After Putting Together Another Flawed Roster That Can't Compete In The Postseason, Dave Dombrowski Says He Doesn't Know If Bryce Harper Can Be Elite Anymore
Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner deserve a ton of blame for the way the Phillies went out this year. They didn't perform outside of one game. It was a series that was totally up for grabs. Great pitching on both sides had star players on both teams looking completely lost at the plate. Shohei Ohtani was equally as horrible as Bryce, Schwarber and Turner in that series. Harper is a former MVP. Trea Turner was the NL batting champion. Kyle Schwarber had 50+ home runs. If those versions of any of those guys showed up in that series, they are still playing right now.
But if we're ranking how much blame is to go around for another disastrous Phillies exit from the postseason, Dave Dombrowski is coming in right behind those guys. Because we've seen the same exact thing happen 4 years in a row now. The Phillies show up with an undisciplined lineup that can manufacture any runs if the long ball isn't involved. When the bats go cold and they aren't blasting balls out of the park? This offense sucks a tragic amount of dick. I mean you have Alec Bohm hitting clean up behind Bryce Harper, and then you follow that up with Brandon Marsh in the 5-hole. That's a lineup that teams who win 70 games a year would be happy with, but for sure not a World Series contender.
Year after year, the starting pitchers give the Phillies every chance in the world to win games in the postseason. Only for the bullpen to come in and fuck it up. And sure, Dave Dombrowski went out and traded for Jhoan Duran this season. And it's not like Dave Dombrowski made the decision for Duran to intentionally walk Ohtani, only for him to then walk in the game-tying run against Mookie Betts in game 4. But the bullpen is still filled with way too many guys who have a wildly specific circumstance they can pitch under, or else they are hot garbage.
The fact of the matter is that the construction of this Phillies roster has proven itself to be flawed time and time again. But instead of making any moves that would make this team better suited for playoff baseball, Dave Dombrowski is afraid to shake things up. He's bringing back Rob Thomson, and adding another year onto his contract. He's not going to make any meaningful trades. He's going to keep talking about guys coming up through the farm system, as if we are ever actually going to see any of them before 2030. The Phillies are more or less going to run it back again next season, and we'll all pretend to be shocked when Dave Dombrowski is giving his end of the year press conference in the middle of October.
So basically what I'm getting at here is that we know Bryce wasn't great this year. We know he had a down year, and an especially down series against the Dodgers. But maybe, and this is me just thinking out loud here, but maybe Dave Dombrowski can shut the fuck up about Bryce Harper right now. The fans are allowed to be pissed off at Bryce for his performance in that series, but Dave Dombrowski doesn't get to say shit. Because half the reason Bryce goes cold on the Phillies' way out is because there's absolutely nobody else in that lineup who can offer any protection around him. It's not like the Dodgers weren't giving Bryce Harper pitches to hit this series. But do you think anybody is afraid to pitch against Bryce Harper when the only thing you have to worry about is Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh coming up behind him? Not a chance.
Bryce Harper is the most important piece of the equation here. The team goes where he goes. Whether that'll end with a World Series or not, who knows. But the last thing we need right now is the general manager shitting on the dude saying he doesn't know if he can be elite anymore. Your job is to put better players around him, so it makes his job of being an elite baseball player a little easier. Dave Dombrowski has failed miserably at his job, which is now causing Bryce Harper to fail at his. Trickle down failure, and it starts at the top. Just do your damn job.