This winter, the Phillies have been apathetic. They haven’t made a single upgrade, while technically spending more money on free agents than any other team—aside from the Dodgers. According to Roster Resource, all 26 players on their anticipated Opening Day roster were members of the team the previous year. Almost every other National League team has made some sort of adjustment.
Aaron Nola received almost all of Philadelphia’s free agency funds, extending the team’s longest-tenured player’s stay by another seven years. Kolby Allard was also awarded a $1 million split contract, which does not ensure the left-hander any MLB playing time. That is all. Fans are understandably growing restless.
Yet here’s the thing: the Phillies are already pretty talented. They’ve got a good bullpen, a great lineup, and a phenomenal starting rotation. Even without a single addition, this team could make a deep October run like they did last fall.
Don’t believe me? Just ask ZiPS.
ZiPS is a player projection system created by Dan Szymborski (currently of FanGraphs), who has spent the past twenty years developing and refining the design. Here’s a quick summary of how it works, courtesy of MLB.com:
ZiPS uses past performance and aging trends to develop a future projection for players. On FanGraphs, the projections are updated daily and predict each player’s numbers over the course of the remainder of the season… Obviously, no one is claiming that every ZiPS prediction will come true, but it is widely regarded as one of the most accurate predictors in the industry.
Szymborski gradually makes available the ZiPS projections for each team during the offseason, coupled with an in-depth analysis. He released the Phillies’ forecasts earlier this month, and his work offers a wealth of insights.
Position Players for the Phillies
There are two true stars at the top of the Phillies lineup. The output that the other members of the team provide will determine how far this team may go:Trea Turner is rated by ZiPS as the team’s best player. It should not be shocking to learn this. Turner finished within a tenth of a win for the team lead in fWAR among position players in 2023, despite a challenging season. The Phillies shortstop still looks like a great, and he may very well end up in the MVP debate if he can hit his 80th-percentile forecasts (6.3 fWAR, 144 OPS+), which are lower than what ZiPS had predicted for him this time last year.
It’s not exactly breaking news that Bryce Harper is expected to rank among baseball’s finest hitters. Harper ended the previous season with the ninth-highest OPS+ in the league, at 146. ZiPS projects that he will surpass that figure in 2024, with an OPS+ of 150.
Significant decline for J.T. Realmuto: Thankfully, ZiPS predicts that Realmuto won’t be as bad in 2024 as he was in 2023. Regretfully, the projection system continues to believe that he is declining. He no longer projects to be among baseball’s greatest catchers, but he should be an above-average player the next season.
It does not appear favorable for Nick Castellanos. In 2023, the right fielder experienced a brief comeback at the plate, but the predictions don’t think it was genuine. By far the least valued player in Philadelphia’s starting lineup, according to ZiPS, will be the former All-Star.
Will the childcare retreat further? According to the forecasts, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh will all be returning to the minor leagues in 2024. Even though Stott and Marsh had breakthrough seasons last year, their declines are particularly sharp. If the Phillies want to score enough runs in the bottom half of this lineup, they must hope that at least one of them performs noticeably better than his 50th-percentile forecasts.
What is a Schwar-burrel? The near-age offensive comps are an interesting component of the ZiPS forecasts. ZiPS operates by contrasting current players with a historical season database. This implies that it generates the most relevant comparisons for each player in the game. Strangely enough, Pat Burrell, the 2008 World Series champion, is Kyle Schwarber’s top opponent this year. He is a masher from the final great Phillies squad.
Phillies ZiPS: Employee Pitching