According to anonymous Phillies Minor Leaguers, the Phightins are putting their entire minor league organization in hotel rooms all season. If you think the incompetence only happens at the top of the organization, you’re wrong! Now, they’re not violating any rules, but they are the only MLB franchise that was unable to secure apartment housing for their players at every affiliate. A franchise worth $2 billion and their prospects can’t get a wall for privacy.

Lee McDaniel, Director of Minor League Ops, blamed it on an “upside down housing market” according to Scott Lauber at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who dropped this story a few days ago:

(McDaniel) said the team did “exhaustive research” with help from its affiliate partners in Allentown (triple A), Reading (double A), Lakewood, N.J. (high A), and Clearwater, Fla. (low A and extended spring training), but was unable to find rental units for 150 or so players from April through September. McDaniel cited an “upside-down” housing market in which more people are renting and fewer options were available to suit the Phillies’ needs.

Not only do they have to cram two dudes into a hotel room for five months together, but the Phillies apparently sent an email to the players with rules that included “checking out of the hotel and taking all your belongings with you on the road trip” if you’re in Double A:

A few days before the start of the season, they learned of the “Phillies Hotel Plan” in an email sent by McDaniel. Among the highlights from the April 3 memo, obtained by The Inquirer:

-Two players must share a standard room with two queen beds at a designated team hotel. Only the Allentown hotel has suites with a kitchenette.

-In Reading, players must check out of the hotel after a homestand, check back in upon returning from a road trip, and therefore take all their belongings with them on the road.

-Visiting spouses or significant others, children, and other guests aren’t permitted to stay overnight.

-Players may opt out of the plan and secure alternative housing, but at their own expense and only if they were drafted before 2020 and have spent at least two full seasons in the minors.

What a shit show. The best part is when the Phillies players heard about the hotel plan they just fired up apartments.com and took it into their own hands to find apartments right around the corner:

Three players who spoke to The Inquirer disputed Fuld’s and McDaniel’s characterizations of the housing market.

At one affiliate, players said they found an apartment complex around the corner from the stadium that could house half the team and another nearby that could house the other half. In Reading, some players found apartment-style accommodations a few minutes away in Wyomissing, where the team hotels are located.

“We found apartments, no problem,” one player said. “It’s just the fact that [the Phillies] didn’t look and didn’t try. They couldn’t open their tablet or the computer and just go to apartments.com.”

You know how easy it is to fire up Zillow and find apartments? Here are 40 units all 2+ beds and 1.5+ baths right near the IronPigs’ (red circle) ballpark:

via Zillow

I would give the Phillies more of a pass if they didn’t allegedly reprimand players for speaking out against living conditions just last year. They even fired their farm director and hired Preston Mattingly from the Padres to revamp the entire minor league system. This organization can’t get out of its own way.