Race to the Bottom: Phils stuck in ninth

By traditional measures, the Phillies had a good week - they went 4-2, and even in the games they lost they had a real chance to win.

But we're not at the point in the season where we care about traditional measures. If you've been following the Race to the Bottom, what we care about is next year's draft. And this week, the Phillies pretty much solidified their position as ninth or tenth for next year's draft.

As I wrote last week, going into the weekend series, the Phils were also ninth, but they had a real chance to move up in the standings. They were 10 games out of the #1 draft slot, but only 2.5 games out of the #3 draft slot. There was real opportunity.

Unfortunately, the Phils' good week, and much worse weeks by almost all of the teams above them, ruined that. As it stands, the Phillies are still in ninth, though now they are tied with the Brewers, whereas last week they were in sole possession of ninth. The big story, though, is that they are now 2 games out of 8th place and a whopping 5.5 games out of 3rd place.

In other words, they dropped 3 games in the race for the third slot this week.

Here's where things now stand, going into tonight's games:

It's really hard to see the Phillies moving up or down much at this point. Barring a big run or fall by these teams, with 9 games left, it's looking like the Phillies will have the 9th or 10th pick in next year's draft. That's good -- their pick is going to be protected -- but it's not as good as it could have been.

There is a chance the Phillies could move up to 7th or 8th, but it's a slim chance, and it's hard to see any movement beyond those slots.

(I'd normally give you the schedules for the remaining games here, but I'm heading to the airport to go to the land of even worse baseball (Minneapolis) so I can't now. Someone can put them in the comments if they want, or I can do it later.)