Every fan of baseball wants a winning team on the field. Phillies fans are no different, we’d love to see the Phillies make the playoffs and even better the World Series. Well, a significant amount of time has passed since the Phillies were even in the playoffs, and believe it or not, the Phils have the 2nd longest drought of making the playoffs in the MLB at 10 years now. The only other team with a long drought is the Seattle Mariners who have doubled the Phillies drought and they are currently at 20 years without a playoff game.
Phillies finishes since 2000
Fast forward to the CBT or Competitive Balance Tax, which is a threshold that if a Major League team goes over that amount, they are taxed at even a great rate, a ‘luxury tax’ so to speak. A lot was mentioned that the Phillies have been spending a lot on payrolls, but haven’t been above this CBT threshold. Why would an owner want to do that, when the team isn’t contending for a playoff spot? Would you if you owned a team want to continually splash out a lot of money and not see your team prosper?
Embed from Getty ImagesShould the Phillies consider giving their first-round pick from a few years ago, a chance to play the game? As mentioned above, the Phillies are barely holding on to a .500 record in the past 10 seasons, why not give a guy like Mickey Moniak a chance to play left field? The Phils thought enough of drafting him #1 overall in 2016 – yes, 6 years ago. Why not give him a chance to show that he earned the number 1 pick? He’s been played very sparingly in the past two seasons. If he fails, he fails, but never knowing if he would make it is worse than just keeping him on the bench, keeping it warmed up for whoever else the Phils are thinking about bringing onto the team.
It’s only the first couple days of Spring Training, and already the Phils are accumulating some news to talk about. Zack Wheeler has talked about ‘soreness’ in the shoulder. That soreness was felt in December by Wheeler, when asked if he’s had any diagnostic tests done on it? “No” was the answer… now, if I were a Major League pitcher and had soreness in December and now again in March, I would be concerned. Even though I am not fond of going to doctors, I think I would have went to find out about that. I guess that is what the team has to do, ‘Hey, by the way, Zack, let’s get you in for an MRI or something.”
