December 28, 2023
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
Phillies outfielder Johan Rojas has been hitting the gym in the offseason.
Post-winter meetings and into the holidays can get pretty quiet around baseball – unless you're the Dodgers throwing the money of entire other franchises around – but there are a few beats to check in on with the Phillies as things slowly but surely begin to ramp up toward the spring.
So let's get right into it.
Here's what they're saying about the Phillies, starting with the young outfielder who's hoping to make a much bigger impact...
The starting job in center field isn't being guaranteed, and at the winter meetings earlier this month, manager Rob Thomson said Johan Rojas was in the gym and the batting cage looking to come back and take it in the spring.
And from a glance at Rojas' Instagram, yeah, he's serious about that.
Rojas, after being called up mid-season, was a boon defensively for the Phillies and held his own at the plate on the way back to the playoffs.
But once the Phils reached October, and got past the Marlins in the Wild Card round, he struggled mightily offensively and doesn't seem intent on being outmatched like that again.
The gain in muscle is obvious from the photos, but per Alex Coffey, Rojas was also one of the first to call hitting coach Kevin Long this offseason to immediately get to work on improving his swing.
An Opening Day job is on the line, but are continued World Series aspirations to contribute to.
So, with that in mind, Rojas decided to attack his challenge head-on. He has been working with Manny Amador, the Phillies’ DR Coordinator, in the Dominican Republic, and taking live batting practice about two to three times a week. Long says that Rojas is the only player on the active roster who is seeing live pitching right now.
“He’s probably taking the most swings of anybody we have up to this point,” he said. “Some guys haven’t even gotten started.”
Rojas has incorporated some subtle adjustments to his positioning that Long believes will help him make better decisions at the plate. When he was called up in July, most of Rojas’ work was centered around finding a shorter route to the ball, which is still a priority for him. But Long would also like to see the center fielder quiet down some of the movements that might be preventing him from making good swing decisions.
“He’s really hard on his front side,” Long said. “He doesn’t really hold his body position well, and he goes hard forward. So, we really quieted down his load. Everything he does. Until he attacks, he should stay stacked more. You should see less head movement.
“He’s also a little bit wider. He’s staying into his legs better. He’s not jumping at the ball. And his bat path has changed, because when he was going so hard forward, he attacked the ball very steep, which was like pounding it down. Now, it’s flatter. He’s staying in the zone a lot longer.” [The Inquirer]
One thing to note: Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott from year 1 to year 2 both came back bigger, better, and smarter players. Maybe Rojas will follow a similar trajectory.
He is only 23, after all. There's still a lot of room for growth.
The year's end is always met with reflection in every category imaginable, and Jayson Stark over at the Athletic is using the post-holiday quiet to look back on the year that was in baseball...for how weird it was.
Exhibit A: Kyle Schwarber, the .197-hitting one-man bomb squad who stands as the strangest leadoff hitter baseball's ever seen.
One point from Stark – out of the many that should be read in full HERE – that made Schwarber as the Phillies' leadoff man so unique:
He was a leadoff earthquake waiting to happen! For 108 games in 2023, Schwarber was the first Phillies hitter to step into the box. He got a hit to lead off exactly 21 of those games. He hit a single to lead off only six of those games. So you think that was a problem?
Um, not so much. His OPS leading off games still wound up at 1.056. Does that sound good? It should, since it was merely the highest OPS, as the first batter of the game, in the history of a franchise that has been around since 1883 … because, apparently, all those leadoff walks (21) and leadoff Schwarbombs (11) can also be helpful. Which reminds us: If we just talk about his whiffs and his average, we’re leaving out some stuff! [The Athletic]
Few things have gotten the CBP crowd going more these past couple of years than a leadoff Schwarbomb.
The Dodgers gave Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto $325 million over 12 years alongside their ridiculous deferred $700 million deal for Shohei Ohtani to cement them as baseball's new powerhouse.
Other teams had interest or were in the running for Yamamoto. The Phillies were one of them. What now?
Staying with The Athletic, Stephen J. Nesbitt and Chad Jennings projected the next steps for each of the clubs who were in on the prized free-agent pitcher but lost.
What they wrote of the Phillies:
The Phillies already signed the most reliable, high-end starting pitcher on the free agent market, but while a $172 million deal with [Aaron Nola] was a massive splash, it was not a transformative addition. Nola spent the past nine years in the Phillies rotation, and bringing him back was more maintenance than improvement. Yamamoto would have been a real upgrade on par with last winter’s signing of Trea Turner. Even without Yamamoto, the Phillies still look like legitimate contenders. They were a win away from advancing to the World Series last year, their roster is largely unchanged, and there are still viable rotation upgrades available via trade and free agency. The fact they were reportedly in the Yamamoto bidding suggests they’re not only committed to another World Series run, but perhaps already thinking ahead to [Zack Wheeler’s] pending free agency a year from now. [The Athletic]As mentioned here before, a 1-4 starting rotation of Wheeler, Nola, Ranger Suárez, and Taijuan Walker should be more than good enough to get the Phillies back to October, and maybe with one more upgrade to push them toward the finish line.
And as mentioned above, Wheeler is entering a contract year. Having money set aside to get him re-signed should be a top priority.
Improvements at the margins has been the main theme surrounding the Phillies this offseason. It's been a relatively quiet winter compared to Dave Dombrowski's previous work, and seems more and more likely to stay that way as the calendar gets set to turn into the new year.
It's hard, however, to entirely dismiss the idea that Dombrowski has some sort of trick up his sleeve.
Yeah, the Phillies can field this roster mostly as it is right now and continue to be competitive. But the bullpen, especially toward the back end – i.e. the closer – can leave you wanting, which leads back to one major name still available: Josh Hader.
PHLY's John Foley on the prospects of Hader in Philly:
To be extremely clear: the Phillies’ front office has given no outward indication that they are pursuing Josh Hader. Absent a blockbuster trade, however, the Phillies do not have many options to meaningfully move the needle on their championship odds. If the organization is looking for a true difference-maker, they should probably explore the idea of adding one of the best closers in baseball. Hader may be exactly the player the Phillies were missing in the 2023 postseason. And he may be exactly the player they need in 2024.
If you disagree, consider re-watching Kimbrel’s performance in the NLCS. [PHLY]
Unless you're not ready to experience that pain again.
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