Dave Shenin notes the similarities between the Philadelphia Phillies of a decade ago and the current Washington Nationals (Baseball Insider, The Post). Back then the Phillies had lackluster attendance, an old generic stadium and poor records. They also had young talent coming up and had to overspend on a free agent acquisition. At that level there are a number of similarities, but looking a little deeper, it is clear that the Phillies have several advantages and it is kind of amazing that their ownership only became “self aware” within the last years.

Philadelphia is the largest one-team TV market in MLB and is bigger than the San Francisco Bay Area which has two teams. The Phillies territory is roughly from Interstate 81 around Harrisburg, north to Scranton/Wilkes-Barrre, to Atlantic City and South Jersey (though probably not Ocean County). Northern Delaware is also Phillies territory. In contrast, the D.C. market isn’t as big, even with Baltimore thrown in and there is another long-established team up there that had plenty of exposure in D.C. I’d say the Nats market footprint is D.C., Northern Virginia and some of the rest of the commonwealth, plus Montgomery and P.G. counties. There is (unfortunately) overlap with the Orioles, especially in Maryland.

For example, a Phillies fan that was born on say, October 5, 1976, would have been around for 10 division titles, 5 pennants and two World Series titles. Granted, that Bicentennial Baby probably didn’t remember much of them because 5 division titles, 2 pennants and 1 World Series win happened when he was a little kid. Still, that and the 1993 pennant meant that there was some experience with a good Phillies team. Now, a Washingtonian born in the same span didn’t have a team until he was almost 30 and has experienced 7 seasons with all but one being a losing one. The outlier was a .500 season the first year the team was in town.

The Phillies also had good timing — the Atlanta Braves had just entered a period of decline after dominating the NL East since 1995. The Phillies had to fend off the New York Mets, but let’s face it, the Mets were chokers and nowhere close the strong organization that the Braves were and are again. The Nats have the Phillies, Braves and even the feisty Marlins, headed to a new Miami ballpark next year, to fight with moving forward. Like the AL, the East is a beast.

The Phillies also had control of their television rights which the Nats don’t because Bud Selig coddled cowardly Orioles owner Peter Angelos. Lot of good it did the O’s. It certainly stunted the Nats growth though, because Angelos kept them off of most D.C. cable systems for almost 2 whole seasons.

Now, while the Nats don’t have a built-in, multi-generational fan base spreading thousands of square miles without any significant baseball competition, the do have some advantages that the Phillies did not. The primary one is draft position. The Phillies were pretty bad for most of the years since 1983, but they were never really, really bad. The Nats had two seasons where they lost over 100 games and thus finished worst in the league. In two consecutive years they had the #1 overall draft pick and they successfully signed Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. We’re years away from knowing if those two are the transcendent talents many project them to be, but they have a higher upside than the Phillies homegrown stars like Jimmie Rollins, Ryan Howard, etc. Additionally, the Nats have an advanage that the Phillies do not: MONEY. The Lerner family is the richest in baseball and seem willing to spend, something the Phillies ownership didn’t do until very recently.

So, it is an imperfect comparison by Shenin, but I see where’s he coming from, especially with the Phillies in town this weekend. I’ll probably bike to Sunday’s game with the Ombudsman. Chien Ming Wang vs. Roy Halladay. Could be a long, 11 mile ride back to Alexandria.