The next few years, with Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and the Phillies’ top players in or near their prime, will determine how the group of that era is remembered. Will it be the team that survived two heartbreaking late October defeats to finally win it all, or the high-priced club that teased that it was, as Nick Castellanos put it, “underperforming”?
The 2022 and 2023 Phillies are built around a potent offense and one of the best rotations in baseball. For much of the season they were worn by one person or another. There were times when both units clicked at the same time and they started their runs, around mid-June (13 out of 15 wins), late June (9 out of 11), early August (9 out of 12), late August (7 out of 8), and End of September (7 straight).
Coming into the playoffs, the Phillies were at their best for two weeks in October. They averaged two home runs and two stolen bases a night, and their pitching staff had a collective ERA in the mid-1.00s. It was a team on fire, taking advantage of early leads every night and hanging on to them. The Diamondbacks didn’t look like they belonged on the same field as the Phillies in Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS before making a series of smart and effective adjustments that the Phils couldn’t solve.
In consecutive Octobers, the Phillies’ offense faltered to end the year. The lineup finished 9-98 in the 2022 World Series. That came against a veteran Astros pitching staff full of talent and experience in Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander, Cristian Javier and a locked down back end of the bullpen.
This time, the NLCS loss came despite the Phillies hitting Arizona’s best pitcher, Zac Gallen, hard. They hit Merrill Kelly hard in Game 2 as well. Then they chased ball after ball after ball for the rest of the series. Turner and Castellanos were the clearest examples. They were so stuck during the wild card round and the NLDS that it lasted until the start of the NLCS. They and the Phils’ lineup as a whole had great success in ambushing a pitcher’s first offer. The D-backs decided to stop throwing throws in the zone to start the count. It worked. Turner chased curveballs in the dirt. Castellanos swung free on the low-and-away slider. JT Realmuto chased the high fastball.
The Phillies talked about being built for these moments, but the at-bats told a different story. They told the story of players trying to end a series with one shot rather than letting the game come to them.
“We made way too many throws outside the strike zone this year, way too many,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said at a year-end press conference late last week. “I know we have people who chase, but for some reason they’ve chased even more this year and I think that’s something we need to address and something I know we’ll address, because we have already had meetings about how we can get better in this regard.”
On the surface, it doesn’t look like there will be many big changes this offseason. When asked how the Phillies are going about rectifying the extreme losing streak of the last two Octobers, Dombrowski went through the lineup to highlight how many positions are locked up.
“When I look around our club I find it difficult that sometimes we struggle to score points because I’m not sure where else to go,” he said. “Guys can have better seasons. JT Realmuto is one of the best catchers in baseball. Bryce is outstanding. (Bryson) Stott is a young and growing player, but he has done well. Turner at shortstop is a star player who ends up in the bottom four here or five games, had problems. (Alec) Bohm is a good hitter. Castellanos struggled at the end, as he tends to do, but he also swung the bat very well. We like Brandon Marsh, he continues to develop. (Kyle) Schwarber is an outstanding hitter.
Then he came into midfield. Johan Rojas was called up on July 14 this season, a month before his 23rd birthday. He arrived earlier than planned for three reasons: Cristian Pache was injured, Rojas has elite defensive skills and he had shown offensive improvement in the minor leagues.
At first he was only supposed to take Pache’s place until Pache was ready to return from an elbow injury. But Rojas’ defense immediately made the Phillies a better team. Additionally, he held his own at the plate. He hit .302 with a .342 on-base percentage in 164 plate appearances. He laid down six sacrifice bunts, even though the placement wasn’t great. Most assumed the league would catch up with him and that he would eventually slump, but that slump didn’t come until the playoffs. And when it hit, it hit hard. Rojas went 4-for-43 with one walk and 15 strikeouts. At the end of the postseason, Marsh was thrown around so Rojas could be tackled.
The day-to-day job in midfield will not be handed over to Rojas, Dombrowski said. He has to earn it.
“You’re always striving to get better,” Dombrowski said. “Rojas’ defense far outperformed his offense during the regular season. When we made the move to get him to the big league level, I asked him, ‘Can he stay afloat with his defense to stay in the lineup?’ of the other offense we have?’ And the answer was, “I think we can do it.” And we really did until we got to the postseason and they were really chasing him and he was wrestling at that point.
“That’s why I won’t give him a position at our top club next year. He needs to be able to contribute offensively, otherwise he will have to slow down to develop. That doesn’t mean we don’t say “I don’t love him. We think he’s a really good player. But we need more offense than that from one position. I don’t know that there’s anything else other than we continue to work on controlling the strike zone.”
So much of the Phillies’ offseason is up in the air until a decision is made about Harper’s future on defense. Is he a moving forward first baseman? Do the Phillies try to play him in right field again? Do they play him in left field to keep Castellanos at the position he spent the last two seasons?
If Harper becomes the first baseman in 2024, it likely means the departure of Rhys Hoskins. In this scenario, there wouldn’t be enough playing time for Hoskins unless Schwarber returned to left field at least part of the time, and 80 games of Schwarber in left field could negate some or most of the offense Hoskins would add.
If Harper is ready and willing to return to right field, then the Phillies may consider trading Castellanos and retain Hoskins in free agency. Finding an applicant will not be easy. Castellanos bounced back in 2023 but is owed $60 million over the next three years.
The Phillies’ top priority this offseason is either re-signing Aaron Nola or finding his replacement. Additionally, they will likely add a right-handed reliever in the late innings and could benefit from a strengthened bench.
Dombrowski believes there will be a World Series-caliber roster in 2024 if the Phillies can re-sign Nola or find a suitable replacement at the top of the rotation.
“I think if we do these things, we’ll be a contender for the World Series,” he said. “We have a really good club, I think we are better than a club with 90 wins. I think we need to look at how we can get out of the gates quicker than before. Two years in a row we dug ourselves holes so that after about 50 games we were suddenly playing at a 100-win pace. Well, that’s it. It would be nice to do that from day one after spring training, and if we do that, it would solve a lot.
“I think we have a very talented club. This is a good team. There are a lot of star players on this team and not just star players but also good supporting players. Stott is good. Bohm is good. Marsh is good. I think Rojas will be good. (Cristopher) Sanchez helped us. (Orion) Kerkering will be a good player for us. We have a good player base.
“Every time you get hit it’s a downer. I’m not sitting here all pumped up, but when you start to look through it, we have a good team. And it’s not that our guys aren’t at their best yet. “I think we need to address the starting pitching situation, but if we do that, I’ll be in a position where I think this club can play, we’re good.”