The best way to analyze the Phillies over the past 5 years is as such. The offseason starts with Lucy holding the football. Us fans as Charlie Brown are hesitant, we know better. But it’s tempting and this time it’ll be different. The season starts and we run and go to kick it. Inevitably at some point in the season Lucy pulls the ball away.

Prior to 2018 the Phillies had a few years where they were most certainly a bad ballclub. The Phils started to spend money and turn things around. We had this new innovative coach that was going to finally bring analytics to the Phillies in Gabe Kapler.  They signed former Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta along with two solid bullpen arms in Tommy Hunter and Pat Neshek. They also brought in a mean guitarist who was going to finally solidify first base in Carlos Santana. There was hope that these moves would help them make the playoffs. They finished at 80-82. It was a little disappointing but something to build off of.

In 2019 things got really exciting. David Robertson was the next signing to solidify the bullpen. Former MVP Andrew McCutchen was added. We traded our top prospect for arguably the best catcher in the league in JT Realmuto, oh and brought in some guy named Bryce. I talked with an enthusiastic coworker and our panel and everyone thought it was playoffs/dare I say NLCS or bust. The Phils started out hot and fizzled out to finish 81-81.

As we hit 2020, clearly Gabe Kapler was the problem so we got rid of him and brought World Series winning manager Joe Giradi. We solidified the infield with Didi Gregorious, we bring in another the next big name bullpen guy in Tommy Hunter, and a true ace in Zach Wheeler. Surely with the additions the prior year still intact, the younger guys having another year under their belt and these guys we were bound to improve. It was a short season it seemed like there was no way we would not make the playoffs. After an up and…mostly down season they finished 28-32. Yep the streak of missing the playoffs continued.

2021 was back to a full season. But the Phillies added yet another arm to help the bullpen in Archie Bradley. They also were sure not to let Didi or JT go. With fans in the stands now, a full year with the manager and last year’s bullpen being an anomaly there was significant hope for finally having a winning record and the playoff drought ending. Well we accomplished the winning record. But at 82-80 the NL leading playoff drought continued.

We move to this year. The 2022 season. Lets throw a few more bullpen arms at the wall and see what sticks. Law of averages says things have to break right for the pen one of these years. We bring in Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand, and Corey Knebel. But wait we added some serious bats to a somewhat decent offense. There wasn’t going to be a hole in the line-up. My enthusiastic coworker was again expecting an NLCS run. Our podcast panel was excited as well. We had a shirt that said Phuck defense, hit dingers. They/we were right…in about 10 of the 49 games this season. Then another 15 where the whole line-up was a giant hole. There were another 10 games where the defense did phuck them. In some of those games and 3 others they had some gut punching late inning falters that led to excruciating loses. These have taken their toll on the team. They are in a tailspin and all hope of this being the year is virtually lost as they sit at 21-28, and are likely to finish with their worst record in the past 5 seasons.

So let’s make a pact together to not let Lucy…I mean the Phils fool us again next year with their big free agent moves. These hired mercenaries and big payroll additions left to mask a bad scouting, a bad farm system, and bad organization will only make us wonder why we fell for it again in 2023.