For a big-budget team that has in recent years added high-profile players like Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, and Jake Arrieta, the Phillies sure haven’t received a lot of attention of late. Perhaps it’s the fact that the rest of the NL East has been engaged in more interesting pursuits.
Let’s not overlook the challenges facing the Philadelphia organization in 2020 and beyond. The Nationals just won a World Series and still have elite talent. The Braves have taken the past two division titles and remain loaded. The Mets took a hit with the loss of Noah Syndergaard, but still have an imposing rotation and and an underappreciated amount of upside on the position-player side as well. And the Marlins? Well, we tend to overlook them, but maybe it’s time we recognize that the club’s young pitching is fairly interesting. They even spent some cash to bring in some veterans this offseason. Perhaps a renaissance isn’t far off.
Could the Phillies’ long-awaited return to the top of the heap stall out? There’s a real risk of it. Projection systems mostly seem to view the current roster as a generally average one, hardly a surefire contender. And the farm system isn’t exactly bursting with top-shelf youngsters just awaiting their chance in the majors. It’s necessary to acknowledge that the picture may never quite come all the way together as president Andy MacPhail and GM Matt Klentak envisioned. But let’s also consider the realistic upside in the group of players they’ve assembled.
Outfield
Bryce Harper: It has been a few years, but he’s only 27 and is one of only a few players who has proven capable of producing a ~10 WAR season.
Andrew McCutchen: Cutch was nearly that good at his peak, too, though it’s much further in the past. But we shouldn’t go too far in the other direction. McCutchen has been a high-quality everyday player even since moving out of superstar status. Added rest for his knee probably helps.
Adam Haseley/Roman Quinn/Jay Bruce: I’m not going to tell you I’m in love with this group, but you can squint and see how it can work out. Statcast hated Haseley’s quality of contact and Quinn hasn’t made good with his chances. But they’re both young players who could yet make strides. Bruce wasn’t great in Philly last year but has mostly been an above-average offensive producer even in his decline years.
Infield
J.T. Realmuto: The Phillies feel he’s the best catcher in baseball and it’s possible there’s even more in the tank. He has done more offensively than he did in 2019. There’ll be no shortage of motivation with free agency beckoning.
Rhys Hoskins: He collapsed late last year but still led the league in walks. If he can figure out what went wrong … he was a .263/.401/.530 monster through his first 392 plate appearances in 2019.
Didi Gregorius: We’re looking at a guy who was a quality defensive shortstop who produced about 25% more offensive than the average player in 2018. He wasn’t back to that level after fighting back from Tommy John surgery, but as with Hoskins, the established ceiling isn’t that far in the rearview mirror.
Jean Segura: A steady producer for three seasons before the Phillies acquired him, Segura stumbled a bit last year. But when you look under the hood, he mostly seems to be the same player, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all if he was to bounce back at thirty years of age.
Alec Bohm: The team’s top prospect bolted up the ladder last year and ended up posting big numbers at Double-A (.269/.344/.500; 38:28 K/BB ratio). He’s a candidate to break out upon his MLB arrival.
Utility
Scott Kingery: It’s important to remember that the Phillies can lean on Kingery in the infield or the outfield. That leaves flexibility to accommodate the rise of Bohm, needs in center field, or opportunities to add new players. Kingery had some ups and downs in his second season in the bigs, but ultimately made huge strides and turned in a league-average offensive season.
Josh Harrison/Neil Walker/Logan Forsythe/T.J. Rivera: The Phillies promised opportunities to compete in camp to a series of veterans who’ve had quite a bit of MLB success. That’s not necessarily likely to result in a lucky score of a high-quality regular, but it’s possible. And the team can reasonably hope it has added some useful pieces for cheap.
Rotation
Aaron Nola: He took a bit of a step back last year but was still quite good. And Nola put up a Cy Young-caliber effort in the season prior.
Zack Wheeler: This signing was all about the upside positively dripping from Wheeler’s high-powered right arm. There are risks, too, but there’s also a real possibility the Phils hit a home run here.
Jake Arrieta: As with McCutchen, it’d be foolish to pine for a return to the glory days. But Arrieta had turned in quality output even with diminished stuff before running into bigger problems in 2019. He was a sub-4.00 hurler in the two prior campaigns.
Vince Velasquez/Nick Pivetta/Zach Eflin: It’s something of an annual tradition to marvel at the big arms of Velasquez and Pivetta while wondering if they can succeed as MLB starters. It hasn’t really happened yet, but there have been flashes and crazier things have happened. Eflin’s peripherals slipped last year and he doesn’t exactly profile as an ace, but he has turned in 291 1/3 innings of 4.23 ERA ball in the past two seasons.
