But who besides Harper (who would have probably started if he was healthy, deserved or not) or Realmuto was seriously in the mix as one of the 2 or 3 best players at their position regardless of the individual or team performance this or last year? Even Castellanos is not nearly that. Hoskins has also never been that.
I guess you can add Turner to that list but as Castellanos himself shows, some times you just have a bad year.
And Wheeler and Nola were always likely to drop off this year. Even so they still could have easily had 2-3 pitchers (Alvarado or Suarez if not hurt, Kimbrel if he'd pitched like this all year) and you could still argue JT was very deserving, just not for offense.
Of course the roster is also indicative of the fact that the Braves (with their eight All-Stars) have been either a World Series champion and a 100-win team each of the last two season. That counts for more than the line the Phillies walked between barely making the playoffs and likely being eliminated by St. Louis (had one reliever not fallen apart in Game 1) and winning a pennant.
Honestly when I look at the Phillies I won't call them overachievers, but they have met expectations of still only being an 86-88 win team, even if it was another bumpy/streaky path. Their best young players are not stars and their old players are not going to get better. The Braves not only have better 25 year-olds but better 28 year-olds. And we already know why that happened and why it can't be fixed on the fly. Phillies not only don't have the homegrown talent at the major league level they still don't have the depth to just go out and trade for a Murphy or an Olson. Hopefully the front office's eyes don't have to be opened to that anymore but we'll see.
