Philadelphia Phillies: 3 bold predictions for the 2021 season
By David Esser
Some bold predictions for the 2021 Philadelphia Phillies.
Believe it or not, MLB Spring Training is just a few weeks away at this point. Practice games will start to kick off in late February, and the Philadelphia Phillies will start gearing up for what projects to be an up and down 2021 season.
Outside of trading for a bounce-back candidate in the bullpen, the team has done little to improve this winter (they’ve technically gotten worse with Realmuto and Gregorius still free agents), with reports of salary shedding being the main goal.
With that said, there’s still reason to believe in the 2021 Phillies. Here are there bold predictions for the upcoming season:
More from Section 215
- 4 Eagles on the Bubble Who Have Clinched Their 53-Man Roster Spots
- Best Pennsylvania Sportsbook Promos: Win $650 GUARANTEED Bonus PLUS $100 off NFL Sunday Ticket
- 3 Punters the Eagles Must Target to Replace Arryn Siposs
- Cowboys Trey Lance Trade Proves How Screwed They Are With Dak Prescott
- Devon Allen Took Britain Covey’s Job on Eagles
Scott Kingery bounces back in a big way.
Scott Kingery had a really bad 2020 season, there’s no way around that. He finished the shortened season with a .511 OPS, and he failed to get his batting average over the Mendoza Line (he hit .159).
A lot of people have written off Kingery altogether because of this season, but there’s reason to believe that this was a fluke.
For starters, Kingery was very much trending in the right direction prior to 2020. His OPS jumped 183 points from 2018 to 2019 (.605 to .788), and his 2.8 WAR in 2019 ranked towards the top of the Phillies roster that year.
Kingery battled a nasty bout of COVID-19 right as the 2020 season was about to kick-off, which could explain a lot of his struggles. Even if COVID wasn’t the reason for his struggles, Kingery only played 36 games this past summer. That’s a pretty darn small sample size.
If we agree to throw out Kingery’s 2020 campaign for these reasons, it’s not hard to come to the conclusion that he’ll return to his promising 2019 form. In fact, I’m going to go as far as to say that he’ll record a better WAR in 2021 than he did in 2019, that’s how confident I am in his ability to bounce back.