Phillies Will Look For More Improvement In Expected Down Year
With less than a week away from when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, the Phillies will be looking for improvement in what is set to be another losing season.
The days of the late 2000’s-early 2010’s Phillies run seems ever so distant. As the team enter its sixth season since its last playoff appearance, GM Matt Klentak will hope his rebuild takes a step further in this rebuild. That won’t mean the Phillies jumping up by 10 wins, but rather a slew of young players start to see their breakout.
The additions veterans Howie Kendrick and Joaquin Benoit will help glue a young roster together, but in the end it’s the young guys that have the spotlight. Will Tommy Joseph flourish as an everyday player? Will Maikel Franco find consistency once again? Are Freddy Galvis and Cesar Hernandez just stop gaps?
There are tons of questions surrounding the state of the rebuild. Questions that hopefully will be answered after this season. One of the more important questions, however, is whether the highly-touted prospects will start to solidify their place in the organization, or if many will be used as valuable trade chips.
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The beauty of baseball and all of its intricacies won’t breeze over the Phillies this year. They will most likely have themselves a similar win-loss record to the one they earned last season, but that won’t mean they can’t see serious improvement. Klentak has been adamant about a decisive, patient rebuild, but that won’t mean he’ll sit back and nurture a stagnant roster.
The pitching rotation is currently in question, as well as the bullpen. But the foundations of a core are there. The next step is to sort through those foundations, and see who will have their coming out party.
Team building in baseball is rarely an overnight project when you have the starting point Klentak and the Phillies have. This season will have bumps, and much like last season, stretches of hope. The Phillies may seem a surge like they did early in the season last season at that point, and that’s where we’ll see signs of who will move this rebuild forward.
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So, as spring training kicks off, one of the more important seasons comes to stand against this Phillies team. Philadelphia has itself a test, but a test that could shape the future. Even though, a losing season is on the forefront, excitement should still be at a high.