For the Phillies, the future is now

For most of the 2017 season, the Phillies have been trying to walk a fine line between playing established, but struggling, big league players and calling up and playing the young prospects who have a higher upside and more promise.

For what seemed like a long time, Michael Saunders was hacking his way to .200. Tommy Joseph was blocking Rhys Hoskins. Cameron Rupp got way too much playing time after Jorge Alfaro was promoted. And then there was the quest to get Freddy Galvis in all 162 games (that’s still ongoing, by the way).

In some of those cases, minor league players were struggling during the first half of the season but then got better. In others, the team wanted to give the established…