A Phillies/Mets NLDS Preview, In The Classic Shopping Mall Format | Defector

The Phillies and Mets have played 1,081 times in their history. The Phillies have won 30 more of those than the Mets, but for many of those games both teams were pretty bad. The biggest and most significant games in their shared history will start tomorrow, when the teams meet in the playoffs for the first time. It’s going to rule. Both teams’ fanbases are viewed as among the best, which is to say also among the worst, in baseball. Both teams are quite good. The Mets have the best record in baseball since June 1. The Phillies won 95 games and have reached the NLCS in each of the past two seasons.

Every Phillies fan has Mets fan friends, and vice versa. As it so happens, we fit that bill. We have enjoyed multiple trips to malls together in the past, and recently hit the Wildwood boardwalk for a T-shirt report; we believe our work has built bridges between the Mets and Phillies fans communities, or at least demonstrated that members of both groups can get pizza and walk around together for a little while without trying to harm each other. And we believe, too, that we can fit a chat about this topic into that format, because baseball is like a mall, in that baseball stadiums also have escalators.

Dan: I try to make it a point of never rooting for New York sports teams unless they’re playing the Cowboys or Celtics, but I was pretty excited when the Mets won in the ninth last night. One, it was thrilling and unexpected. Two, I really think a playoff matchup between the two teams 1) will be a lot of fun and 2) favors the Phillies immensely.

Dave: Hmm.

Dan: Hold on. As Phils prospect tweeter Matt Winkelman wrote, basically half the runs the Phillies gave up to the Mets this season were off pitchers who will not be playing this series. Three of the Phillies’ losses to New York were in starts made by Taijuan Walker. OK, I think I’m done.

Dave: So, some points on that.

Dan: Wait! As Matt Gelb wrote in The Athletic, three weeks ago Jose Quintana absolutely thrashed the Phillies with seven scoreless innings. He was also facing players like Buddy Kennedy and Weston Wilson. The Mets do not have a chance.

Dave: If you are going by things like “quality of players on the roster” or “performance of the players on the roster over this season, and also the previous three seasons” I would agree that the Mets are at something of a disadvantage in this series. This is despite the best efforts of True Met and daring double agent Taijuan Walker. But the Mets have also spent the last few years hitting Zack Wheeler and especially Aaron Nola way better than they have any right to—Wheeler is 1-4 with a 4.79 ERA against them since 2022, and Nola is 1-6 with a 4.25 ERA, including a start a couple weeks ago where the Mets got him for six earned runs in 4.1 innings. I cannot really tell you why or how this has been the case, but I also think that a team like the Mets, which is mostly one superstar at his absolute apex and a bunch of jokers overperforming in surprising and timely ways, has a sort of unquantifiable advantage as a result. You have to make all these “reasonable points” about “the players involved” and I can just sit back serenely and assert that Jose Iglesias has the mandate of heaven, and that Pitbull is guesting on a remix of his song that comes out next week. I cannot be sure that the Mets will still be playing baseball at that point, but I’m prepared to believe until such time as it becomes untenable.

That said, I’m going to write something more serious about the Mets at some point in the near future, and that sort of thing is not our work here. The task we have set for ourselves is different. We are going to preview these teams as if they were malls. Everyone understands what this means, and what’s involved. It is so normal, in fact, that I feel almost embarrassed to be going over it here as if it needed more explanation.

Dan: A note on my mall in general. It will be playing the Phillies’ official victory theme this season: The 50-minute house mix “Winners Win” by Armentani Brothers, a DJ trio from Northeast Philly. Yes, backup catcher Garrett Stubbs commissioned the track and, yes, these three guys went to the same high school I did. It includes a sample of Donald Trump saying “I’m gonna come” and has some tracks for the oldheads like Aaron Nola (examples given were “Stacy’s Mom” and Panic! At The Disco).

Dave: I am regretting this idea already. I don’t think we should do this. Dan, I really think we should remove this post.

Dan: As that blasts across the mall, I think the best way to describe the Phillies infield is Spencer’s. The Phillies feature Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, and JT Realmuto. Spencer’s is not quite at the level of those guys, even with Stott’s disappointing year. But this fits. Spencer’s is a mall stalwart. Every mall has a Spencer’s. I can think of at least two malls near me where the Spencer’s has been in the same location since the 1990s. Plus, it is October, and the Phillies have been here the last two years. So has Spirit Halloween, another arm of Spencer’s Gifts LLC.

The Phillies outfield is definitely a Gap Outlet. A quick walk through might be disappointing. That pair of pants doesn’t fit, like a Nick Castellanos strikeout. But do not sleep on this place. The Gap has really improved its look in the last few years and can often fake looking like gear that’s significantly more expensive.

Roth: One of the lessons I’ve learned in our mall visits is that the stores I associate with being in malls from my youth are gone. I’m not just talking about Electronics Boutique, I’m talking about stores of that kind. Whole genres of mall store that I remember somewhat fondly—stores that sell video games, record stores with shitty prices and the most down-the-middle selection of CD’s available, some of which have stickers proclaiming The Nice Price affixed to them seemingly at random, Chess King and Chess King-adjacent establishments—effectively no longer exist. (There was a FYE at the mall we went to in the Poconos, but I think we dreamt at least half of that mall in retrospect.) The variety of the Mets infield—which features a probable future Hall of Famer at shortstop; a beloved but unidimensional first baseman who seems to be in the early stages of decline (and who just hit a home run that will make me defend him to the death forever); a young third baseman who can’t field, strikes out in roughly every third at-bat, and was still somehow actively good due to how far he hits the ball when he doesn’t; and a 34-year-old minor league free agent turned full-time second baseman who, as mentioned earlier, has unexpectedly seized the mandate of heaven until further notice—would have compared well to any of those places, but I felt compelled to pick a place that currently exists.

