The Decade Philadelphia Would Like to Re-File

Every franchise has a decade it would like to re-file. Philadelphia's started with a parade.

The 1980 title gave the Phillies front office a mandate to keep the window open, and every move that followed made sense in the room where it was made. A veteran shortstop for a younger one. Five bodies for a 24-year-old with power. A catcher to fix the position everybody was complaining about. Nobody was trading away a Hall of Famer. They were trading a utility infielder who hit .167 in a September cup of coffee.

Then 1984 arrived and did something almost unkind. Ryne Sandberg won the National League MVP. Willie Hernández won the American League MVP and the Cy Young in the same season, six months after changing uniforms. Two former Phillies, two leagues, one year. Three years later George Bell won one too, a player Toronto had taken for a $25,000 Rule 5 fee.

The lesson was never that the Phillies couldn't evaluate talent. They found all of these guys. Scouted them, signed them, developed them. What they couldn't do was wait. That is the harder skill, and it is the one nobody hands out a plaque for.