent has an edge. And again, they've proved it doesn't matter.

Manager Rob Thomson turns to a trusted few arms in the bullpen. Nearly all the relief innings thrown in the Phillies 9 postseason wins have come from Seranthony Dominguez, Jose Alvarado, Zach Eflin, and David Robertson. It's a closer committee that's been called on to start finishing games as early as the 5th inning, and the group hasn't lost a game yet.

Compare that group to, say, what will be available out of the Astros bullpen during a World Series game. They have more high leverage options, including starters they'll deploy as relievers like Luis Garcia and possibly Lance McCullers Jr. They have Ryan Pressly, Rafael Montero, old Phillie Hector Neris, Will Smith, Ryne Stanek, and more for those championship-deciding innings. The reason it hasn't mattered for the Cardinals, Braves, and Padres, and the reason it may not matter for the Astros, is the same as starting pitching depth: the Phillies and Astros are playing a best of 7 series, not a best of 162. There are only so many innings in a game.

Defense

While everyone respected the Phillies power bats in the preseason — and how could adding Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos to a lineup that already included Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, and Bryce Harper not incur respect — most questioned how the Phillies could sustain success without improving their defense.

Schwarber and Castellanos were acquired for their bats, not their gloves. And on top of that, the Phillies left Alec Bohm at third base, where he had struggled in 2021.

The result was a few regular season bumps, errors that cost a smattering of games, but not enough to keep the Phillies out of the postseason. And the team drastically improved its defense as the year went on.

But what's at the core of the Phillies defensive philosophy is, again, elite performance where it really counts. No defender has a bigger impact than catcher, and Realmuto is the best in the game. Centerfield might be next, and midseason acquisition Brandon Marsh is a Gold Glove caliber fielder. Bryson Stott has improved at the other most important defensive position, shortstop, and the Phillies have a pair of elite gloves they bring in off the bench in late innings in Edmundo Sosa and Matt Vierling.

So when broadcasters and analysts use words like "flawed" to describe the Phillies defense, they aren't giving the whole picture. Of course it's flawed. But teams don't win games based on how many outs above average they accrue, or how high their zone ultimate rating is, or how many sabermetrical baubles they can accrue on a Fangraphs calculator. The game on the field is not math, it's not moneyball, it's chess and chaos and weather and fate, and the 2022 Phillies are living proof.

See more coverage from the Phillies magic run through the playoffs:

• Bryce Harper's Shot Heard Around The World
• How Ruben Amaro Jr. Helped Build Phillies World Series Team
• Phillies Return To Houston For World Series, Where They've Won Before
• Phillies Vs. Astros World Series Preview: Schedule, Tickets, Odds