2 Phillies who will improve in 2022 and 2 who won’t

Which Philadelphia Phillies will improve in 2022?

The 2021 Philadelphia Phillies were, as they often are, an interesting mix of stellar and mediocre. At one end of the spectrum, they had Zack Wheeler and Bryce Harper; at the other end, they had Alec Bohm and pretty much the entire bullpen.

With 2021 in the rearview mirror and 2022 hurtling towards us, it’s time to look at the players who will improve next year, and the ones who won’t.

Ideally, every player would get better year after year, but let’s be realistic. Here are two players who should conceivably have a better 2022 than 2021, and two who won’t.

Alec Bohm will improve in 2022

There’s pretty much nowhere to go but up for Alec Bohm, whose sophomore slump was shockingly bad. He went from 2020 NL Rookie of the Year runner-up to being benched and sent to Triple-A in 2021.

Of course, Bohm’s rookie season was a short one; he only played 44/60 games in 2020, so it’s safe to assume that he probably wouldn’t have hit .388 over an entire 162-game season. However, the contrast between his first and second seasons is stark; he hit .247/.305/.342 with a .647 OPS over 115 games in 2021, with 15 doubles and seven home runs.

Bohm’s plate discipline unraveled in 2021; his strikeout rate increased from 20% to 26.6%, while his walk rate decreased from 8.9% to 7.4%. The Phillies’ combined 1,402 strikeouts were just below the league average 1,405, but they were below-average in hits and exactly average in runs scored and home runs.

The only encouraging numbers are his exit velocity and percentage of hard-hit balls, which both increased in 2021. His exit velocity improved from 90.2 mph to 92.0, and his hard-hit shot up from 46.8% to 49.8%.

The Phillies have poached hitting coach Kevin Long from the Washington Nationals, and it’s a safe bet to say that fixing Bohm is at the top of his to-do list when the lockout ends.

Ranger Suárez won’t improve in 2022

As much as we’d love for it to happen, it’s hard to see Ranger Suárez replicating what he did in 2021. But that doesn’t mean Suárez won’t continue to be successful in 2022; it’s just unrealistic to expect him to continue putting up sub-2 ERAs if he’s a full-time starting pitcher going forward.

Suárez had a 1.12 ERA over 27 relief appearances when Joe Girardi decided – or rather, was forced due to other pitchers’ struggles – to move him to the starting rotation for the first time since 2018.

It turned out to be one of the only risks to pay off for the Phillies, as Suárez built up his stamina and continued to thrive in the new role. He posted a 1.51 ERA over 12 starts, including a complete-game shutout in his penultimate start, which required only 97 pitches to dispatch the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Overall, Suárez finished the season with a 1.36 ERA over 106 innings, and only allowed 16 earned runs (and four home runs) in 39 games. On a turbulent pitching staff, he was the rock. His teammates sang his praises and proclaimed him their Comeback Player of the Year.

The downside of this success is that Suárez went from largely unknown to front-and-center. He more than doubled his previous career-high batters-faced in a season, and you can bet that many of them are going to be studying footage of his pitches to figure out how to hit him harder in 2022.

Bryce Harper won’t improve in 2022

It will be hard for Bryce Harper to top a season in which he tied for the MLB lead in doubles and led in slugging, OPS, OPS+, and won his second Silver Slugger, MVP award, and Hank Aaron Award, but we’d have absolutely no complaints if he replicated it.

Baseball-Reference projects that Harper will be great in 2022, just not as great. Essentially, they’re anticipating his offensive output to decrease across the board.

Even if Harper doesn’t improve – or more realistically, gets a bit worse in 2022 – he won’t be the problem. He certainly wasn’t the problem in 2021; in fact, he was one of the only reasons the Phillies stayed relevant as long as they did this season. He shouldn’t have to carry an entire offense by himself, and as he essentially proved this year, no player can carry a team by themselves.

But maybe he’ll be an All-Star in 2022. That would be hilarious.