FanPost

On Rationality, Rebuilding, and Domonic Brown

I can't let go of Domonic Brown.

He was awful last year, we all know it. The Phillies know it, Dom knows it, your mother's hair stylist's granddaughter knows it. The statistics need not be rehashed. It was more than one bad month. It was a bad one-and-half years.

Then why does the news that Brown will once again receive significant playing time for this team make me feel relieved? And not just a resigned, "at least we have one more year to hope everything comes together " sort of relief? It's a relief that defies rationality, something I fancied myself as gaining by becoming a stats-inclined baseball fan.

Because I'll be honest- I've grown impatient with the team, such that I've begun questioning my fandom entirely. I'm ashamed of myself because my support of the Phillies has always been a part of who I am, to the point where I know I will catch every game I can and follow the rest on my phone just because I love the team. But now, or only now that its consequences have truly revealed themselves, the pervasive irrationality of the Phillies' front office irritates me more than watching every Adam Sandler movie back-to-back. Does that make me a bandwagon fan? Maybe. I don't know. But I do know that what the Phillies currently stand for and what I stand for as a baseball fan directly oppose one another. Their awfulness is of a completely different nature than that of the Sixers, who have a method to their tanking madness (acknowledging that the problems the two teams face are also completely different, simply because of the way their respective leagues are structured).

Then I realized: I'm irrationally relieved that Domonic Brown will be back because, in my deluded mind, he's still one of the best prospects in baseball, the star of the next generation of championship-contending Phillies teams. He's the only player we couldn't give up, not for Roy Halladay, not for Cliff Lee, no one. I refuse to believe that Dom is a complete and utter bust because doing so means accepting that our era of championship contention is truly over. The future is bleak. Nothing gold can stay. All that remains is Utley, Chooch, and a broken Ryan Howard. Cole Hamels will surely be gone, if not this offseason then next year's trade deadline, or next offseason, following the front office's stated commitment to rebuilding. J-Roll already is.

What lies before the Phillies now will be, in all likelihood, a long and arduous process. For at least one more year, Brown will be a part of that process, as the team evaluates the few assets it does have and determines if they are worth keeping. Whether Brown lasts beyond that year is completely up in the air.

But one can still hope that one month can become the norm. That the difference between left and right field is of monumental importance. That a player with so much potential can discover the secret to success at the highest level of professional baseball.

And as I try desperately to cling on to my love of this team, which has given me so much pleasure for so many years, I tell myself: the Phillies will learn, and they will be good again. It's what any rational fan would say.