Phillies

What Does This Phillies Core Want to be Remembered For?

By Nick Piccone

Published: Oct 7th, 2025 · 9:12 AM EDT

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Two wins in their last 11 playoff games. One win in their last five playoff home games. There’s been a lot of losing the last two years in October for this Phillies team. As they’ve increased their regular season wins output, they’ve decreased their postseason wins output in rapid fashion.

Is that how they’ll be remembered?

It’s practically a foregone conclusion that a handful, if not more, of these players won’t be in red pinstripes in 2026. By their own admission, they realize this is their last shot at winning a championship together.

Now, down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the NLDS before heading to Los Angeles, it feels like a lot of us are already turning our attention to the off-season and what 2026 will bring. Not many teams have come back from a 2-0 division series deficit, and it’s hard to believe the Phillies will miraculously take down the vaunted defending champs as we sit here on October 7th. And that’s because the high-priced superstars the Phillies have signed – namely Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper – have completely disappeared from the face of the Earth. Through two playoff games at Citizens Bank Park, where home field advantage absolutely does not exist any longer, the trio is hitting 2-for-21 with 11 strikeouts.

It’s dangerously close to being cemented as to how this core is going to be remembered for years to come.

Does Turner want to be remembered as the face of The Turnaround that eventually catapulted him to a stellar end of 2023 campaign? Or does he want to be remembered as the guy who couldn’t extend that into the 2024 or 2025 postseason?

Does Schwarber want to be remembered as the undisputed clubhouse leader who clubbed 56 home runs, coming two shy of tying a franchise record in the final week of the regular season, in a contract year? Or does he want to be remembered as the guy with two hits in his last 23 postseason at-bats, with five strikeouts in the first two games of this year’s NLDS?

Does Harper want to be remembered as the guy who vaulted the Phillies into the World Series with one of the most clutch swings we’ve ever seen? Or will people remember him as The Showman who thought wearing the opposing team’s colors was a bigger deal than figuring out why he’s late on 95 mile-per-hour fastballs down the middle of the plate?

Does Nick Castellanos want to be remembered as the guy who made some memorable catches in the clutch after Harper’s elbow injury forced him into becoming the everyday right fielder? Or does he want to be remembered as the guy who played his way out of that role, creating an extra need for a team without a true center fielder that ultimately resulted in the decision to not trade for the other bat this lineup needed to create some feeling of relief through the rest of the lineup?

Does Alec Bohm want to be remembered as the guy who redeemed himself to this fanbase within the course of two hours one cold April night in 2022, or does he want to be remembered as the constantly jammed, first-pitch swinger that cost the team a ton of opportunities because he’s simply not a four-hole hitter? 

Does Bryson Stott want to be remembered as the Gold Glove-level second baseman with some pop in his bat, or the weak pop-up to the left side of the infield with runners on guy?

There are so many questions surrounding the core of this Phillies team and how they want to be remembered. Do they want to be remembered in the same vein as Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, and Shane Victorino? In some ways, they already are. The core has helped carry this team to an improving record year-after-year, and yet, much like those 2010-11 Phillies, find themselves unable to get the job done in October despite having an obviously better all-around roster than they did in 2022.

Why?

The 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks broke this core. Coming home for Games 6 and 7, leading the NLCS 3-2, all of us were ready to start partying and seeing the Phillies finish the job they started the year prior. And they completely choked it away. Despite playing poorly as they backed into a bye in 2024, people were eager to put the 2023 playoff choke behind them. Instead, this core choked even harder – to a division rival that didn’t even make the playoffs this season. In 2025, it felt like they were all business all year long. Despite the peaks and valleys, they played well all year to set up a showdown against a team they’ve handled relatively well in the regular season.

And that’s the problem.

The postseason is quite literally another season. The Dodgers’ bullpen isn’t what it was one month ago, because they weren’t afraid to just bide time until they could just bring in starters from the bullpen. The Phillies won’t always have this much success pitching-wise against Shohei Ohtani. But does that also mean that Schwarber won’t be this bad in the next game? Does it mean the Phillies luck into shutting the Dodgers lineup down for one game in October? The game of “what-ifs” is incredibly played out by today’s sports discourse, but that’s all we have when it comes to the Phillies. What if they can actually put it together for an entire postseason?

With the superstar players faltering under the bright lights of October, it makes the managerial moves by Rob Thomson all that more important. It didn’t work out in Game 1. It certainly didn’t work out in Game 2. I’m not sure I can sit here and say I have faith they’ll work out in Games 3, 4*, and 5*, *if necessary. There’s just too much going wrong with this team at the same time to think they’ll somehow win the next three games. The starting pitching has been the strength all season long, but Aaron Nola has not. And they’re going to have to hope he dials it back to even give them a chance to win one game out in L.A. But, as it goes, when the pitching is on, the hitting isn’t. When the hitting is on, the pitching isn’t. This team is never clicking on all cylinders – much like those 2025 Philadelphia Eagles.

Whatever it is that this core of players wants to be remembered as comes down to this playoff series. Will they turtle up, again, in the bright lights when the expectations are bigger and bigger? All that garbage about home-field advantage at Citizens Bank Park is already a punchline for the anti-Philly crowd. At this point, I’m disgusted whenever I hear about it. I’m certain none of these guys want to be remembered in a negative light as they were the faces of the best era of Phillies baseball in more than a decade, but that’s where we’re at. 2022 was a nice surprise. 2023 was the biggest gut-punch we’ve had in quite a long time. 2024 was a slow, prodding, excruciating deep cut that we saw coming for months. 2025 already feels like it’s over. And all we’re left with is, “What if?”