MLB Offseason Preview - Philadelphia Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies

National League	East Division
71-91	25 GB of Division Lead
Manager Pete Mackanin	GM Matt Klentak
AAA Affiliate Lehigh Valley IronPigs	AA Affiliate Reading Fightin Phils

2016 Rankings

Hitting	AVG – 29th	OPS – 30th	Runs – 30th	HR – 24th	SB – 11th
Starting Pitching	ERA – 18th	K/9 – 12th	H/9 – 14th
Relief Pitching	ERA – 28th	K/9 – 13th	H/9 – 28th

Top Hitters

POS.	Name	AVG	OBP	Slug	HR	RBIs	WAR	SB
CF	Odubel Herrera	.286	.361	.420	15	49	4.2	25
2B	Cesar Hernandez	.294	.371	.393	6	39	3.3	17
C	Carlos Ruiz	.261	.368	.352	3	12	1.5	3

Top Pitchers

POS.	Name	Record	ERA	IP/Saves	K	BB	ERA+	WAR
SP	Jerad Eickhoff	11-14	3.65	197.1 IP	167	42	113	3.5
SP	Jeremy Hellickson	12-11	3.71	189.0 IP	154	45	111	3.0
RP	Hector Neris	4-4	2.58	80.1 IP	102	30	161	2.0

Trades that Occurred During Season 

• Traded C Carlos Ruiz to the Los Angeles Dodgers for C A.J. Ellis and P Tommy Bergjans

Impending Free Agents

• SP Jeremy Hellickson
• C A.J. Ellis
• RP David Hernandez
• RF Peter Bourjos
• RP James Russell
• SS Andres Blanco

Top Prospects

POS.	Name	Level
SS	J.P. Crawford	AAA
OF	Nick Williams	AAA
SP	Jake Thompson	MLB
SP	Mark Appel	AAA
C	Jorge Alfaro	MLB
SP	Franklyn Kilome	A
OF	Cornelius Randolph	A
C	Andrew Knapp	AAA

Team MVP

• Odubel Herrera was the Phillies' best player this season and represents the youth that fills the team's roster.  Herrera is just 24 years old and had the best season of his brief career this year in terms of value and served as the team's number three hitter.  He also plays center field, which is a premium position in the field and was the team's best fielder.  For the Phillies' future, Herrera will be one of the team's leaders and is already starting to live up to this expectation.

Success/Failure

• Success - This season the Phillies allowed several of their young prospects to play full, or nearly full, seasons with the MLB club.  The result was the continued development of their batters who had no reason to play another year in AAA and grew while facing the best pitching talent.  On the mound, they didn't have one regular starter who was over the age of 30 after Charlie Morton got hurt during the first week of the season.  Their starters, led by Jerad Eickhoff and Jeremy Hellickson, were highly competitive and ranked near the middle of pitching statistics.  Coming into this season, the Phillies' front office had already traded away all of the players that would yield them any value in return and they fought the urge to sign veteran free agents last offseason to fill out their roster.  Because of that, they knew that their team was going to be full of young players and were accepting of the results that would take place on the field.  The result was surprisingly better than many thought it would be, as the team was competitive for much of the season and didn't finish in the basement of the division. The only place I see that the team could have done better this year was if they had traded starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, who had an excellent season, and closer Jeanmar Gomez, a need that all playoff teams need at the trade deadline.  Regardless, the season as a whole was successful as the Phillies improved in multiple areas and are currently on the upswing of their rebuilding process.

Offseason Outlook

• I don't think that the Phillies will make any major moves or sign any big name free agents this offseason.  The only way I think this will happen is if the front office believes that the player will be a key part of their future.  To give out large contracts for temporary players would be a mistake for the team.  Right now the franchise is in a great place as they have young players locked down at most positions on the field and taking up a majority of their rotation spots. Behind current roster players is an even brighter future with eight prospects ranked in the top 100 of at least one of the three major ranking sites.  Even better is that the top tier of their next wave of prospects have either just reached the majors or finished the year at AAA and could be on the opening day roster.  They will also be drafting in the top ten again in next year's draft and should be able to get another high end prospect with that pick.  The Phillies, similar to the Braves, Brewers, and Yankees, have an extremely bright future and will represent the next wave of success in the majors.  The Phillies should be playing for 2018 and beyond when big free agency offseasons will start as players including Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, and Manny Machado could all be free agents starting in 2018.  The Phillies will have a lot of money to spend and signing at least one of the big names is very likely.  I feel that in 2019 the team could win the NL East.

*All stats and information come from baseball-reference.com, fangraphs.com, espn.com, rosterresource.com, baseballamerica.com, and spotrac.com