3 offseason decisions the Phillies are paying for right now
The Philadelphia Phillies enter the all-star break with a record of 48-41. Definitely not bad, but they're 12 games out of the NL East race and are on the outside looking in when it comes to the Wild Card race.
The Phillies found themselves paying catch-up once again as they failed to get off to a strong start. It's the same thing every year. This season, following a World Series appearance, was a bit more frustrating to watch, especially when some of the reasons why they started off so slowly were avoidable.
Here're some offseason mistakes that Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies made and are paying for right now.
1) The Phillies are paying for not adding another starting pitcher
This is the most obvious one. The Phillies needed to sign another starting pitcher to fortify the rotation. The Ranger Suarez injury was impossible to plan for, but the plan was for Bailey Falter to be the fifth starter. That wound up being an absolute disaster.
Falter made eight appearances (seven starts) and the Phillies lost seven of them. He pitched beyond five innings just three times while failing to reach five innings four times. He had a 5.13 ERA in his eight appearances, and it should've been worse as he allowed six unearned runs in his final appearance with the Phillies this season.
Had the Phillies gone 4-4 instead of 1-7 in those appearances, they'd be in a playoff spot right now. Signing Taijuan Walker was a good move, but they needed another arm to round out the rotation.
For the most part, Falter looked completely uncompetitive. He had a decent year in 2022, but committing to him as the fifth starter right out of the gate was a bad decision. Andrew Painter was always the underdog in their battle for that fifth spot. I would've been fine with Falter as the first man up from AAA in the case of injury, but not in the Opening Day rotation. Falter wasn't the one forced into the rotation when Suarez got hurt, Matt Strahm was.
2) The Phillies are paying for not signing a legitimate starting outfielder
Injuries that happen in Spring Training aren't something you can plan for in advance, but Bryce Harper undergoing Tommy John Surgery in November and you doing basically nothing to fill that void was a bit odd.
Everyone knew Tommy John was coming for Harper, and people were expecting him to be out possibly the entire first half. They're lucky he came back in early-May, because some of these lineups the Phillies were running out to begin the season with Kyle Schwarber at DH and the likes of Jake Cave and Cristian Pache in the outfield were rough.
Pache has been a pleasant surprise for the Phillies this season offensively, but he wasn't even supposed to be with the team! Oakland DFA'd him right before the season, so the Phillies lucked into that. Had they not gotten him, who knows how that outfield would've looked?
Jake Cave was a disaster after a red-hot Spring Training, showing how meaningless stats from that are. Dalton Guthrie isn't really anything more than a fringe major leaguer. The Phillies needed to sign a legitimate fourth outfielder that could've played every day until Harper came back.
The Mets signed Tommy Pham for one year at just $6 million pretty late in the offseason. He's had an unbelievable year in New York, and probably would've signed with the Phillies if they gave him an offer with more guaranteed playing time available to him.
Instead, three of the five Phillies outfield spots were held by two waiver claims in Jake Cave and Cristian Pache, and one fringe Major League player in Dalton Guthrie. For a team trying to win right now, that's just not good enough.
3) The Phillies are paying for not adding enough quality minor league depth
Injuries are impossible to plan for. The Ranger Suarez injury was not one anyone saw coming, and the Rhys Hoskins injury was even more surprising and crushing. Hoskins was a mostly durable player before tearing his ACL and being ruled out for the entire 2023 season. That kind of thing is impossible to plan for.
While injuries are impossible to plan for, you have to try your best to predict that they might happen by stockpiling as much talent as possible at the AAA level. The Phillies have done a nice job improving their minor league system with some solid prospects to get excited about, but the talent that can play right now in the majors is hard to spot.
The trade to acquire Gregory Soto from the Tigers was a good one if you replaced the depth you lost in the deal. Matt Vierling didn't exactly light the world on fire, but he was good enough to earn some starts in the World Series. Nick Maton played sparingly, but was effective when his number was called. Both of these players had the ability to play just about anywhere on the diamond.
In the Soto deal they did get Kody Clemens back, but Clemens had a .505 OPS in 56 games last season with Detroit. Relying on him for any substantial period of time, which they had to do when both Hoskins and Darik Hall went down with injury, is something that probably shouldn't have happened.
I like Gregory Soto and think he has been and will be a good reliever for the duration of the time he's under team control, but if the Phillies weren't going to replenish the depth, I would've just preferred they sign a free agent.
As I previously mentioned, the outfield depth was weak, and the bench in general was not great. Signing Josh Harrison has done just about nothing for the on-field production, which should've been expected considering he wasn't very good in 2022 either.
The Phillies now are relying on Cristopher Sanchez to take the ball every fifth day. He's been awesome so far, but how long is that going to last? The Bailey Falter experiment didn't work. They're already trying to catch up, it's hard to rely on a guy with such a small track record to succeed in huge games.
Had the Phillies added more talent in the upper minors, even with some veterans inking minors deals, the team would look better. Most don't work out, but a good amount of players who sign minor league deals do find some sort of role.
The Phillies have very little organizational depth ready to contribute at the big league level. It was evident all offseason, and has been evident this season.
Next. Phillies prospects trades. 3 Phillies prospects who should not be traded and 2 who should. dark