Philadelphia Phillies: When Trusting the Process Goes Right

In Philadelphia, the term “trust the process” has become synonymous with the losing sports teams but sometimes, like in the case of the Philadelphia Phillies, the “process” works.

Sam Hinkie, the former GM and President of Basketball Operations of the Philadelphia 76ers popularized the term, “process”, which is when a team trades for future assets even if it means that you’ll be putting out a team that isn’t fit to compete in the short run. The goal of the process is to deliver a championship to the city within 3-5 years when the young talent that was acquired is mature and ready to compete.

The process is a topic that divides Philadelphia sports fans. Some were part of the Sam Hinkie cult following while others wanted to run him out of town. When asked to describe the process in a sentence our co-editor George Kondoleon responded by saying, “[it was] ingenious but faulty”. That’s a sentiment that most Sixers fans shared, in theory, the process was great but in practice, it wasn’t practical.

The Sixers may have popularized the process but all of the Philadelphia sports teams underwent rebuilds in varying degrees. The Sixers, Flyers, Eagles and the Union all took on the process but the Philadelphia Phillies were the embodiment of how the process should be executed.

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After beginning the rebuild, slogans like “trust the process” and “together we build” were coined by the Sixers and picked up by Philly sports fans to describe the other Philadelphia teams, as well as to give them hope for the future. For the Philadelphia Phillies, that future doesn’t seem too far off.

The Philadelphia Phillies jettisoned their big names and contracts in favor of prospects with high upsides. The past few years saw Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Hunter Pence, Ken Giles, Marlon Byrd and others get traded.

The Phillies were able to bring in Vincent Velasquez,  Jerad Eickhoff, Jorge Alfaro and Tommy Joseph via these trades (these are the prospects currently on the 40-man roster). They’ve even struck gold in the rule five draft and the MLB Draft with Maikel Franco, Tyler Goeddel, Odubel Herrera, and Aaron Nola to put together a team that’s ahead of schedule.

Going into today’s game the Phillies are sitting at 24-19, two games out of the NL East lead. Fans were predicting a 100 loss season from this team but so far things have worked out with fringe free agents and prospects realizing their potential. The crazy this is that this is only the beginning for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Thanks to their savvy trading the Phillies were able to go from one of the worst farm systems in baseball to the seventh best system in the league according to MLB Pipeline. Because of that and the payroll flexibility that the Philadelphia Phillies will have they have a large window to compete.

The Phillies are in the midst of what a team should be doing post process. They are currently making a push for the division with many of their top prospects waiting in the wings. Five out of the top ten prospects for the Philadelphia Phillies are in AAA waiting to get a shot at the majors, and in the next few years they should.

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The Phillies will look very different in the next few years but there’s no denying that they could be contenders for the playoffs and possibly world series by 2018. Their rebuilding process is trending in the right direction and they’ve been able to accomplish what Sam Hinkie couldn’t. The Sixers may reap the benefits of Hinkie’s process in the future but the Philadelphia Phillies are beginning to see the gold at the end of the rainbow now.