Matt Gelb from The Athletic (with ads) wrote a story about Trea Turner’s post-ovation turnaround that I thought contained an interesting quote:

“It started with the fans getting behind him,” Castellanos said. “I think him hearing the cheers and all that support definitely took some weight off of his shoulders. Honestly, I think everything follows from that. Right? For a player to play at his best, he has to be in a relaxed, confident mindset. Very rarely do you get peak performance from somebody who is pressing or trying way too hard.”

Schwarber nodded.

“The first part, I think, is cool with the fans,” Schwarber said. “But my biggest thing is, when I was coming up and I had the older guys, they always said, ‘Look at the back of the baseball card.’ That’s who that guy is. Look at the back of Trea’s baseball card.”

“No doubt,” Castellanos said. “It’s a good baseball card.”

“It’s a great baseball player,” Schwarber said.

“It’s a nice baseball card,” Castellanos said.

“It’s a great baseball card,” Schwarber said.

So the $300 million player was just good all along? Crazy. What a concept. I thought it was all of the clapping.

Listen, was the ovation a cool moment? Absolutely. Will it be the main subject of the Phillies yearbook? I hope not, because that means we didn’t win the World Series. Do I still think Phillies fans had just run out of ideas and their insecurities took over thinking about the spectacle the national media would make if we booed? 1000%. If you ask me, I read that quote from Schwarber and I think if you polled the guys on the team anonymously they’d probably say they’re sick of hearing about the ovation. I mean the Phillies are really fucking good.* Like really fucking good:

This was always going to happen. Bryce’s elbow was going to heal, leading to a power surge, Brandon Marsh was going to continue the best season of his career, Schwarber was going to continue to mash and get on base from the leadoff spot, and Turner was always going to find his stroke. It doesn’t hurt they’ve played one playoff team since the ovation either, but please don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain.

Before you get all upset and want to kill me and make this into an anti-Trea argument again, just remember that some of us were huge believers in the guy before it was cool while others wanted to pack his bags two months into a 10 year deal. Apparently all you had to do was look at the back of Trea Turner’s baseball card to know he was going to be good. Shout out to my eyeballs:

*Kinkead: It has to be noted that the Phillies were playing great baseball before the Turner ovation. If your angle is that the ovation fixed him, no problem, but it didn’t “save the season” or anything like that because the rest of the team really began to ramp it up in June and July. They had one of the best records in baseball during that stretch.