Rebuilding The 1971 Phillies

An OOTP Project

Rebuilding The 1971 Phillies

I decided to do try a quick rebuild of the 1971 Phillies.

This came after reading about the famous 1972 Phillies, a team famous for its futility. That was the year Steve Carlton almost won half the games the team won in the end.

I decided to start with the 1971 Phillies instead of the 1972 Phillies — mostly because I felt it would be too easy if Steve Carlton were already on the team. I also thought it would be more challenging without Mike Schmidt, who was signed in the summer of 1971.

It turns out that Schmidt started the season off in the Phillies organization:

The hardest thing at the beginning of the season was figuring out how to get all the good young players on the roster in starting positions at the same time.

In the end, I was able to get a few good young pitchers through some simple trades, getting rid of older players in the process.

Our depth chart wound up looking like this:

I thought we looked pretty good, though most of the team was young.

We started off slowly, causing me to go for a real controversial trade:

The third trade — getting rid of John Briggs for Terry Forster — was certainly the most controversial. It was also the most successful.

By mid-August, we had managed to sneak into first place:

And, in the end, we won the division:

We weren’t successful in the NLCS against the Cincinnati Reds, sadly. But we put up a good fight.

I guess this goes to show the power of focusing on youth above all else. I was expecting a much longer and more challenging rebuild — and yet we hit my goal in the very first season. I think this is in large part because I started off in a really strong position.