{"id":98030,"date":"2025-03-24T11:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=98030"},"modified":"2025-03-24T11:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:39:07","slug":"three-phillies-bold-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/24\/three-phillies-bold-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Phillies Bold Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Philadelphia Phillies starting the regular season on March 27, it is time for bold predictions. To start things off, Zack Wheeler gets the nod for opening day against the Washington Nationals. The team enters the season with high expectations<\/a> as they try to win a World Series with this core group. However, in each of the last three seasons, the team has come up short in the postseason. In 2022, the Phillies lost to the Houston Astros in the World Series. 2023 saw them blow a 2-0 and 3-2 lead against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS. Last season after winning the NL East for the first time since 2011 they fell short against the New York Mets in the NLDS.<\/p>\n

1. Cristopher S\u00e1nchez will be an NL Cy Young Award finalist<\/h3>\n

S\u00e1nchez enters the 2025 season coming off of a breakout campaign<\/a> in 2024. An All-Star for the first time, S\u00e1nchez went 11-9 with a 3.32 ERA and 153 strikeouts in 31 games. S\u00e1nchez recorded a 4.7 fWAR and a 3.00 FIP last season. Furthermore, S\u00e1nchez recorded a 20.3% strikeout rate and a 5.8% walk rate last season. S\u00e1nchez recorded an 80 ERA- and pitched a complete game shutout in 2024. 17 of the 31 starts S\u00e1nchez made last season were quality starts. S\u00e1nchez had a 0.54 HR\/9 rate, which ranked as the third-best among qualified starting pitchers last season. In spring training S\u00e1nchez recorded a 1-0 record with a 1.62 ERA and a 1.82 FIP in five outings. S\u00e1nchez has a 29.2% strikeout rate and a 3.1% walk rate this spring.<\/p>\n

2. Edmundo Sosa will play more games in the outfield than Kyle Schwarber<\/h3>\n

Sosa made numerous outfield appearances this spring as part of the effort to increase defensive versatility<\/a> internally. Schwarber will probably end up playing more games at first base than left field. Regardless, Schwarber is set to see increased time on\u00a0the field<\/a> this season. Schwarber played five games on the field last season, all on left field. In the regular season, Schwarber has 75 innings of experience at first base. Sosa, meanwhile, has not played more than three innings at an outfield position in a major league regular season game. Bryce Harper played 141 games at first base last season compared to three as a designated hitter. Schwarber has been working at first base in part to give Harper more DH days. Sosa has experience in center field which makes this more likely.<\/p>\n

3. Orion Kerkering will lead the team in saves<\/h3>\n

Kerkering turns 24 soon and is heading into his second full major league season. Jordan Romano had the chance to earn<\/a> the Phillies closer role in spring training. Romano will probably be the lead closer to start the regular season. However, Kerkering will surpass Romano for the role at some point. Kerkering had a 5-3 record with a 2.29 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 64 games in 2024. To add, Kerkering had a 2.42 FIP, a 28.8% strikeout rate, and a 6.6% walk rate last season. Kerkering recorded a 1.08 ERA and a 3.26 FIP this spring in eight outings. Kerkering has a 32.3% strikeout rate and a 3.2% walk rate during spring training. Kerkering has a 0.72 WHIP and a .167 batting average against this spring. The skill set is there for Kerkering to be a closer.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: \u00a0Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Philadelphia Phillies starting the regular season on March 27, it is time for bold predictions. To start things off, Zack Wheeler gets the nod for opening day against the Washington Nationals. The team enters the season with high expectations as they try to win a World Series with this core group. However, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":98040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[28573,5146,516,28752],"class_list":["post-98030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-edmundo-sosa","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-orion-kerkering"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98030"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98042,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98030\/revisions\/98042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}