The Phillies’ offense has largely sat as one of the worst in the sport, ranking 28th in wRC+, 23rd in on-base percentage, and 23rd in raw OPS. It’s probably about as bad as an offense can be while the team is on track to make the postseason.
There was supposed to be a switch that flipped. The Phillies had a meeting in late July to try to fix their approach issues.
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It started producing results quickly. Through the first 21 games in August, the offense looked transformed overnight. They had the highest walk rate in the sport at 12.0%, a full tick above the next highest team in the Brewers. They struck out only 14.7% of the time with newly acquired Luis Arraez and a sudden Justin Crawford bump. There wasn’t a ton of thump in the lineup but they ranked 15th in ISO which is enough given what else they were doing.
There were some obvious reasons to believe the trend wouldn’t continue. Of the seven different teams they played over that 21 game span, only one of them rank above 15th in ERA and only one of them had a top half of the league walk rate. They were inevitably going to work a few more walks but it still seemed like something could click.
In the next 21 games, which include a 13-walk performance against a Washington Nationals bullpen game, their walk rate dropped to 8.6% (and if you take that game away, it drops to 7.3%) and they have the worst offense in the sport. Both trends are small but the latter one is a bit closer to where the team was before for the previous 4 full months.
The last time a team that finished in the bottom 10 in wRC+ to make the World Series was the 2014 Kansas City Royals, who finished 21st. The biggest question for the Phillies heading into the playoffs is if it’s possible to make a deep postseason run with one of the worst offenses in the sport. The answer is probably no.
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Brandon Marsh
One of the tougher calls that Don Mattingly is going to have to make is what to do in left field over the next few weeks. Since July 1, no qualified hitter in baseball has a worse wRC+ than Brandon Marsh and the gap isn’t close. He’s hitting just .179 with a .489 OPS and has been worth -1.5 fWAR in that span. He’s a mess.
There have been a few contributing issues that have brought Marsh to this point but if we just want to focus on the recent struggles, he is actually putting the ball in play a bit. Given his career trend to run a strikeout rate in the high 20s or low 30s, an 18.4% K% since the start of August sounds amazing but his average exit velocity is down to 88.2 mph with a 38% hard hit rate.
Compare that to 2025, where he was still getting platooned but put together a nice season overall with a .785 OPS that played a solid left field. His average exit velocity was nearly 3 mph harder and a hard hit rate that was over eight percent higher. He needs to hit the ball hard to do damage.
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As John Kruk said it on the broadcast last night, Brandon Marsh looks like a guy who is swinging not to miss and not swinging to do damage. That just doesn’t work for him.
The Phillies have two alternatives and neither seems amazing. They could give Bryan De La Cruz more starts but he’s just 5 for 21 in August while mostly getting favorable matchups.
The other option is sliding Justin Crawford to left field for Derek Hill to play center. It would boost the outfield defense but Derek Hill has a .656 OPS against right-handed pitchers this year in a very limited sample size. Their best bet might just be to hope Marsh figures something out.
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