The Philadelphia Phillies are down bad in the outfield, as Adolis García is out for perhaps the entire season, and rookie Justin Crawford has struggled immensely in his first taste of the big leagues. Prospect Gabriel Rincones Jr. was brought up this week to help cobble together a solution, and his powerful bat could be just what this team needs.
The Phillies have been winning games lately, but it hasn’t been due to their offense. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh are the only hitters worth their salt, but the pitching staff has carried them to a playoff spot in spite of that. Co-aces Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sánchez have been routinely handing leads to a bullpen headlined by All-Star lock Jhoan Duran.
As for the lineup, they came into Saturday’s contest against the Brewers with a tragic .226/.296/.385 collective slash line over 2,553 trips to the plate on the year. The club has hit just 86 home runs, with 39 of those coming from Harper and Schwarber. In essence, no one else has any power.
Gabriel Rincones Jr. could help fix the Phillies' power outage
Enter Rincones Jr.: a 2022 third-round draft choice whose calling card is light tower power. The 25-year-old has made steady progress over his four minor league seasons, advancing roughly one level per year before spending the 2025 season at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. In his first season with the Ironpigs, Rincones popped 18 long balls and 41 extra-base hits in 119 games.
Knee injuries kept the Scotsman out of game action for most of this season's first two months, and he’s scuffled in a dozen contests back in Allentown this year, posting a .628 OPS. The Phillies seem to have chalked those struggles up to shaking off the rust, seeing as he was penciled into the starting lineup in Friday night’s matchup against wunderkind Jacob Misiorowski.
That debut didn’t go too well for anyone, as the Phils were nearly victims of a perfect game and Rincones went 0-3 with a pair of strikeouts. It’s hardly fair to judge him off of one bad night against a pitching phenom, and Rincones is sure to get a decently long look against right-handed pitching over the next few weeks.
Rincones Jr. is probably not going to single-handedly solve the Phillies’ outfield woes. He’s a 25-year-old kid getting his first look at the greatest pitchers on the planet, and he’s not the world’s most gifted defender. However, what he does extremely well is work counts and crush home runs; two things the Phillies have sorely missed from two-thirds of their starting lineup. Rincones doesn’t need to set the world on fire to be a massive upgrade for the Phils. If he can just do what he does best, this team will be in a much better spot.
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