Three players will lead Philadelphia Phillies’ new core

Rhys Hoskins

If there’s one perfect way to take the baseball world by storm and rejuvenate an entire fan base, Hoskins had found it.

He became the fastest player to hit 11 career runs in MLB history by doing it in just 18 games. The previous record holder was Gary Sanchez, who accomplished such feat in 23 games last season.

But what has been truly amazing about Hoskins so far is his plate discipline and sense of calmness in every count.

People have been quick to halt the Hoskins hype because we’ve seen players like Dom Brown have similar hot streaks, but they fail to realize how Hoskins is hitting these home runs.

He’s working himself out of 0-2 counts into full counts where he can get a pitch to do damage with. Hoskins has simply made pitchers pay for mistake pitches.

To this point, seven of his 11 home runs have come with two strikes. This is not a player that has run into a couple of fastballs and has gotten hot. This is what good hitters do. He is comfortable at the plate, no matter the count is. The big difference between Hoskins and a player like Franco is that Hoskins doesn’t get over-aggressive when ahead in the count and has no problem letting a pitch go for a strike if it wasn’t what he’s looking for.

It’s early, but Hoskins reminds of a player with Chase Utley’s plate discipline and Ryan Howard’s power.

Hoskins looks to be the team’s slugger of the future.

He’s going to be in the heart of the lineup for many years to come and will help the players around him in the lineup get better pitches to hit.

When trying to piece together a team to compete for a championship, the goal is to have that powerful, reliable hitter in the cleanup spot and the Phils appear to have that in Hoskins.