I don't know what I'm doing!

I don’t know what I’m doing!

SB Nation baseball writer Grant Brisbee uses little actual math and science when he compiles his annual win-now, win-later baseball windows graph. It’s subjective, but telling nonetheless. [Last year he did have both World Series participants, the Royals and Giants, on his should contend side of things, though they were closer to the middle of the pack than hindsight would like.] And this year, like last year, the Phillies are in literally the worst spot on the age of talentshould contend scale:

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via SB Nation

The Phils hanging off the side of the page isn’t a cropping issue– they were placed there, ostensibly because their chances of contending this year may have dipped into the negative. In fact, Brisbee even refers to that undesirable upper-left quadrant as Phillies. Here’s some of what he had to say:

It’s really, really hard to be in this quadrant. You have to try. That, or be in denial. Teams that aren’t on the should-contend side of the spectrum look around and say, “OK, who isn’t going to be here when we do contend?” Then they ship those players off for prospects, or at least make room for younger players to see what sort of part they might play in the future. The Phillies declined to do any of that. They declined with extreme prejudice. And now they’re kinda old and definitely abysmal. The younger players they have aren’t thrilling.

– sad face –

H/T to (@jason_kantor)