The Philadelphia Phillies may have run out of time to win a World Championship.

Since shocking the baseball world in 2022 as the six-seed team in MLB postseason and making it all the way to the Fall Classic, the team’s hopes for the franchise’s third World Series pennant grew exponentially.

Unfortunately, since that magical October, the Phillies have only gotten worse in the playoffs, falling to the six-seed Diamondbacks in the 2023 National League Championship Series, and getting wrecked in the National League Division Series (NLDS) by the Mets and Dodgers in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

2024 and 2025 have especially been the most demoralizing postseasons, as in both seasons, the Phillies skipped the Wild Card round and advanced straight to the Division Series as the second-best National League team — only to fall flat come October and look like they never belonged in the bracket.

The October Phillies offense in the 2022 and most of the 2023 playoffs looked unstoppable, crushing home runs all across every ballpark they played like they were hitting batting practice. Their pitching was lights-out every game thanks to an elite starting rotation, and the defense cleaned up the rest on the field. In 2024 and 2025, despite more outstanding pitching performances and superb defense, the offense has been almost non-existent. In both years, the Phillies offense scored a total of 27 runs. The team scored 24 runs in the 2022 NLDS alone.

Heading into the offseason, the Phillies are riddled with questions for the future, and the team could look pretty different next year. Designated hitter Kyle Schwarber, catcher J.T. Realmuto, and pitcher Ranger Suárez will join this year’s free agent class, and right fielder Nick Castellanos’ contract ends after 2026.

Fans and analysts are speculating tons of different routes the team’s front office could take, from likely moves like a trade of Castellanos to unthinkable decisions like a trade of franchise cornerstone Bryce Harper.

“It’s disappointing to hear me being questioned about my contribution to the team,” Harper said in an interview with The Athletic’s Matt Gelb. “Just really hurt by that notion because I love Philly so much.”

Despite it seeming incredibly unlikely that the Phillies would trade Harper, or that anyone would even take him with over 6 years and $150 million left on his contract, fans have speculated, and many, even Phillies President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, seem unsure if Harper can return  to his MVP offensive production from a couple years ago.

“I don’t think [Bryce Harper]’s content with the year that he had,” Dombrowski said in a press conference following the 2025 season. “It wasn’t a bad year, but when I think of Bryce Harper, you think elite. You think one of the top 10 players in baseball. I don’t think he fit into that category. Very good player, but I have no idea. I’ve seen guys his age … level off, and I’ve seen guys rise again. We’ll see what happens.”

In sports, a team making four straight postseasons and not winning a championship in any of them doesn’t automatically mean that team has lost their chance, but the Phillies are a team that always has a good run for about a decade, then a rebuild for the next decade. After the city’s first world championship in 1980 and their 1983 and 1993 World Series runs, the Phillies underwent a long rebuild until the late 2000’s when they made the playoffs for five straight years and won the World Series in 2008. After that, the Phillies fell into a decade of rebuilding again before the 2022 team started the next successful generation of Phillies baseball.

The Phillies are now at that point where serious decisions need to be made. The Phillies have been among the league’s best teams the past three years, but they’re starting to prove that the World Series is too far from their reach.

The Phillies making big changes in 2026 could result in two main outcomes — one, the restructuring pays off and the team finally achieves the goal they’ve been chasing for the last five years, or two, the changes make the team worse, triggering the next rebuild to commence. 

Right now, even the most unlikely of moves and trades should still be considered. The Phillies have been successful in the past few seasons, but if the team really wants to win a championship, they can’t simply rest on their laurels.

The 2026 offseason is going to be an intriguing one for Philadelphia, and the front office’s moves may be the answer to whether the Phillies still have a chance or have run out of time.

“Every time we get knocked out, it hurts to the core,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said in the end-of-season press conference. “I’ll wear this until the first day of spring training — then I’ve got to turn the page.”