Categories: Features

Brad Lidge on current Phillies, handling postseason: ‘You do need to change the formula a little bit’

Brad Lidge was perfect in save opportunities in 2008. (Philadelphia DailyNews/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire)

When Brad Lidge and his former Philadelphia teammates see a talented team like the 2024 Phillies get knocked out of the postseason, they cherish their 2008 World Series championship just a bit more. Great regular-season clubs constantly get assembled with no promise of more in October. Winning that title is what separates a team above all else.

“We realize, as the years go by, it’s tricky to be able to make a run like that, to be able to actually win a World Series,” Lidge said. “It’s a difficult thing. We’re always reminded of that. I think it’s even more tricky, frankly, in this Wild Card era. It’s even more difficult to kind of capture that.”

Lidge spoke with Phillies Nation via Zoom on Tuesday after releasing his new set of “Lights Out” baseball cards, a new collaboration with artist Jordan Spector that launched on the 16th anniversary of the night he closed out Game 5 to clinch the second World Series victory in Phillies franchise history. He went 48 for 48 in save opportunities in the regular season and postseason in his first year in Philadelphia. Neither Lidge nor the Phillies replicated the same success following that season.

He’s come to further appreciate that World Series run, the “peak of the mountain” in his career, as he’s continued to watch great clubs fail to win it all as the years have gone by.

“I have even more pride in what we accomplished in 2008,” Lidge said, “because I know how hard it is. But it is very tricky nowadays to build that stacked team and actually run it all the way through.”

While Lidge was there in 2008, he was also a part of the Phillies teams with sky-high expectations in 2009, 2010 and 2011 that couldn’t win another World Series. He saw some similarities between those groups and the 2024 Phillies, who won the National League East but lost to the Mets in the NL Division Series. Philadelphia cruised to the division championship this season, earned a first-round postseason bye then fell flat to a surging New York club. Lidge feels that teams like this year’s Phillies must be willing to shake things up a bit in this recently expanded playoff format.

“It’s really, really tough to be at the top of the mountain all year,” he said. “And then when the playoffs come, you’re constantly toggling: Do you change anything? No, because you’ve been the best team in baseball or one of the best teams in baseball, but then it’s the playoffs, so sometimes you do need to tweak things or change things a little bit. What ends up happening, especially now when you’re playing these super hot Wild Card teams that come in, is you do need to change the formula a little bit. But it’s really tough to know how and when to do that.”

It’s difficult to be one of the best teams from start to finish, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee anything in the postseason to do so. Sure, the Dodgers and Yankees were the top teams in each league this season, but this is the first time since the postseason expanded to three Wild Card teams per league to not feature one in the World Series. The Phillies made it in a surprise 2022 run, then both the Diamondbacks and the Rangers were Wild Card teams as Texas won last year’s World Series.

There’s still an importance to winning the division and playing well in the regular season, but it’s probably more crucial for a team to simply hit its stride at the right time. Just ask the 2008 Phillies, who surged past the Mets late in the season to win the NL East for the second year in a row on their way to immortality. Lidge thinks a similar scenario could help Philadelphia in 2025.

“Part of me thinks maybe next year the Phillies need to not be winning the division until the very end of September and then take off,” he said. “And maybe that’s the missing recipe or something, but it’s really hard to put a finger on it. I do know the Phillies still have a great team. I know the window is still open for them right now, and that’s great news if you’re a fan, that the next couple years should be great ones too.”