With less than a week left in the MLB regular season, the Philadelphia Phillies have clinched the NL East division title. With their focus ultimately switching to preparing for the postseason, there will be some important decisions to make along the way.
Shockingly, it appears as though the Phillies have already decided what their postseason roster will look like even before the season has ended. To be clear, they don’t know exactly which players will make up the 26-man playoff roster, but they already have an idea of what the ratio of the position player/pitcher composition will be.
Phillies already know what their postseason roster will look like
According to Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer, it looks like Phillies manager Rob Thomson is leaning toward having an extra bat off the bench this offseason rather than an extra arm in the bullpen. This notion was solidified when Thomson explained that he believes they have more offensive options to consider compared to previous seasons. Thus, the Phillies could be trying something different this year by carrying 14 position players and 12 pitchers heading into the postseason, as opposed to the 13-13 ratio split in the previous two playoff years.
This totally makes sense for the Phillies. For the 2024 season, their offense currently ranks fourth in the league in batting average (.257), OPS (.749), hits (1374) and RBI (723). More notably, their bench players have been having fantastic seasons with the Phillies so far, with the likes of Edmundo Sosa, Weston Wilson and, more recently, Cal Stevenson leading the way. With Kody Clemens also adding some clutch power production as well since his September call-up and Austin Hays looking to return to action soon, Philadelphia has plenty of hitting options to consider heading into the playoffs.
In addition, the Phillies pitching staff seems pretty much set with Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez and Ranger Suárez for the rotation and the super seven of Carlos Estévez, Jeff Hoffman, José Alvarado, José Ruiz, Matt Strahm, Orion Kerkering and Tanner Banks for the bullpen. They will likely be scratching their heads to determine who the 12th pitching arm will be, not to mention trying to even think of a 13th.
But in reality, with the strong year that most of the Phillies players have been having, Thomson can’t go wrong with whoever he ends up going with as they look to go on a deep run once again this year. Hopefully, this third time around in three years becomes a charm for the Phillies in their pursuit of the World Series championship.