The Philadelphia Phillies have a lot of work to do if they have any aspirations of making another deep postseason run. In fact, they are currently on the outside looking in of the postseason picture as they are 11 games back in the National League East and 2.5 games back in the wild card race. Neither of those margins are completely insurmountable, although the division race is looking more and more bleak by the day as the Braves are refusing to lose.
Not all the news is bad, though. The Phillies' rotation that was so good last year has been the best in baseball by fWAR so far in 2023 at 9.4. The Phillies' top three starters Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Ranger Suarez match up well with any other rotation in the league now that Suarez's adjustments have taken hold ($). The bullpen has been a top 8 group in MLB as well with Jose Alvarado and Craig Kimbrel leading the way. Having that level of pitching is going to keep Philadelphia in a lot of games.
However, there is no denying that the Phillies' roster has some problems particularly on the offensive side of the ball. It is probably reasonable to expect Trea Turner to be better the rest of the way and eventually Bryce Harper is going to find his power stroke. However, that doesn't mean that the Phillies don't need to start making some real changes to this roster if they want to turn their fortunes around in 2023.
Here are the difficult Phillies roster decisions the team needs to make ASAP
There are a lot of paths forward for the Phillies over the next month and frankly, it is unlikely they are going to completely solve all of these problems in the next month as there are just too many moving parts. However, these are among the most glaring problems with the Phillies roster that really need to be resolved somewhat for them to take that next step towards contention again.
Without further delay, lets look at the difficult roster decisions the Phillies have coming up.