And so I have to go with Saks Off Fifth, here. In recent years, the infield has been a much more Marshalls-grade experience, with a few higher-end items marooned amid long racks of suspiciously flammable-seeming activewear. But the Off Fifth experience, where you might find some stray high-end items at good prices and will still certainly find a lot of the aforementioned flammable activewear, all of them kind of chucked together at random. This is a fun way to shop. Maybe you go there looking for a slightly discounted Francisco Lindor experience, but find a Jose Iglesias that unexpectedly fits you perfectly.

For the outfield, I will call back to one of those types of stores that does not exist anymore. One of my favorite places to wander around as a kid was the KB Toy Store in the Garden State Plaza; the mall is still there, and like twice the size it was then, but KB was long ago consigned to the dustbin of history. I hate that my shoplifting basketball cards from there as a middle schooler might have contributed to that. But the Mets’ outfield is, like KB, a series of moderately off-brand items—suspiciously swole action figures from movies you didn’t see (Starling Marte), faintly religious-seeming board games that might nevertheless be fun (Brandon Nimmo), yard toys with no obvious branding or usage that could nevertheless be diverting in a pinch (the centerfield platoon).

Dan: Pitching is a little easier, I think. A mall tier is defined by its anchor stores. At lower-end malls you might get a JCPenney or one of the regional chains like a Boscov’s. (It pains me to slag Boscov’s a bit here. The stores still have a lot of neon.) But the Phillies have Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Christopher Sanchez, and Ranger Suarez, and they are high-end, baby. No, it’s not Neiman Marcus. But those four guys were all sub-3.60 ERA this season and fit in perfectly as a Nordstrom. The top end of the rotation is clearly a high-end Ralph Lauren Polo sweater. Earlier this year the Phillies starters were so good, they were actually a Saks Fifth Avenue, but I have to downgrade them a little bit after the second half.

The Phillies’ relief corps will, in the end, always break my heart. That’s why I’m slating them in as a PacSun. Despite being 41 years old, I actually like PacSun a lot. Despite being a hater of bullpens, I also like the Phillies bullpen. Jeff Hoffman is suddenly Eric Gagne. Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering are killing it. Carlos Estévez has been great since coming over. Meanwhile, PacSun has clothes that I find kind of hip, and their collaborations are often pretty solid; they did one with The Met, for example. I’ve gotten FOG Essentials there in the past. Sometimes there’s Supreme on their site? Sure. But, yeah, it’s still a PacSun. It will let me down in the end with a weird Land Rover collaboration.

Roth: I will say, before I compare them to a movie theater that you are surprised to find is still open, that the Mets’ starting pitching has been a huge and pleasant surprise for the team, and to me. But, given that the rotation is split roughly evenly between veteran pitchers on one-year make-good contracts (Sean Manaea and Luis Severino) and formerly infuriating homegrown prospects who have abruptly pulled it together in their late 20s (David Peterson and Tylor Megill), with Literally Jose Quintana rounding things out, I have to go with A Movie Theater That You Are Surprised To Find Is Still Open. (Kodai Senga, who made only one start this year due to a classic Mets Escalating Injury Scenario, will apparently start Game 1 of the NLDS. This is cool to me, but even really good, high-budget movies show up in these kinds of theaters sometimes.)

Not every mall has one of these, and the ones that have a Nordstrom almost certainly do not. But this is a useful thing for a mall to have, and considering that the Mets just recently unwound a former rotation that was more in the vein of The Sharper Image (luxurious without being practical or even reliably functional; ostentatiously expensive and difficult to love) it’s a notable step up. The still-open movie theater is functional, it will surprise you, and you just might find yourself feeling big feelings and crying surprised tears in your seat at a matinee showing of David Peterson’s latest from which you expected basically nothing at all. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

The bullpen… I should be careful what I say about the bullpen. Every big league signing the Mets made for the bullpen last offseason was a disaster, but they traded for some relievers from teams looking to shed salary and managed to do much better there, and churned and churned and churned spots until they turned up some minor league free agent types who have looked like viable big leaguers. A lot of important contributors are hurt; closer Edwin Diaz can be electric, and can also deliver the exact sensation of being electrocuted, generally in the same inning. I don’t know what kind of store this is, but you would not immediately want to go in and browse; the lighting is bad, there are no visible employees, there is maybe also a bird flying around in there. And yet there is a time when you need the things they ostensibly sell, and when you must go in and try to find some workable version of that item. They may have it; you just have to hope you can find it. It’s Ocean State Job Lot.

Dan: As for the bench, I see the Phillies as our beloved, defunct Modell’s. (Do not be fooled by the people who bought the trademark and sell crap online.) It is a store I always walked into, was completely disgusted by, yet ended up walking out with some sort of T-shirt I ended up owning for many years. The Phillies bench looks kind of weak, but just wait until someone hits an inexplicable home run.

Roth: I feel like every bench has kind of a Modell’s aspect to it. You never really feel great going in, the quality is always a little bit sketchier than you remembered it being the last time, and then you realize that you are wearing socks that you bought there eight years ago, and that give or take some issues with the elastic they have more or less held up. You do not necessarily want to go to Mo’s. But sometimes, you have got to go to Mo’s.

Dan: I’m not sure these comparisons made much sense. All the better! Go Phillies!

Dave: Agree on the first part, but not the very last part.