Rhys Hoskins met the Philadelphia Phillies’ expectations?

Flashback to 2016 for a moment. Rhys Hoskins was a fifth-round draft pick in his third professional season with the Philadelphia Phillies organization. He spent the entire year in Double-A, smashing 38 home runs, driving in 116, and doing it with a productive .281/.377/.566 slash line.

Hoskins looked like he was bound to do Ryan Howard things. He continued to mash into 2017, knocking 29 home runs in Triple-A through 475 plate appearances and another 18 at the major league level in only 212 trips to the plate.

In a short time period, the Phillies looked like they had a budding star on their roster. Several years later, the debate rages: has Hoskins met our expectations?

Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins has turned into a different player than we anticipated

Since his glorious rookie season in 2017 where he hit .259, Hoskins has yet to reach the .250 mark again in any single season. We’ve gotten batting averages of .246, .226, .245, and most recently .247 from him.

Low batting average aside, he has done some other things amazingly well. Hoskins strikes out about once per game but he is one of the game’s best at drawing a walk. In 2019, the season where he hit just .226, Hoskins managed to lead the league with 116 free passes.

Somewhere in an Oakland front office bound for Las Vegas, Billy Beane is drooling.

Hoskins has continued to hit for power and get on base. It is the bread and butter of what he does best. Thus far, in 511 big league games which include 2205 plate appearances, he has given the Phillies an average of 37 doubles, 37 home runs, 103 RBI, and 100 walks per 162 games played. He’s a lifetime .241/.360/.502 hitter with a large enough sample size to like or dislike what he truly is: a power hitter with some patience.

So let’s answer the question, has Rhys Hoskins met our expectations?

The quick and sad answer to the question is no. Hoskins has been a bit of a disappointment. There are two things he does amazingly well. He does it with such gusto and it can completely turn the game around with his immense power. For so many years, the Phillies lacked a guy like him. So to say he hasn’t met expectations feels a little gross.

Defensive shortcomings aside—because I don’t think any of us ever expected him to win a Gold Glove anywhere—we haven’t seen much growth from Hoskins over the years. His 34 home runs and 96 RBI season in 2018 remain his best. Granted, only the 2019 season allowed him enough opportunities to try to top it. The 2020 campaign was shortened for everyone and in 2021, Hoskins played in only 107 games.

Maybe the biggest reason why I’m feeling like the expectations column feels a little light is because Hoskins is not one of the best first basemen in baseball. As productive as he can be in a lineup featuring Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, and any of the other Phillies we’ve seen brought in around him, Hoskins seems to fade into the background rather than the foreground where, for at least a little while, it felt like he would be by this point.

Parts of five years of major league experience now on his resume with a 29th birthday coming up in March, it’s beginning to feel like this is what Hoskins is. He doesn’t have quite the same presence at the plate as Howard did in his prime. He’s not even close to the MVP contender we dreamed he could one day become.

Hoskins is, in many ways, Pat Burrell. We kind of always knew what we would get from him with the occasional monster season of hitting 30+ with more than 100 RBI and a .280 batting average. Then there were times when he would go into a year-long funk.

The monster campaign full of power, bases-clearing doubles, and wreckage on the scoreboard from Hoskins has yet to come. There’s still time left on the clock to make it happen, but for now, all we can do is sit back and hope there’s one higher setting he can get to.