April 06, 2022
After going on a spending spree this spring, the Phillies have an offense that is star-studded and boasts potentially more power than any team since the Ryan Howard days. They also have a starting staff ranked third in baseball and an extra playoff spot to target as they look to end their decade long postseason drought.
To make the season just a little more fun, we've put together a collection of 10 over under for the Phillies this season — some of them which you can place money on at various betting outlets — and others which were created in our own baseball-loving minds. We'll let you know if it comes from an actual book or from PhillyVoice.
Without further ado, here are some milestones to keep an eye on as the east kicks off Friday in South Philly:
This is the total offered by most sports books and it seems like a realistic moniker for the Phillies this season. They have been hovering around the 80 win mark for a few seasons now, and one has to think the right combination of good health and successful team debuts of their new big ticket additions are good for a half dozen more wins this season. The NL East as a whole may be tough, but it always is. The Mets have injury issues to start, the Nationals and Marlins should offer some easy wins, the the Braves are not quite the same as they were in their historic run last year. The Phillies should be in the mid to high 80s.
A list of current Phillies who have been an All-Star in their career at some point: J.T. Realmuto, Jean Segura, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Jeurys Familia, Corey Knebel and Brad Hand. That is 10 former All-Stars (We will pass on including Odubel Herrera, but he would be No. 11). Will they all play like All-Stars in 2022? Almost certainly not. But one has to think at least three will have good enough first halves to the season. It's also worth noting that 2021 NL MVP Bryce Harper has yet to be voted an All-Star as a Phillie. That has to change this year. The last year they had three in the mid-summer classic was 2012.
That is the team record, set in 2009 by the aforementioned Ryan Howard-led Phillies. Does this team have the potential to knock 225 home runs? They absolutely do. If they can get 30+ from their big bats, Harper, Schwarber, Castellanos, and Hoskins, that's more than half the production they need right there, with just four hitters. Realmuto and Gregorius have some pop, as do young guns Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm. This team can get close to 225, but ultimately that number is pretty darn high and they will fall just short.
Last season the Phillies had a 4.39 ERA as a staff. The starters had a 4.25 ERA and the relievers had a 4.60 mark. They return the same starting five this year but have what could be vastly improved bullpen. If it stays healthy, this team should be much closer to an ERA near four in 2022.
This is a wildly optimistic total and frankly, if you want to place a futures bet bang the under here. Harper has only ever surpassed that number once in his career, hitting 42 dingers in his first MVP season back in 2015. His career average is 34 homers per 162 games, though he has hit 35 twice, including last season.
Here's a home run prop we would bet. The total for Castellanos is 31.5 and Schwarber 34.5. The thinking here is that with at least one of these sluggers at the DH spot for most of the year, they'll be well rested and grooving. Their combined over/under is a number we think can be well higher than 66 and the two of them could be the top two home run hitters in Philly this season.
In technicality, Wheeler has exceeded this number only once in his big league career: last year when he won 14 games for the Phillies. During that season, the Phils won 19 of the games Wheeler started and he had absolutely horrible run support. If he is able to stay healthy, the run support should be there in spades. Wheeler to lead the Phillies in wins and to get into the high teens are not a wild predictions by any means.
Nola averages 228 strikeouts per season. He has exceeded 210 in three of the last four seasons (and was on a great pace in the shortened 2020 season as well). This is a criminally low over under, and a healthy Nola racks up a lot more strikeouts than this — he had 223 in 2021.
Just to kind of clear this up because it is confusing: this is a measure of whether the Phillies finish better than third place in the NL East. Many projections have the Mets and Braves ahead of the Phils but I cannot help but feel like the Mets are going to be a monstrous disappointment after spending near $300 million to try and put a contender on the field. The Phillies should be in the hunt all season for the divisional crown, and while I ultimately think they likely fall short of a title, a second place finish seems in the cards if the Phils case be even a little more consistent than their rivals to the north.
Over at Bet Online, the Phillies are +100 to make the postseason, which will expand to six teams per league this season. The Phillies may be one of the clubs most helped by the inclusion of another team in 2022, as they play in a tough division and have fallen just short in recent seasons. The team is interestingly the eighth most likely to make the playoffs in the NL according to the aforementioned betting outlet, which makes this one a tough call. Ultimately, however, optimism rules this article. The Phils drought ends this October.
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