Diamondbacks had a blueprint to beat free-swinging Phillies, who have an offseason to adjust

PHILADELPHIA — As the Diamondbacks searched for weaknesses leading into the National League Championship Series against a formidable Phillies lineup, there was one aspect that emerged. The trends were all there: Only three teams swung at a higher percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than the Phillies. Their hitters did not discriminate when it came to chasing pitches out of the zone; it did not have to be a borderline ball. They’d had a high swing-and-miss rate on secondary pitches since the middle of September.

All of the ingredients were there. But Arizona pitchers, at first, did not execute the plan. They made too many mistakes. The Phillies swung at 21 percent of pitches out of the zone in Games 1 and 2. They saw the strikes they needed to see and did damage.

Then, from Game 3 to Game 7, the Phillies swung at 36 percent of the pitches they saw out of the zone. Their chase rate in that span was higher than in any previous five-game span all season long. There was a formal meeting and subsequent adjustments made by Arizona — perhaps just reiterating the original scouting report — and the Phillies never reacted.

Now, every team has a blueprint on how to pitch to the Phillies.

It’s not the sort of thing that will define Dave Dombrowski’s offseason because executives are reluctant to read too much into five-game samples. But the Phillies plan to return a similar lineup in 2024 — Dombrowski said as much Thursday during his 42-minute post-mortem news conference — and there is a certain aggressiveness to the hitters that’s both beneficial and harmful.

The Phillies don’t want to turn an aggressive hitter into a passive one if his aggressiveness is what makes him great. But, more than anything, the way they were beaten in the NLCS at least opened the door to larger conversations about how the Phillies construct an offense and how they talk about hitting.

“When they made adjustments, our guys still kept chasing,” said Dombrowski, the club’s president of baseball operations. “And I’m not really sure why. I’m sure they didn’t want to chase. I don’t know if it was such quality pitches that they were fooled. I don’t know if the timing was off. I don’t know if they were stressing too much and feeling pressure. I don’t really know the answer. But I will say that you could tell that we chased a lot more. They took advantage of it. You tip your cap that they were very smart to do so.”

It wasn’t by accident. Arizona discussed significant adjustments between Games 2 and 3. Some of the more established pitchers — Paul Sewald, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly — spoke.

“We didn’t pitch inside enough,” Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom told The Athletic before Thursday’s workout at the World Series. “We didn’t move people’s feet. You have to move some people’s feet in this game these days. We just had a meeting. (Pitching strategist) Dan Haren suggested it. I thought it would be wise to not just have the (coaching) staff revisit it. We invited the whole pitching staff. We just had kind of a reset, I would call it.

“When I was with Houston, we did that on a regular basis in series. We called it, ‘unexplored territory.’ … It was like halftime in football where you kind of re-evaluate. Maybe your best plan going into it, it either wasn’t a good plan or we weren’t doing the plan. It seemed to kind of spur a few things.”

Everything on the hitting side of this Phillies offseason will begin with a conversation between Dombrowski and Bryce Harper. The Phillies will defer to their star player. They might tell him what they prefer, but Harper’s preference on whether he stays at first base or returns to the outfield will dictate a lot.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with Bryce,” Dombrowski said. “We need to sit down with Bryce and ask him what his preference is. Sit down with a heart-to-heart on what he wants to do. How he would like to approach it going forward. So I don’t know what he’s going to do yet at this time, but it is something that we’ll have to do relatively soon because we’ll have to know what type of moves we’re going to make.”

If Harper is inclined to return to right field, the position he’s played the most, that would displace Nick Castellanos, who is most comfortable in right. He has played only 99 career innings in left field. It would prevent the Phillies from playing both Brandon Marsh and Johan Rojas on a regular basis, although the only thing Dombrowski hedged on Thursday was Rojas’ chances to be an everyday player in 2024.

But, if Harper does move back to the outfield, it would provide Dombrowski with a chance to alter the lineup through a new first baseman. Maybe that’s Rhys Hoskins, whose combination of power and patience was missed this season. Maybe it’s someone else who can balance the aggressiveness of the lineup while delivering some pop.

The Phillies could opt to move Kyle Schwarber down in the lineup, although few hitters showed as much discipline as Schwarber did all season.

“That could happen,” manager Rob Thomson said Thursday. “We’ll have a lot of conversations before the season starts next year. So that’s not out of the question.”

Bryce Harper’s preference on which position he plays will help shape the Phillies’ offseason. (Kyle Ross / USA Today)

Hitting is hard and most lineups are streaky. The Phillies might occupy too many extremes. Castellanos, for example, had the best at-bats of any Phillies hitter in the National League Division Series against Atlanta. He homered in his first at-bat of the NLCS. Then, he went hitless in his next 23 at-bats with 11 strikeouts. His chase rate from Games 3 through 7 was his highest in a five-game span all season. Same for Trea Turner, who had one hit in his final 20 at-bats of the NLCS.

No one was exempt from the abundant chasing. And what made it worse was that Arizona identified it as a path to defeating the Phillies. Maybe it was a coincidence that everyone went cold at once or that Diamondbacks pitchers spotted their pitches when they needed to most. But it was no great secret.

That’s the sort of thing that sticks with a team, especially when the personnel will be similar next season.

The Phillies have initiated conversations about how to move forward. They will not retain two coaches — bullpen coach Dave Lundquist and assistant hitting coach Jason Camilli. On the hitting side, the next assistant will have different responsibilities, Dombrowski said. The Phillies could look within for that role. Double-A hitting coach Tyler Henson, whom many players who have risen through the system credit as an important influence, could be a candidate.

No one wants to overreact to five bad games — no matter how bad and how poorly timed they were. But the Phillies will have to make an adjustment — whether it be through personnel, approach, or coaching — because the blueprint is there for everyone to see.

“As much as I hate to say this, some hitters you can talk to them a lot and they’re still going to chase, right?” Dombrowski said. “I mean, that’s just the way it is. Some guys chase more than others. But that’s a topic that we’ll continue to talk about.”

— The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report.

GO DEEPER

How will Phillies reshape roster for 2024? Key questions on Nola, Hoskins, Harper and more

GO DEEPER

It wasn’t supposed to end like this for these Phillies. The Game 7 loss will linger

GO DEEPER

Where the Phillies’ Game 7 loss ranks among the franchise’s most devastating defeats

(Top photo of Nick Castellanos after he struck out in Game 7: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)