Phillies Relying on Youth Instead of Spending
It’s easy for the Philadelphia Phillies to be linked to the highest-profile players on the market every offseason. They are not afraid to spend money and they have an appetite to win. That’s been a recipe for them adding some of the best available players the past few cycles by way of Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Zack Wheeler and Nick Castellanos. The Phillies weren’t afraid to open up their checkbooks to keep Aaron Nola from leaving in free agency either after locking him up with a seven-year, $172 million contract. Now, that seemingly will be the extent of what they do this offseason.
President of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski, has been open about him thinking they have very few holes on the roster they need to address. It looks like he will be relying on their young players to take the next steps in their career instead of spending more money on additions. “Some of our change, I think, is through young blood … We are rolling the same team back, but really we’re only rolling the same team that was there the last couple months of the season, and we didn’t win it all. And I think there’s still a great hunger to win this thing,” he told Todd Zolecki of MLB.com.
Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm became stars for Philadelphia last season after stepping up in the absence of Harper and performing at a high level. Brandon Marsh has turned into a solid outfield piece for the Phillies since coming over from the Los Angeles Angels. While those three look like they’ll be playing for the foreseeable future, there are some questions about other young pieces. Johan Rojas has shown he can be an elite defender, but there are concerns about his viability at the plate following his poor postseason performance.
Cristopher Sanchez projects to be part of the rotation and bullpen, but has never thrown 100 innings in a season. Orion Kerkering looks like their future closer, but his meteoric rise in his first professional season that took him from Single-A to their MLB roster presents and unknown element. So, Dombrowski is banking on all these players to continue growing in their careers. They’ll need to produce at levels that potential outside help would provide for Philadelphia to win the World Series.