Cole Irvin/Enyel De Los Santos/Adonis Medina/Spencer Howard: Irvin and De Los Santos have reached (but hardly mastered) the majors. It’s possible to imagine solid production coming from either or both. There are some highly regarded arms not far behind. It seems both of these hurlers have some development left, but when talent figures things out it can move quickly …
Bullpen
Hector Neris: He got the long balls under control in 2019 and returned to being one of the game’s more effective closers.
Tommy Hunter/David Robertson: It’s hard to count on too much, but these accomplished veterans could certainly have a rebound. The layoff will give extra time for both to rest and rehab.
Bud Norris/Anthony Swarzak/Blake Parker/Drew Storen: There are also a fair number of other veteran types looking to revive their careers in Philadelphia. Tough to say what to expect, but there are decent odds that there’s some productivity here. Norris is a particularly interesting candidate; he was quite useful in 2018 but sat out the ensuing season when interest didn’t develop as expected.
Victor Arano: He was quite good in 2018 and now has added time to recover from elbow surgery.
Deolis Guerra: The MLB track record is quite thin, but he thrived in a tough Triple-A environment last year.
Adam Morgan/Jose Alvarez/Ranger Suarez/Francisco Liriano: It’s not a star-studded group of lefties, but there is at least sufficient depth.
The Phils also have a fairly large group of younger pitchers already on the 40-man, many with MLB experience. While few jump off the page for their obvious upside, the Phillies can still hope that someone emerges from the group. Edgar Garcia may be the most interesting, with big swinging-strike rates and good results in the upper minors. There are three lefties with strong upper-minors strikeout numbers but other questions: Austin Davis, Garrett Cleavinger, and Kyle Dohy.
Remember, the bullpen is likely to end up with some spillover from the rotation, with Pivetta a particularly likely candidate to spend time in the ’pen. Hope remains that his stuff could play up in a relief role.
Overall
It’s silly to contemplate a scenario where literally everything breaks right for a team. That’s more or less impossible. But the realistic upside possibilities are fairly interesting. There’s potential for one mega-star (Harper), at least one top-of-class player (Realmuto), and several others with All-Star capabilities in the position-player mix. The pitching picture is similar, with a set of mid-prime hurlers who could emerge as twin aces and a reasonably interesting blend behind them.
Many have pegged the Phils as the fourth-best team in the NL East, and that’s quite possible accurate when you blend in all the downside. But this club still has the potential to break out — particularly if a strong early showing facilitates additional mid-season investments (presuming there’s such an opportunity).
there is reason to be optimistic. i feel like everything that coulr have gone wrong last year did go wrong. with better luck and coaching alone this team could be well better.
This is true. I bet just adding Girardi gets them another win or two over Kapler’s previous gaffs.
For me, I am really interested to see what Bryan Price does with this pitching staff. They responded well to Kranitz old school style before Chris Young, so I am hoping for more of that.
Also interested in this new hitting coach who (can”t recall the name off the top of my head) was a student of Girardi’s hitting coach in NYY.
They need to trade Bohm. As a Boras client he’s not worth the overpay or trouble that baseballs satan (Boras) will provide.
That trouble is at least 3 years away, and then it’s just arbitration. Trading away a player because he is a boras client is plain crazy. tbh, Boras doesn’t make too much fuss if a player is treated and paid well. Especially that last one 😛
That’s a little extreme, Manfredsajoke. Should the Dodgers have traded Bellinger or the Athletics Chapman? I think their first 6 years of production is worth having to deal with trying to resign them and ultimately letting them go of you’re priced out.
Also, I think SOME of your spite is misplaced. If you didnt have such greedy owners for Boras to compete with, then Boras wouldn’t be so popular among the players. It takes a great villain to create a great hero. I just mean that as an expression, by the way. I don’t actually think Boras is a hero. He is a symptom of many problems in the modern game.
The last 2 seasons they have been decent for most of the year then completely imploded. A shortened season will benefit them.
I’m guessing that the lack of attention on the Phillies has more to do with their 4th place finish in the division last year than anything else
Y’all need to do one of these for the Rangers and Padres. This looks to be an interesting series. As for the Phils, they are still a 4th place team, but Bryce Harper is not overrated.
In a weird way, he has become underrated in how many people say he is overrated. In the past 3 years, Harper has a 136 wRC+, the 18th best in the MLB, and .382 wOBA, the 16th best in the MLB since 2017. Now defensively is where he is the most inconsistent. He can be anywhere between very good in right field, to one of the worst. But he is easily a top 20 batter in the MLB, and I’m sure any team would like to have him in their line-up.
The lack of talent in the minors beyond Howard and Bohm scares me. Getting an extension hammered out for Realmuto is critical. I like the OF depth and if things go right in the rotation, SP could actually be a strength. Love the left-handed depth in the pen but they need a right-handed ace for the pen that DRob was supposed to be. I think Neris could be that guy if they make VV the closer, which in my opinion, he should be given a chance. He works high counts and gets hit hard the 2nd and especially 3rd time thru the order. His future is as a reliever where he may be able to add a couple of ticks to that 95mph heater. Phils should be all in on George Springer or Mookie next offseason as well as a LH starter (Robbie Ray) and RH reliever. Not to say they cant win it all this year if they get hot in a shortened season- they certainly have the talent right now.
I don’t think they should go dish out 400 mill for Betts, I would go for Springer because I think he would be cheaper. Possibly Brantley and move Cutch to Center for a year. For pitching I would target Robbie Ray & Stroman. But first things first, gotta give realmuto whatever he wants.
They need more than Betts to be competitive and that 400 million could be spent to improve a variety of other areas. If they were on the cusp, I would say go all in, but the Phillies are a ways away.
I want to see what Springer does without a trashcan before I have an opinion there.
Is Harper the most overrated player in bb
Everyone says hes so overrated that hes not really overrated anymore. Hes an above average regular who’s a marketable face
No. He still had a high .800 ops, his defense was good, and his arm is superb. He draws a ton of walks, and despite only having a .260 average, he had a .372 obp last year, that’s unreal, oh and btw he had 15 stolen bases to 3 caught stealing, so he’s not a liability on the base paths. All combined he had a 4.3 WAR last season. Is that production worth 30 mil a year, no, but it isn’t god awful. He’s not overrated because of one slightly down season.
Even in 2018, his last year with the Nationals, he still managed to have a .393 on base percentage despite hitting .249, because he had a career high 130 walks, which led both the National League and all of baseball, (Trout was 2nd in all of baseball with 122 walks).
No, the idea of him being overrated is nonsense. Harper in his prime for a 25 million AAV is a good contract. He is a player they really needed in their attempt to compete again
Dave Dombrowski will be running the Phillies within the year.
Anyone who hands their franchise to Dombrowski deserves the awful moves to come. I can already see it. “Phillies trade Alec Bohm for Matt Boyd”.
Harper has never produced a 10war season, and hasn’t come close to sniffing his 2015 season again either.
Let’s wait until he actually does it before saying he’s one of the few who can.
Anyone “can” but doing it is a whole other story.
His 2015 season was 9.7 WAR so I feel like you’re kind of splitting hairs if you think you can’t at least say he is one of the MORE likely players to hit 10 WAR than anyone who “can” do it.
Did Hoskins have some sort of injury or something? I remember he was hitting everything and went to hitting literally nothing overnight.
Seems that way doesn’t it?
You might be right, but he wasn’t showing any signs of it. I think John Mallee and himself, to a certain extent, got in his head so bad even Charlie Manuel couldn’t unbugger it.
Bruce has 7 June home runs when the team was fresh off losing mccutchen and segura misses 2-3 weeks. Man was nothing short of amazing
He was amazing…in June. Then he got hurt.
didn’t realize Noah syndegaard had left the Mets. I mean him and wheeler leaving must be crippling /s
Still a better overall roster than Phillies tho
Phillies could still finish ahead of Mets but if the game was played on paper Mets would be ahead fo Phillies
It’s debatable for sure. In my opinion the Mets have a higher ceiling, but there are still a lot of question marks. They have a ton of bounceback guys, and if just a few of them work out, the Mets will be deadly. But if Diaz stinks again, and the loss of Syndegaard and Wheeler can’t be overcome by the new additions than they could be in trouble.
He didn’t leave. He had TJ surgery so he’s out of the picture for the next year or so.
In 2019 an insane amount went wrong. An entire team’s worth of bullpen arms were injured. Cutch and all his replacements got injured. Multiple starters got injured. It was a mess. Injuries happen, but the Phils luck was not there and they didn’t build the team with enough depth to plug the holes.
You have to figure they can’t be that unlucky two years in a row, so they’ll be better, but they’re still in a division with the Nats, Braves, Mets and a Marlins team that had the Phillies # last year. It’ll be a tough road for sure, but I do think they’ll be above .500 in the wildcard hunt depending on what the season structure will be.
“….but you can squint and see how it can work out” I think that applies to the whole team’s outlook.
Exactly!
Difference for me here is all the pen- Phillys looks awful- (4th even 5th in Div if we are inc Mia ) I dont have faith in a single name in that pen….(like Arano but he’s not seasoned enough yet for a big role)
Your not going to be able to give away games in that Div
Good news I suppose is, Bullpens are fickle…perhaps they land on the right side of the coin this year and catch a couple breaks on offense and they will have a punchers chance
Phillies got understand that they ain’t going by the Braves or Nationals with the roster they have. It is very stupid thinking not to understand this. Save yourself some money wait till the braves and Nationals get back to the pack and then commit to players.