The Phillies’ season came to an unceremonious conclusion on Sunday afternoon with a quiet 4-3 loss to the Miami Marlins. It was a relevant outcome in only that it prevented the franchise from claiming its 82nd win, and, in turn, the meaningless distinction of its first winning season in eight years.

The 2019 Phillies often did not hit the way they were supposed to hit. They often did not pitch the way they were supposed to pitch. Key players often got hurt. These three truths have led many fans and observers of the team to arrive at the singular conclusion that the thing to do now — really, the only thing to do now — is fire the manager.

And so we wait.

If you have read this site over the past few months, you already know I’m of the opinion that Gabe Kapler’s dismissal is unwarranted. I’m not looking to bring a take to the table, and I’m not looking to play the contrarian. I simply don’t think he deserves to lose his job based on the circumstances of this past season. Last week, I compared him to a hamstrung real estate agent tasked with selling a structurally-flawed home.

Included in that defense was this acknowledgment:

To be clear, this reasoning does not wholly excuse Kapler for his failure to get the Phillies to rip off the type of prolonged winning streaks that even far worse clubs achieved this season. It doesn’t excuse his occasional strategic missteps, or some of the decisions I’m sure he would like to have back, either.

That is to say if Kapler is ultimately dismissed this week, it’s not as if it would be some great injustice. I just happen to believe he deserves another crack at it with this core group and an upgraded pitching staff.

Beyond the uncertainty of Kapler’s fate, what I have found most interesting in recent weeks as the Phillies’ season limped to its conclusion is how many fans and observers of the team have reacted to the manager’s potential dismissal. It’s been a cocktail of disdain, vindication, and excitement.

The many people that want him out of here say that it’s nothing personal. They say it’s just about results. After all, the results are what matter most, right?

I’m not so sure about that.

Scroll through the tweets, read the Facebook comments on any recent Phillies story, listen to sports talk radio. Hell, go old school and strike up a baseball conversation at the bar with the dude sitting next to you.  Invariably, you’re going to read or hear about Kapler paired with one of the following words or phrases:

  • “coconut oil”
  • “too positive”
  • “pretty boy”
  • “computers/analytics/data”

It feels like the distaste for Kapler goes beyond baseball. It feels, I don’t know, a bit personal, doesn’t it?

Sure, an occasional strategic complaint about how he mismanaged a bullpen composed mostly of castoffs and minor league stopgaps gets mixed in there, I guess. Maybe some annoyance sporadically pops up about how he had the audacity to move his cleanup hitter to the leadoff spot after a hideous multi-week stretch in which the only skills of said cleanup hitter that didn’t entirely erode were his pitch selection and ability to work a walk.

The concerns about clubhouse culture and accountability are worth noting, and it’s entirely possible that perhaps a more stringent approach is needed, but isn’t that a difficult conclusion to arrive at in the absence of a major league-caliber pitching staff?

Other than that, the complaints are rarely constructed around baseball or the realities of what caused the Phillies’ season to fall short — eight games short — of the considerable expectations placed upon it. If this were truly about just baseball, then #firekapler wouldn’t be all the rage today and the focus would be where it should be–on finding ways to markedly upgrade a roster that finished fourth in the division and 16 games out of first-place.

In fact, if this were truly about baseball or centered in understanding context, then the conversation would be focused on that bullpen, injuries, the lack of organizational depth that became glaringly apparent in light of those injuries, and a razor-thin bench. It would be less, much less, about his relentlessly positive nature or press conferences.

The conversation would include considerable dialogue about a starting rotation that wasn’t good enough from the start, one that was also never adequately upgraded once those flaws became obvious. The inconvenient truth that the team still managed to outperform its win-loss expectancy by six games over the past two seasons, which, historically speaking, is an indication that a manager is actually maximizing what he has at his disposal, wouldn’t be so quickly dismissed, either.

So I ask, why is it so quickly dismissed?

Perhaps it’s the ice cream story, or maybe the anti-Kapler movement is a resistance reaction to the decreasingly entertaining product baseball has become as analytical approaches have gained prominence. Is that why the word “analytics” seems to evoke facial contortions and grunts around here?

Maybe it’s because he didn’t validate the fans’ frustrations by telling you a player wasn’t good enough when it was obvious a player wasn’t good enough. I don’t know.

Ultimately, if you don’t think that Kapler is the guy, that’s fine, but make sure you’re drawing a distinction between the tactical maneuvers and the personality. And if he is fired, make sure you’re not celebrating his dismissal simply because he’s the on-field representation of an organizational philosophy that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Absent of far more meaningful changes, it will be a short-lived celebration, I can assure you of that.