"If someone had told me last October that this was where the franchise would be this September, I would have signed up for that 100 times out of 100," Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said Sept. 28 in Atlanta. "The performance of some of our young players, players like Cesar Hernandez, Cameron Rupp, Odubel Herrera, Jerad Eickhoff, Vince Velasquez and Hector Neris. I'm missing plenty of them. I'm not trying to single anybody out. I think that all suggests very positive things for the future.
"On top of that, and this has been well documented, but just the performance of the Minor League system.