‘Now we know we can do it’: What ending their playoff drought means for the Phillies

The return on John Middleton's investment should be more than a wild card, but he's not downplaying the importance of finally breaking through.

Phillies managing partner John Middleton hugs catcher J.T. Realmuto after the Phillies beat the Astros to clinch a playoff berth on Monday.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Updated Oct. 4, 2022, 2:34 p.m. ET

Published Oct. 4, 2022, 1:49 p.m. ET

HOUSTON — With his glasses in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other, John Middleton spoke for 90 seconds Monday night before his wife poured water over his head, tacit permission for his players to shower him with beer. Now, by the din of the party, the Phillies’ 67-year-old owner stood alone and tried to make sense of it all.

“This is big,” he said. “Nobody should underestimate how important it is.”

That doesn’t mean Middleton is satisfied. He authorized the largest payroll in franchise history — $237 million by one independent estimation, calculated for the purposes of Major League Baseball’s $230 million luxury tax — because he wants “my [bleeping] trophy back,” as he famously told Ryan Howard after the 2009 World Series. Surely, the return on that investment should be more than a wild card.

But the Phillies wandered the desert for more than 4,000 days after their last playoff game. It was the longest active postseason absence in the National League and, for a few days after the Seattle Mariners clinched a spot last weekend, all of baseball.

You have to get in before you can win. So, as the Phillies finally got in — with their longest-tenured players, Aaron Nola and Zach Eflin, fittingly throwing the first and last pitches — the moment wasn’t lost on anyone, least of all the man at the top of the company masthead.

“Learning to win is really a big deal in an athlete’s life — frankly, in any profession but particularly athletes,” Middleton said, a red cap with a “Postseason 2022″ patch covering his soaked hair. “Before, we thought we could do it. Now we know we can do it.”

You could see it on their faces — well, at least when they lifted the beer goggles. Nola broke in with the Phillies in July 2015. Eflin came along 11 months later. Rhys Hoskins joined them in August 2017.

And all they heard about for the next five years was what they couldn’t do. Through four managers and three front-office regimes, with star-laden rosters and swelling payrolls, one lousy September after another, the Phillies couldn’t prevent the boulder from rolling down the mountain.

Was a weight lifted, then, after center fielder Brandon Marsh raced in to snag Mauricio Dubón’s shallow fly ball at 10:10 p.m. in Houston?

More like a Mack truck.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” Nola said.

Added Eflin: “This is exactly what you dream of.”

In his speech to the team, brought on when Bryce Harper and others began chanting his name, Middleton referenced the last golden era in Phillies history. He brought it up again later in a private conversation. He sees similarities between then and now.

“It’s like 2007,” Middleton said. “Before, if you looked at the record, we came close in a lot of years and we finally broke through in ‘07. Hopefully we’re not going to be three-and-done this time. But once you do it, you just relax, you have confidence in yourself and each other.”

The confidence began to germinate in 2019, when the Phillies traded for star catcher J.T. Realmuto and signed Harper for $330 million. In hindsight, they weren’t ready for that. Not really. Years of drafting poorly and not harvesting players in the minor leagues had built up. A top-heavy roster caved in on itself because of cracks in the foundation.

But after so much losing — 99 defeats in 2015, 91 in 2016, 96 in 2017 — the culture needed to change, too. And to Harper, that didn’t begin to happen until December 2020 when Middleton finally brought in Dave Dombrowski, a two-time World Series-winning executive, to run the baseball operations.

Dombrowski has a way with owners. They trust him. They increase their commitment. He was permitted to run up high payrolls with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox. In spring training, it wasn’t enough for Middleton that the Phillies signed Kyle Schwarber to a four-year, $79 million contract. They doubled down with a five-year, $100 million deal for fellow slugger Nick Castellanos.

But Dombrowski’s biggest moves were foundational. He toured the minor leagues and wasn’t happy with what he saw. There were changes to the staff. He hired a new farm director and installed a new philosophy.

“When I signed here in ‘19, I think I said it was going to take us a couple years — three or four or five years — to get where we needed to be,” Harper said. “It’s a totally different team. It’s a totally different group of guys. We have a totally different GM and president, as well. From the top all the way down to the bottom, it’s a different mindset.”

But it’s easy to forget that the Phillies were 22-29 on June 3. Dombrowski recommended a managerial change. Once again, Middleton trusted him.

“When you get to watch Dave in action like I have, there’s a reason why he’s the only guy in baseball history who’s taken three franchises to the World Series and why he’s one of five that have won it with two different teams,” Middleton said. “He’s smart. He’s decisive. He’s performance-oriented. He has extraordinarily high standards.

“Frankly, there’s a lot of similarity with [2008 Phillies GM] Pat [Gillick]. They both have a deep scouting focus. They have a deep player-development focus. They’re great talent evaluators. Dave looks at everything and says, ‘Does this get me closer to winning the World Series?’ That’s how he thinks about everything. It’s a big culture change.”

And finally making the playoffs will only strengthen that culture, regardless of how long the ride lasts.

“It was always the thing coming down the stretch — ‘Are you guys going to blow it?’ The September swoon and all that stuff,” said Thomson, who has been with the Phillies since 2018. “To just squash that is huge. Now we can focus on other things and move on.”

Now, the narrative can change.

“Look, the goal isn’t to be in the playoffs. It’s to win the playoffs, which means winning the World Series,” Middleton said. “But I think it certainly does lift a weight to some extent. There’s no question about that.”