Phillies outfield plans: How they look heading into 2018

As we look towards the future with the Phillies’ fate sealed, the outfield picture still looks convoluted despite clarity in some areas.

The Phillies outfield has been the team’s best position group this season. Out of the team’s top six hitters this year, four of them are outfielders. One was Howie Kendrick, who is now in Washington following a deadline trade, but the other three, Aaron Altherr, Odubel Herrera, and Daniel Nava, are all still Phillies.

However, the future in the outfield is still in question to some extent. The team has prospect talent in the outfield, and some of it could be in the majors next year. However, they have some talent in the majors as well, and how the team will figure out this messy sitatution will be one of the top story lines this offseason.

Let’s take an early look at the impending outfield battle, breaking down each candidate and their case.

Odubel Herrera

Bat flips, hustle issues be damned, Odubel Herrera is a standout player. Granted, his May was absolutely terrible, no doubt about that. However, since then, he is been impossible to stop at the plate.

Since June started, Herrera has a .339/.380/.578 line with eight home runs, 27 RBI, and 30 runs scored in 50 games. He has walked 12 times and struck out 46 in 205 plate appearances in that span. His net win probability added of 0.847 certainly helps, too.

Herrera is also locked in financially. Last winter, the team signed him to a five-year, $30.5 million extension with two team option years, keeping him in Philadelphia until potentially 2023. No one hands that kind of contract out to a player who they don’t think will be in town for long.

However, fans question Herrera’s issues with hustle and mental lapses. They cite that as a reason why the Phillies should trade him while they can, but what good can that do? We have lived with similar players in Philadelphia – see Jimmy Rollins – because they helped the team win. That’s exactly what Herrera can do, and he should have no problem staying in Philadelphia.

Aaron Altherr

Aaron Altherr started off 2017 as the team’s fourth outfielder behind an outfield corps of Herrera, Kendrick, and Michael Saunders. Altherr was coming off a 2016 season where he missed the first three and a half months of the season due to a broken wrist he suffered in spring training, then did little to impress when he returned.

However, Altherr still had his believers, and they were proven right this season. Altherr has been quite the force at the plate, collecting 40 extra-base hits in 84 games with a .919 OPS and 16 home runs, tied with Tommy Joseph and Maikel Franco for highest on the team this year. His 1.8 fWAR is second only to Herrera on the team.

Thanks to Kendrick being traded and Saunders being DFA’d after struggling in Philadelphia, Altherr has no one to fight with for playing time in the outfield. He has shown no signs of slowing down at the plate and his numbers at the end of the season should be fairly close to the ones he has now.

In 2018, Altherr has the starting right field job pretty much locked up as long as he doesn’t get injured or completely forget how to hit before Opening Day next year. That isn’t to say that he won’t have some contenders breathing down his back soon after.

Nick Williams

Nick Williams may be the new kid on the block, but he is sure stealing the spotlight since he debuted. In his first 25 major-league games, Williams has four home runs with an .831 OPS (115 OPS+). He has already driven in 19 runs in his young major-league career and will continue to drive in more in the team’s middle of the order.

The biggest question is if Williams can sustain this success. 25 percent of his fly balls are going for home run and that rate is sure to come down at some point. There are only 17 qualified hitters with a home-run-to-fly-ball rate that high, and they are all the league’s premier power hitters: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, George Springer, Khris Davis, etc. If Williams can hit with the power of those guys, great, but we have to see it over a longer period of time first.

On the other hand, Williams consistently makes good contact when he hits the ball, inducing a soft hit just 12.9 percent of the time. No pitch has really hurt him other than the splitter and knuckleball, which few pitchers have. His walk rate of about five percent is all you’re going to get out of him, but if the power is real, it won’t matter.

Williams is the least established of the three current major-league outfielders and would be the first one to be replaced if the team – for some reason – decides to bring in another free agent outfielder. If Williams continues to produce the way he has for the next two months, they shouldn’t have to bring anyone in.

Roman Quinn

Roman Quinn made a decent first impression in the major-leagues last season, collecting 15 hits in 15 games with a .373 on-base percentage. It wasn’t a spectacular debut, but Quinn at least inserted his name into the conversation.

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This season, Quinn has fallen out of the conversation once again thanks to injury. He hasn’t played since May 28, tearing a ligament in his non-throwing elbow sliding into third base. The injury is just one of many in Quinn’s six-season professional career, and this pattern seems like it will continue.

Before he was injured, Quinn wasn’t lighting the world on fire with a .274/.344/.389 line in 45 games. However, it was good enough that he could have made it to the majors this season when Kendrick was injured or Saunders was released. Instead, he sits on the disabled list while other players get their chance.

Next year, Quinn will come in saying the injuries are over, and the team may just believe it. The starting jobs seem locked down, but even with the injuries, Quinn should be a solid fourth outfielder with the speed to be an effective pinch-runner and versatile enough for all three outfield positions.

Andrew Pullin

I didn’t include Pullin in this list because he is a standout prospect. At best, he is a left fielder with just enough of hitting profile to eventually make it as a bench outfielder if he’s lucky and everything breaks right. I added him because of the decision the Phillies front office will have to make with Pullin this offseason.

Last year, Pullin was left off the 40-man roster and therefore went unprotected from the Rule 5 draft. There was enough of a prospect profile to warrant some concern he could be selected, but the problem was he had played just 46 games in Double-A and retired for a month during the season. No one selected Pullin, so he remained with the team that drafted him.

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This season, it won’t be a guarantee that Pullin would go unselected again. In 67 Double-A games to start the year, he hit 14 home runs with a .925 OPS, almost his good as his Reading numbers from the year before. He was promoted to Triple-A in June but has not hit the same way, posting a .230 batting average with just two home runs in 34 games.

The Phillies have plenty of top-end prospects that need to be protected like J.P. Crawford, Rhys Hoskins, and Franklyn Kilome.

This leaves little room for fringe guys like Pullin. It’s a shame to have to expose him, but it’s a problem you have to face when you have to put your priorities in your better players.

If Pullin goes unprotected and some how makes it through the Rule 5 draft, or gets protected, there’s a chance he could make it as a reserve outfielder on the major-league team. However, it’s more likely he returns to Triple-A and tries to repeat his success from Double-A.

Outside Options

It seems unlikely, but there is the chance that the Phillies bring in some outside help for their outfield next year. I thought there was no way they would bring someone in last year, but then Kendrick and eventually Saunders were both acquired. Those moves worked out very differently and the team has learned its lesson. After this season, it seems unlikely they will pursue more one-year rentals as they hope to establish the team’s young core.

If they want to bring in any outfielders, it will have to be one who is worth signing to a longer-term deal. The 31-year old Carlos Gonzalez comes to mind as a guy who would take a decent sum of money to play here for two to three years. J.D. Martinez may want too long-term of a deal, but the Phillies were connected to him before, so it’s not out of the question.

Next: Phillies trade rumors: The waiver trade deadline

A young outfielder could also come in via trade if Matt Klentak decides to move any one of Cesar Hernandez, Tommy Joseph, Freddy Galvis, and/or Cameron Rupp during the offseason. Klentak’s trade often target outfielders or pitchers, so it’s well within possibility the team gets one back in a hypothetical winter trade.