The Phillies are #RunningItBack in 2026! After missing out on Bo Bichette and re-signing J.T. Realmuto – barring any unforeseen moves between now and the start of the season – Dave Dombrowski has said
that the 2026 Phillies are going to look very similar to the 2025 edition of the team.
The consensus on social media and the comments section of this site is unhappiness.
I understand why fans aren’t enthused about bringing back most of a team that has won a total of two playoff games the past two seasons. I too was in favor of adding Bichette or another big name, because adding good players to a roster is usually a positive thing.
But can we maintain some perspective on what the Phillies are running back? This team won 96 games in 2025, which was the second-most in baseball. They had two players finish in the top five of MVP voting – and that doesn’t include the guy who has actually won the award twice. They had three pitchers finish in the top ten of Cy Young Award voting and a closer who made the All-MLB team.
Obviously, they lost in the playoffs, but the loss came at the hands of the eventual champion super team Dodgers, with their three losses coming by a combined four runs. (If Orion Kerkering knew how to field, game four might still be going on.)
That’s pretty good! And others apparently agree since the Phillies currently have the second-best World Series odds in the National League.
It would be disingenuous (and Smarty is never disingenuous) to not mention the counter arguments:
- This core has failed to win the World Series the past four years.
- They’ve gone backwards every season. (People say this, but it isn’t actually true. They won one more game in 2026 and the playoff result was the same. It certainly wasn’t a step forward, but they didn’t go backwards)
- A lot of key players are now one year older, and it is natural to expect some decline.
- They lost Ranger Suarez and we don’t know what to expect from Zack Wheeler.
Maybe this group hasn’t shown an ability to win when it counts, but they seem like a good bet to make the playoffs again. If you think the Phillies are imperfect, take a look around the rest of the league aside from the Dodgers. And sadly, even if Dombrowski nailed the offseason, the Phillies would still have an inferior roster to the Dodgers.
Faced with this reality, here is my suggestion: Just enjoy the regular season as its happening, and don’t get too hung up on what may or may not happen in the playoffs. Think back to 2021 when the team was in year ten of not even making it to the playoffs, and we had to wonder if they ever would again. As disappointing as the past Octobers have been, I will take this run over that any day.
This may sound snarky, but if you’re at the point where you consider just winning the division or making the playoffs to be a massive failure, then I suggest you not watch any games before October. When regular season wins fail to bring you joy and only cause a response of, “Who cares? It doesn’t mean anything until the playoffs,” then preserve your mental health, and don’t put yourself through 162 games of aggravation.
And who knows, maybe the playoffs will turn out differently this year. It’s easy to say, “Same roster, same results,” but as I mentioned, the oddsmakers think they have a chance. It wouldn’t be the first time that a core of Phillies players finally came through after years of failures.
If that’s going to happen, they need the trio of Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner to do far better than they did during last year’s playoffs. The Phillies gave huge contracts to each of them expecting them to be the main pieces of a championship team, and I think they are capable of it. But they need to justify that faith (and money) in the postseason, for more than just one game. (You can only win a game once, guys.)
The real hope for improvement comes from the farm system. John Stolnis wrote how its well past time the Phillies’ minor league system provides positive results. Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter (and maybe even Aidan Miller) are going to get their chances this year, and maybe they can prove to be the missing pieces that will allow the Phillies to finally bring home another trophy.
Sure, this hasn’t been the offseason most of us dreamed of. Maybe #RunningItBack doesn’t provide the excitement we wanted. But at this point, there’s nothing else to do besides hope for the best and understand that there are worse places to be.
