Phillies

It Doesn’t Matter if Nick Castellanos is Right or Wrong About Phillies Fans, Because Player Opinions Will Never Change Intrinsic Fan Behavior

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 8th, 2025 · 1:46 PM EDT

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Gonna keep this one short since Coggin and Sean both wrote about Nick Castellanos and his double-edged sword fan comments, but this popped up on the timeline:

Castellanos telling the truth about how players feel at CBP is probably why he has the most hits & RBIs on the team in the Mets/LAD series

He isn’t afraid

Meanwhile top guys likely feel the same but wont say it. Too afraid of public backlash. Also afraid at the plate

— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) October 8, 2025

The bigger story here, imo, is that there’s no realistic path that leads to Philly sports fans acting on player feedback.

If a player says anything critical of fan attitude, and/or the atmosphere it creates, they’re simply going to be derided for not having “what it takes” to play here.

And in most cases, that’s probably accurate.

But right or wrong is not even relevant in this case. What’s relevant is that the default reaction prevents us from ever reaching a point of introspection, where we ask ourselves, “hmm, what if Nick Castellanos is right?” So it’s almost an invalid query if you put this topic into a flow chart, like this:

I put a red X over “maybe he’s right” because nobody says that. And even if there’s negligible amount of fans who feel that way, there’s not enough support to act on it in a meaningful way.

This is really just a sporting application of the “customer is always right” mindset. These are the parameters that have been set. Philly fans boo when the teams aren’t playing well, they cheer when the teams are playing well, and it’s largely always been very high ceilings and very low floors in that regard.

The Trea Turner and Ben Simmons ovations were extreme outliers, the only time there’s ever been a deviation from the norm.

So the real question is something like this:

What would it take for the fans to listen to a player and change decades-old behavior based on that player’s feedback?

Dunno. Assuming it’s even possible, it would probably take a combination of highly-respected, title-winning players. It would take Jalen Hurts and Chase Utley and Dr. J and the Broad Street Bullies to come out and do a four-way public service announcement. Maybe it moves the theoretic needle, but who really knows? The one thing that’s for certain is that after these last few playoff series, the fans aren’t changing their approach based on any feelings coming out of that Phillies clubhouse, no matter how valid the opinions are.