2022 ZiPS Projections: Philadelphia Phillies

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Philadephia Phillies.

Batters

Perhaps there’s a bit of recency bias in play since I just wrote about them, but the Phillies as an organization feel a lot to me like the Angels do. Both have significant high points on their roster: the Angels with Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon, the Phillies with Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Aaron Nola, and Zack Wheeler. But both teams share some less desirable qualities: ownership that seems to spend mostly in short bursts; major, obvious holes that go unanswered for years; and an unfortunate lack of reinforcements from the minors.

Entering the 2020 season, the Phillies ranked dead last in our positional rankings in center field. The projection was not far off, as they got a .637 OPS out of the position. They did little to address the problem after 2020, and though they did a better job thwarting the projections than the year before, I doubt anybody seriously thinks Travis Jankowski or Matt Vierling is going to be a great long-term option out there. Odúbel Herrera was already showing decline before his release, and the team has done just about nothing at the position since. In left, Andrew McCutchen was never better than simply a temporary stopgap; now that he’s gone, the Phillies don’t have a better idea. There’s still more of the offseason to come, but as of now, fans should be apprehensive about these two positions.

On the plus side, the offensive projections are solid elsewhere, to the degree that the Phillies could have a lineup in the top third of the league if the value of their stars isn’t eroded by having to haul around the two current positional millstones. Harper finally had the second fully healthy, superstar-level season of his career, and while the Harper-Trout battle has long been lost, he looks solidly back on a Hall of Fame trajectory, even if he doesn’t appear to be headed toward that inner circle pantheon. Realmuto is a good bet to be a top-five catcher, and Rhys Hoskins should be there at first, or at least close.

Depth is still a fairly serious issue. Outside of Bryson Stott in the infield, there are few places I’m thrilled with the Plan Bs.

Pitchers

While Nola and Wheeler are terrific, this is a rotation that’s absolutely crying for another solid innings-eater. Maybe that will be Zach Eflin at some point, but he’s recovering from major knee surgery and is likely to miss at least the start of the season. Right now, things look the same as last year — a reliance on the top two pitchers with a naïve hope that everything will just magically fall into place behind them. That’s how an alleged contender ended up opening a season with Matt Moore as its fourth starter.

I’m optimistic about Ranger Suárez, as is ZiPS, and the Phillies still could sign another starting pitcher. The major problem is that most of the desirable starters are already off the board. The lack of highly sought-after prospects also limits the ability of the team to make trades for others who could become available, such as one of the Reds’ starters, or John Means.

The bullpen is in better shape. Corey Knebel was one of the best relievers available, so bringing him into the fold represents a major upgrade. Ryan Sherriff is a great bounce-back candidate, basically acquired for free, and Bailey Falter projects as solidly above-average in the pen. Add in a healthy Seranthony Domínguez, and I think people will be surprised just how good this group is after a rather blecch 2021.

Add it all up and assume average health, and I think this is a team that’s roughly .500, perhaps a few wins better. It’s unfortunate, and despite the hopes during rebuilding, I don’t think we’re going to ever get a truly excellent Phillies team in this generation.

One of the fundamental problems is that the front office and ownership have responded to disappointments not by addressing the actual failings but what they want the failings to be. It’s easy to say that the problem is a manager who doesn’t know how to win and then sign a manager who allegedly does. It’s easy to say that it’s the hitting coach’s fault. It’s easy to blame the bullpen for your bad fortunes. It’s easy to say that it’s COVID’s fault because the team lost $700 quadrillion dollars.

By contrast, it’s harder to admit that a team reliant on just a few players is going to be wildly inconsistent. It’s harder to admit that you’ve been incredibly lax at finding talent at the weaker positions. It’s harder to admit that something is going wrong with your player development process when so few players are becoming real contributors in the majors. It’s harder to make the decision to go through the luxury tax threshold because you didn’t consider that the big, expensive superstars need a good foundation of secondary talent and role players to get you into the playoffs — players you have to pay for if you can’t develop them yourself.

It’s easy to build a .500 team when you’re spending $200 million. Unfortunately, the team is run on easy mode.

Now, perhaps the Phillies add Carlos Rodón, Kris Bryant, and Matthew Boyd after a new CBA is signed and somehow find enough talent to acquire Cedric Mullins or Bryan Reynolds. If that happens, my outlook will have to change; as of right now, let’s call this an 84-win team.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2022 due to injury, and players who were released in 2021. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a big band orchestra that only plays nu-metal versions of baroque cantatas, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.36, similar to the post-June substance-enforcement environment.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. ZiPS is assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2022.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter.