October's a great month for sports fans, convergence month I call it. Basketball and hockey are just getting going, football is far enough along that patterns are emerging, and baseball is on the prefaces of what your grandfather used to call the Fall Classic.
Spoiler alert, the patterns emerging for the Eagles are not all that good, and the Phillies are not on that World Series precipice. So it's time to assign some grades.
Now keep in mind that the grades are based on the general state of the franchise going forward, as they say these days, because the Phillies, as we know, once again made the playoffs, won more than they lost, 88 up, 74 down, and gave us a bunch of great moments, like the back-to-back bombs by Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper in Game 2 of the Braves series.
But for a team with the fourth highest payroll in baseball, it's not enough. They're at a fork in the road and neither direction looks pleasant. Most of the Phillies' prominent position players, Harper, Schwarber, Trea Turner, and J.T. Realmuto, are all 33 or on the north side of it, all are diminishing, and all would be difficult to trade for various reasons. After these rinse and repeat postseason failures, the answer for many franchises would be to break it all up and start rebuilding. But that's not an option in Philly, whose fan base would not take kindly to another iteration of the 76ers' process of several years ago.
And anyway, the Phillies are still too talented with a Wheeler, Sanchez, Lizardo, maybe Painter, maybe Nola rotation. They will look a little different next season, one supposes, with the likely departure of free agents Alec Bohm, Luis Arraez, and unpredictable reliever José Alvarado, and probably Brandon Marsh, the survivorless-looking cat who played like an All-Star the first half of the season and a bewildered character on Lost for the second half.
Grade: C-
I confess to not knowing as much about the Flyers, who have gotten off to a horrendous 0-3 start going into a Monday night game that will be played after this is recorded.
But the Flyers have something that no other Philly teams have, a genuinely franchise-changing young star, Porter Martone, a Rookie of the Year candidate who showed flashes of brilliance in limited ice time last season. That will give them a charge, but a high grade? I don't think so.
Even to these novice hockey eyes, it was evident how outclassed they were in the second round of the playoffs last season against the Carolina Hurricane.
Grade C+
Now, how can the LeBron-ized Sixers be anything less than an A? Well, while there is A+ excitement, I must bring up the words of knowledgeable NBA prognosticator Brian Windhorst, who has covered LeBron since high school and had this to say about the 76ers' seemingly star-bright prospects. "The Sixers will be a play-in team this season," he sayeth. Now if he's correct, that means Philly will be playing for scraps, the seventh and eighth playoff spots.
I'm not buying that, but I'm taking a cautious approach, particularly given the injury history of Joel Embiid and the age, 41, of LeBron. There has been no championship banner in Philly since 1983 and no appearance in the finals since 2001. So let's pump the brakes a little everyone, but based on that roster they have to be at least a B+.
As for the Eagles, well, I just talked about them a couple weeks ago, so let me give you my main takeaway from Sunday's home loss to the Rams.
I am worried about Saquon Barkley. The history of running backs never recovering from magnificent seasons as Barkley had in 2023 is a real thing in the NFL, and I hope that's not what's happening here. The Whitehall High School product is not the only factor in the Eagle grade, but he seems emblematic of their slippage.
Right now I'd give them a B-, and they're only graded that high because they're the Eagles. They've been the one constant bright spot over the last decade.
On a personal note, I won't be back for a few weeks. Not sure exactly how many. As I commented last week, I'm having brain surgery tomorrow morning, and I can only hope that my recovery is at least a B+. I'm a tough grader.
