The Philadelphia Phillies are bringing back a handful of familiar faces for 2021

The Philadelphia Phillies are bringing back a good chunk of their “core” for the 2021 season.

Despite a majority of the fanbase begging for significant change this offseason, it appears that the Philadelphia Phillies are heading in a different direction altogether. The team had the opportunity to “non-tender” a handful of guys who have performed poorly the last few seasons, but opted to keep all of them around for the 2021 season.

In a vacuum, a lot of these deals make sense financially when compared to the current free agent landscape and revenue being down league wide. However, continuing to commit assets and roles to the same old players every year almost guarantees the same end-of-the-season results, which obviously haven’t been good.

It’s also worth noting that the money the Phillies are committing to the players mentioned in this article could’ve been used to retain the likes of JT Realmuto and/or Didi Gregorius.

With all that said, here are the seven players set to return to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2021:

Vince Velasquez, RHP (arbitration)

I’m not going to spend a large amount of time talking about Vince Velasquez, as my coworker George Stockburger went more in-depth on the decision here: “Philadelphia Phillies finally make a decision on Vince Velasquez.”

However, the Phillies decision to bring back “Vinny Velo” is frustrating at the very least. Again, you can make the argument that he’s better than any of the currently available fifth/sixth starters on the market, but at some point it’s just time to let go.

Velasquez will head to arbitration and likely make around $4 million.

That’s money that could’ve been used to retain JT or Didi, just sayin’!