MLB playoffs 2023: After another Braves upset, is there a method to the Philadelphia Phillies’ October madness?

Postseason baseball, as Nick Castellanos will tell you, is just different. Last year, as the Philadelphia Phillies squeaked into the expanded playoff field and stormed all the way to the World Series, the bat-first right fielder was disarmingly forthright in explaining his repeated defensive heroics, saying the postseason locked him in, whereas his focus could often wander across the dog days of 162 games.

On Thursday, after he became the first player in MLB history to crank multiple homers in back-to-back postseason games, Castellanos reiterated the musing with broader scope.

“I'm learning that the season and the postseason are completely different,” he said on TBS.

It’s difficult to argue. October seems to stand apart for him — and for the Phillies, who are staking a claim as the exceptional exceptions to baseball’s summer-long rule. For the second straight season, they finished 14 games back of the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, and for the second straight season, they romped over them in the NLDS behind a barrage of dramatic home runs.

Returning to raucous Citizens Bank Park after what could’ve been a crushing Game 2 loss in Atlanta, the Phillies scored 13 runs across Games 3 and 4, all but two on long balls, and held down the historic Atlanta offense that tied the all-time mark for homers in the regular season. Philly's pitchers largely stymied Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson, while their own top stars — Bryce Harper and Trea Turner — turned in signature moments.

“All the credit, I mean, the Phillies stifled us. I mean, they pitched really well. They had great plans. Their guys got big hits. I mean, you can't take anything away from that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said afterward.

“We got beat by a really good club that has a penchant for this time of year.”

That seems to be a prevailing sentiment: These Phillies — the Phillies spearheaded by Harper and managed by Rob Thomson — have something that works in the postseason, and perhaps even in the current form of the postseason.

It’s too big of a conclusion to draw from what still amounts to only 23 games of action that include many other factors, such as relative health being on the Phillies’ side while the Braves dealt with injuries in the starting rotation. The assertion also loses some of its luster when compared to the Houston Astros team that defeated the Phillies in the 2022 World Series, holding them hitless in one game. However, the Phillies do have some bold tendencies that won’t and shouldn't go unnoticed around baseball.

Obviously, one defining characteristic is a roster loaded with stars, mostly acquired via free agency, courtesy of enthusiastic team owner John Middleton and big-spending architect Dave Dombrowski. With Harper, Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber already in the fold, the Phillies added Turner, the superstar shortstop, this past offseason and weathered a rocky start before he busted out and eventually walloped four hits, including a homer, in the clinching Game 4 victory.

As I’ve written before, Dombrowski’s postseason track record is something like the antithesis of Billy Beane’s complaint that his “s*** doesn’t work in the playoffs.” If this club becomes Dombrowski’s sixth to reach the World Series, his appetite for the risks and rewards of elite talent should probably inspire some copycats, though that seems far-fetched under most MLB team owners.

Downstream from that focus on elite (and expensive) talent are the manifestations of it. In the postseason arena that has, in recent years, swung overwhelmingly on home runs, the Phillies have excelled at hitting them. They now have 37 homers in those 23 games.

Yes, yes, I know. “Home runs = good” does not constitute new analysis. Maybe a better way to put it is the Phillies, under the tutelage of hitting coach Kevin Long, seem to focus their efforts on finding opportunities for those big swings. As ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel pointed out during Game 4, the Phillies appeared to be sitting on Spencer Strider’s slider. What that means is they were gearing their swings and their timing toward the Braves ace’s breaking ball in hopes that they would see enough of those to do damage while fending off his magnificent and often unhittable four-seam fastball.

Results-wise, the tactic worked drastically better for Harper, Turner and Castellanos than for, well, really anyone else in the lineup. But at least on this occasion, it did the job. The Phillies fouled off 22 of the 68 fastballs Strider pumped in, almost half of the heaters that drew swings and the most in any game of Strider’s career thus far. Turner and Castellanos each homered off the slider, forcing Strider to all but abandon it. Then, as he leaned more and more on the four-seamer, Castellanos came back for seconds by timing up 100 mph.

Perhaps a more fascinating outcropping of the Phillies’ team-building ethos is found on the pitching staff. Frequently dinged for failing to build adequate bullpens in his Detroit Tigers days, Dombrowski has aggressively acquired arms with top-end velocity in Philly, and Thomson has aggressively deployed them in the playoffs.

After those arms delivered another 32 pitches at 97 mph or more in Game 4, more than 16% of the Phillies’ pitches the past two postseasons have been dialed up to 97 or higher, more than all but the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees — in a considerably larger sample. Across MLB in 2023, only 5.7% of pitches topped 97 mph, and batters collectively mustered a .226/.312/.350 slash line against them.

In a lot of ways, the Phillies strive to do the most brash, most difficult things in baseball: Throw the ball super hard. Hit the ball super far. They invest handsomely in the players who can do those things, and they don’t hesitate to lean into their pursuits when it counts the most.

Maybe they’ve simply had two well-timed hot stretches. Maybe they have a team that functions better when less depth is involved. Or maybe they have fully cracked the code of postseason baseball. If we’re being honest, it’s probably not that last one. But the Phillies have undeniably internalized something that it can’t hurt to remember.

Postseason baseball is completely different from regular-season baseball. And this team isn’t afraid to act accordingly.