With a little more than a month until the Phillies report to Clearwater for spring training, it appears as if the team has completed all its offseason work. All indications from team president Dave Dombrowski are that, while they are always open to doing something if the market makes sense, the roster they’ve assembled right now is the one that will be the team’s Opening Day roster at the end of March.
We know who the 2025 Phillies are going to be. We seemingly know their strengths and their weaknesses. They remain one of the two or three best teams in the National League, they remain a World Series contender, and they remain a team that has holes that it appears were impossible to fill this winter.
With a month left until baseball activities resume in the Sunshine State, what are the big storylines surrounding this team right now as they prepare to tackle another season in pursuit of a world championship? On the latest edition of Hittin’ Season we discussed in more detail, but below is a primer.
Can the Phillies overcome a shaky outfield?
At the start of the offseason, Dombrowski said the Phillies did not get enough production from their outfield in 2024, and he was right on the money. Their .708 OPS from outfielders was just 16th among 32 teams in baseball, and they hit just 50 home runs, seventh-fewest. They were also sixth-worst in terms of strikeout-to-walk rate.Â
The Austin Hays trade with Baltimore last summer didn’t work out, so Dombrowski set out to find an everyday leftfielder this winter. Instead, he signed free agent, lefthanded hitter Max Kepler to a one-year, $10 million contract. They say he’s going to play every day, but after an injury-riddled 2024, his numbers against lefthanded pitching weren’t awful (.247 average, .301 on-base percentage, just a .371 slugging percentage), but hardly the kind of stats that make you excited to have him in the lineup against southpaws.
The team is still trusting Nick Castellanos to be their big outfield bat, hoping that Brandon Marsh and his wildly high strikeout rate will come down, that light-hitting Johan Rojas can figure out a way to be a productive Major League hitter, and that an internal option like Weston Wilson can be a more regular contributor.
It’s a plan fashioned with hope as a tactic.Â
Financial constraints
It’s also a plan fashioned with the idea they didn’t have much money to spend.Â
It seemed pretty obvious early on that Juan Soto was going to sign with a New York team, to the point the Phils never really got involved in the bidding. And that’s fine, but we expected them to pivot and make a play for one of the other free-agent outfielders on the market, Teoscar Hernandez, Anthony Santander or Jurickson Profar. All would be upgrades as everyday leftfielders.
Unfortunately, it appears as if the luxury tax implications of going over the final threshold of $301 million was too onerous for the Phils to hurdle, at least for the players mentioned above. Entering the offseason, we simply had no idea the team would be operating under significant financial constraints.Â
As a result, the team has gone after injury reclamation projects like Kepler and former Toronto closer Jordan Romano as their main free-agent targets, and have yet to actively pursue bringing back one of their own free-agent relievers – Jeff Hoffman or Carlos Estevez — nor sign one of the other outfielders available.
There is still time in the winter for the prices for any of those players to reduce to the point Dombrowski could get back in the mix, like he did with Castellanos just before the ‘22 season. But for now, money is tighter than a dog’s grip on raw meat.
Alec Bohm’s headspace
It appears one of the ways Dombrowski thought he might be able to change things was by dealing one or two players from his everyday lineup. The name at the forefront of that effort has been third baseman Alec Bohm, who had an All Star first half and a less-than-stellar second half that became a disaster over the final month and into October as he dealt with a wrist injury late in the season.
Bohm’s frustration-related outbursts on the field resulted in Thomson benching him for Game 2 of the NLDS against the Mets. Bear in mind, Thomson NEVER benches players when they’re struggling. He stays with them and shows confidence in them, which makes it all the more shocking Bohm was benched. Clearly, he was not in a good headspace then and now, after a winter where he has been mentioned in trade rumors repeatedly, there’s some curiosity as to how he’ll respond if he’s still wearing Phillies red-and-white in a month’s time.
I believe Bohm will be here next year, but watching his performance early should give us a good indication of where he is mentally entering 2025.
Improvements from key players
In 2023, Bryson Stott was a 25-year-old emerging star who was among the best second baseman in baseball, both defensively and offensively. Last year, dealing with an elbow injury that affected him the entire season, he slumped badly and never recovered. His inconsistency and lack of production hurt the offense tremendously, so it was a bit of a relief to hear that he had been dealing with something physical during the course of ‘24. At least there may have been a tangible reason for his struggles. Getting a bounceback season from him in 2025 will be key to this offense fixing itself.
Ranger Suarez was an All Star in the first half of the season and a legitimate Cy Young candidate. Then, back soreness sapped his effectiveness and ability to locate his pitches, eventually landing him on the Injured List for nearly two months. When he came back, he wasn’t the same pitcher. Will he be better in a contract push this season?Â
J.T. Realmuto wasn’t as effective last season as he had been in previous seasons. The Phils are expected to reduce his workload a bit in the hopes of getting more out of him when he does play. Jose Alvarado was one of the most trusted arms in the bullpen for more than two years, but he lost his ability to strike out hitters in 2024. They are counting on him to be better in ‘25, too.
Trusting unproven bullpen arms
Even with Hoffman, Alvarado, Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering, Dombrowski looked at his bullpen last summer and decided it wasn’t enough. So, he dealt for Estevez to give the team what he thought would be a lockdown unit for the playoffs. Of course, that didn’t work out so well.
Which makes Dombrowski’s decisions regarding the bullpen this winter curious. They are likely driven by the payroll restrictions mentioned above, but, as of now, they do not have Hoffman or Estevez. They brought in Romano, who was hurt for virtually all of last year, to replace one of those guys. They’re hoping Kerkering will emerge as a potential ninth-inning reliever, and are banking on Jose Ruiz to take another step forward. Lefthander Tanner Banks, who they acquired at the trade deadline last summer, is also being tasked with higher-leverage innings, and they’re relying on Alvarado figuring out whatever went wrong in ‘24.Â
My spidey sense tells me they’re not done adding to this group, either here in the winter or this summer at the trade deadline. They’re weaker here than they were at the end of last season.
Starting rotation brilliance
Having seen no reasonable path to making the changes they wanted to make offensively, Dombrowski changed course and decided to strengthen a strength with the trade for Miami Marlins starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo. Luzardo was one of the best young lefthanded starters in 2023 before dealing with a back injury that torpedoed his 2024 season.Â
The addition of Luzardo immediately gives the Phillies the best starting rotation in baseball, and it’s not particularly close. Provided age doesn’t catch up with Zack Wheeler or Aaron Nola this year, the Phils will go with five starters who can shut down an opponent each and every time out. There is no weakness. And with the addition of Andrew Painter, one of the top pitching prospects in the game, expected in the middle of the summer, the Phils could have an embarrassment of outstanding starting pitching.Â
Perhaps it’ll be enough to mask any offensive or bullpen shortcomings that may crop up. But it’ll be fascinating and fun to see just how good this starting rotation can be. Will it stack up to the 2011 Super Rotation?Â