Reason for optimism: It's liberating to finally let go of a once-joyous relationship that's been toxic for years.
Reason for pessimism: Immediately after a breakup, it's natural to lament, "I'll never find anyone like them again."
Depending on positive regression for improvement can be a dangerous thing, because regression to the mean shouldn't be the baseline for improvement -- it's regression to your mean. However, it is safe to assume that when a unit posts historically bad results in one year, it could still be bottom-quartile bad the next year and manage to achieve a huge year-over-year improvement. In the case of the Phillies, history tells us a collection of professional baseball players can't possibly have a baseline skill of fielding batted balls that's as bad as the Phillies exhibited last year.
Since 2008, no team that wasn't playing half of its games in Coors Field let more baserunners reach base after hitting a ball into the field of play than the Phillies did in 2015. How bad was it? Playing the same opponents as the Miami Marlins, and having gotten almost exactly the same amount of outs via strikeout, the Phillies needed 204 more balls hit to fielders to record the same amount of outs as the Marlins.
Put another way, the Marlins could have ended the season by letting 200 hit balls in a row fall for a hit, cleanly fielded the 201st, and they still would have been a better fielding team than the Phillies.
That is nearly unfathomable, especially because the Marlins were merely the ninth-ranked defense by my adjusted-defensive efficiency calculations. Factor in that the Phillies were woefully below average at converting double plays, or throwing out would-be base stealers (despite the presence of more baserunners on first base than any other team) and you have yourself a truly historically bad defense. It will improve this year, probably to the tune of 30 to 35 runs -- which means three to four more wins. If that is the level of improvement, the Phillies defense still has a chance to be the worst in baseball -- that's how bad it was last year.
Sadly, that's the only area where improvement appears guaranteed.
Like an old flame that left behind a piece of useless but hard-to-move furniture representing the last link to your past, Ryan Howard is still on the Phillies, who moved Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Jonathan Papelbon and Cole Hamels to different teams last year. With Carlos Ruiz getting phased out this year, the Phillies are getting younger at catcher, and they are now much younger at the other six positions -- which is always a cause for hope. Maikel Franco leads the group of youngsters who all got meaningful playing time for the Phillies last year. From an improvement standpoint though, more runs are not guaranteed, as the team has to replace the .300 hitting of Ben Revere, and they're not shedding enough below-replacement level at-bats from last year. Still, it's a lot more fun to root for young guys and wish than it is to despondently watch Utley hit .217.
Philadelphia enters 2016 with the distinction of not having a single member of its rotation having made more than 15 starts for the team the year before. Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff showed flashes of excellence during the last two months of the season, and they'll be joined in the rotation by veterans Charlie Morton and Jeremy Hellickson until the Phillies can give some more of their young arms seasoning in the minors. If any part of you thinks Morton might be effective with the Phillies, you can see the effects of going from one of the best pitch-framing teams to the worst and then back if you look at A.J. Burnett's year with the Phillies in 2014 (4.59 ERA) sandwiched between two years with the Pirates (3.30 and 3.18).
The bullpen is exactly what you'd expect from a team that wisely moved Papelbon at last year's trade deadline, packaged Jake Diekman in the Hamels deal and dealt Ken Giles to the Astros for prospects this winter. That is, it's unrecognizable and probably below average, but not a resource drain for a team that has no chance of contending this year.
Philadelphia was very bad last year, a legitimate 100-loss team that only avoided that distinction by winning five of its last seven games. It might have been two years too late, but the front office finally made the moves necessary for the Phillies to contend in the future. It won't be in 2016, as they still need to rid themselves of Howard and Ruiz, but they're off to an encouraging start. They might lose 100 games this year, thanks to a bunch of blown leads, but the Phillies are laying the groundwork for a return to .500 in 2017.
For betting purposes, the market of 64.5 looks fair. Even with a pretty big margin of error, the young kids need to prove themselves before the "over" looks appealing. I can't help but think back to the three straight 100-plus loss teams that the Astros fielded from 2011-2013. There was some offensive talent on those teams, but annually backed by bullpens with 4.50 and higher ERAs, it was a disaster trying to bet on them as a value play. I'm sure the defense is going to do its part and provide enough improvement to make the Phillies an "over" play, but I fear that uptick will be sabotaged fully, and then some, by the bullpen and the back of the rotation.
2016 projection: 63-99 (fifth, NL East)
Bet recommendation: Pass