March 27, 2024
Eric Hartline/USA Today
Will the Phillies win their first championship in 16 years this season?
The last two Octobers wiped away a decade of forgettable baseball in Philadelphia. The Phillies bashed their way to the World Series in 2022 and nearly got back in 2023, losing in the NLCS in Game 7. With those deep postseason runs, expectations are heightened throughout the Delaware Valley. The mentality of this fan base should be "parade or bust."
Here at PhillyVoice, the sports staff has made their predictions for the 2024 Phillies, but what's the national media saying about the Fightins? Here's a roundup of some of those predictions, including that elusive championship victory...
CBS Sports featured six writers in their MLB preview. All six had the Phillies making it back to the postseason as Wild Card teams (five selections as WC1 and one as WC2). Everyone picked Atlanta to win the NL East, but zero of those scribes have the Braves winning it all. Three of them, however, have the Phillies winning the whole damn thing.
Mike Axisa has the Phillies taking down the Houston Astros in a rematch from the 2022 Fall Classic. How sweet would that be for Philadelphians? Stephen Pianovich and Matt Snyder both have the Phillies winning in another World Series rematch (way back in 1983...), beating the Baltimore Orioles.
Here's an excerpt of what Axisa had to say:
As for the NL, the Phillies are built so well for the postseason with high-end starters, a bullpen full of bat-missers, and a lineup with at least six plus hit tool players. Philadelphia as the team to beat in 2024 for me. [CBS Sports]
Pianovich is a believer as well:
The title window remains yanked open in Philly by the hands of a dinger-happy lineup that still has room on their ring fingers. Can this team really sneak in through the wild card and then knock off an NL juggernaut (or two) in the playoffs again? [CBS Sports]
Snyder is buying the Phillies' playoff formula:
There is absolutely no doubt that the Dodgers are going to win the NL West, but I thought it would be boring to take them to win the NL. Plus, the best regular-season team hasn't come out of the NL in a full season since 2017. I've said each of the last two postseasons that the Phillies are much more built for a playoff run than for the regular season and I've got that coming fully to fruition this time around with them winning it all. [CBS Sports]
The Phillies smacking a 100-win Atlanta team in the NLDS again before toppling the mega-star roster of the Dodgers in the NLCS would have Philadelphia going wild.
ESPN's MLB preview ranks all 30 ball clubs. The Phillies come in at No. 5. They are in the second tier of teams billed as "the biggest threats" to the top-two of the Braves and the Dodgers.
Writer Jorge Castillo says things really haven't changed for the Fightins since last fall, but, hey, not much needs to:
The story here is that the Phillies didn't change much. Philadelphia's two most expensive offseason moves kept its co-aces around for the long term: Aaron Nola signed a seven-year contract, and Zack Wheeler was handed a three-year contract extension. The Phillies tried luring Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but that didn't work out, which led to Wheeler getting his $126 million. Nola and Wheeler, combined with a veteran-laden lineup, have helped lead the Phillies to a World Series and one game shy of another World Series over the past two years. The only notable addition was signing Whit Merrifield to a one-year deal. If it ain't broke, spend some money to keep it together. [ESPN]
Stupid money, Mr. Middleton!
MLB.com writer Will Leitch has one big prediction for each division in baseball. He has Atlanta capturing the NL East crown again, but he doesn't think they will be the juggernaut they were in 2022, particularly because of this Phillies squad:
For all the moves the Dodgers made this offseason, the cool-guy-skeptic stance on them has remained: They still haven’t caught the Braves. The Braves have laid waste to the NL East the last two seasons, putting together back-to-back 100-win seasons and notching the second-most wins in franchise history last year. They’re still my favorite to win this division, but they won’t run away with it this year.
That’s partly because they’ll be competing against what looks like the best Phillies team since the Lee/Halladay/Hamels/Oswalt teams more than a decade ago. But the primary reason is that just about everything fell perfectly for the Braves last year. Ronald Acuña Jr. had a face-meltingly amazing MVP season, but one in which he played 159 games and was encouraged to steal bases in a way his health may not allow him to this year. The whole lineup stayed healthy in 2023; the only regulars who played fewer than 142 games were Michael Harris II and Orlando Arcia, who played 138 and 139, respectively. Some of those players are going to get hurt, and that’s going to affect an offense that was great last year largely because it was so deep, 1-9. [MLB.com]
I've seen this movie twice before when it comes to the Phillies and the Braves. I'll be sure to give five stars on Letterboxd come October.
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