The Eagles Just Won The Super Bowl. What Will Philly Do Next?

Plus, a baseball scrapbook and Tommy John returnees. Plus, a baseball scrapbook and Tommy John returnees. [View this email in your browser]( The Eagles Just Won The Super Bowl. What Will Philly Do Next? Sunday night, Tom Brady’s deflected hail mary in the final second of the game marked the Eagles first ever Super Bowl victory. Philly celebrated accordingly: Jumping off a Ritz Carlton awning until it collapsed, uprooting light posts… someone ate horse poop. It was, at least, a comparable scene to that in Philadelphia the night the [Phillies]( won the World Series in 2008. Since reaching the pinnacle of the sport, the Phillies faced a slow decline. They appeared in, but lost, the 2009 World Series, lost the NLCS in 2010 and lost the NLDS in 2011. The team now has five consecutive losing seasons. The rebuilding process has been long and cold, with its nadir in 2015 at one shy of 100 losses after finally selling off the last remnants of the empire in July. In 2017, only the [Giants]( and the [Tigers]( lost more games. A dismal .333 first-half win percentage contributed the majority of losses on the season. Enter[Rhys Hoskins]( company. The speed with which Hoskins ate up existing home run pace records translated to the rebuild. [Aaron Nola]( finally took what Jeff Sullivan called “[baseball’s best curveball]( and posted his lowest ERA yet. The outfield started to round itself out. Odubel Herrera, while rough around the edges and on the basepaths, proved to be a plus defensive talent. While the Phillies continue to phase out veterans and open up payroll space, players like [Scott Kingery]( look to be the cherries on a sunday that’s only gotten halfway down a line of toppings. While the Phillies took strides in looking like a professional baseball team again, Kingery posted a .348 wOBA in 63 games at Triple-A after an immensely successful stint in Double-A. A baseball celebration doesn't have much of a chance of hitting streets of Philly until at least 2019. There are still glaring issues to remedy in Philadelphia. But when it does, look out. [FanGraphs produces over 400 articles each month, in addition to our ever-growing database of stats and graphs. Support our efforts today!]( Today on FanGraphs: [2018 Top 100 Prospects]( On the first day of Prospects Week, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel give to us the 2018 top-100 prospects, complete with a scouting summary for each player. No partridges sighted. [Subscribe to our Podcasts!]( Catch up on past newsletters or pass along to a friend [here](. Data Visualization of the Day: [Alex Reyes: Undervalued]( Given what Jeff Sullivan has pieced together about Tommy John returnees, Alex Reyes is being starkly undervalued. At RotoGraphs, Sullivan tells us why that's wrong. Excerpt from "[Memories From the Game’s Faded Pages]( by Sarah Wexler "I have many questions about the scrapbook, nearly all of which I’ll never get answered. How did this artifact end up in a thrift shop in Oberlin, Ohio? How did its creator choose what to include? And perhaps the thing I’m most curious about: Who was the creator? How old a person? From where? A rooter for what team? Who were the creator’s favorite players? Was this someone who went to games often, or just followed from afar, relying on Vin Scully’s ’s smooth, slow voice to animate the action?" [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2018 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book](//fangraphs.us7.list-manage.com/vcard?u=72096bce9a69ba4cbdebbf487&id=0c7da3c69f) Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](