Maybe Re-Signing Kyle Schwarber Would Have Been a Good Idea

The National League Championship Series started on Tuesday with two relatively unlikely contestants: the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Diego Padres. That’s not to say neither team deserves to be there, but entering the playoffs, it seemed like you could pencil some combination of the Mets, Dodgers and Atlanta into this part of the bracket. But the Wild Card Padres were unimpressed by their longtime bullies in Los Angeles and the Wild Card Phillies told Atlanta that back-to-back titles wasn’t happening.

The Phillies’ deep run in the postseason has been particularly intriguing, as they fired Joe Girardi as their manager fewer than 60 games into the season when they were comfortably below…