March 19, 2024
Joe Rondone/USA TODAY Sports
Orion Kerkering pulled off a meteoric rise to the MLB level in 2023. Might he become the Phillies' closer in 2024?
The Phillies' offseason plan was simple: bring back as many key pieces as possible from a 2023 squad that was one win away from winning the team's second straight National League pennant.
For that reason, the Phillies figure to once again be contenders. But just about every team has at least a few reasons to be concerned, and the Phillies are no different. There are a few aspects of their 2024 roster which give me pause:
Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suarez, Taijuan Walker and Cristopher Sanchez made up one of the best starting rotations in baseball in 2023, and could very well be an elite grouping again this season. But over the last few seasons, the Phillies have had tremendous luck when it comes to starting pitching health. Outside of Suarez missing the first month or so of 2023, the team enjoyed a clean bill of health when it came to their rotation.
In years past, the Phillies have received noteworthy contributions from minor league starters: Bailey Falter was tremendous in September of 2022, and Sanchez helped solidify their rotation for several months in 2023.
Heading into this season, though, the only pitchers on the 40-man roster outside of the aforementioned five who could conceivably be stretched out as starters are Spencer Turnbull, Kolby Allard, Dylan Covey (who will reportedly begin the season on the Injured List) and Nick Nelson. That is... a big group of question marks. The only other option currently on the 40-man roster would be Matt Strahm, who surprisingly excelled in a starter's role to open 2023 but should ideally remain a dangerous southpaw out of the bullpen.
Even if one is to assume that Wheeler and Nola make it through another season without any injuries and maintain the excellence they have displayed over the past few seasons, there are many innings which still need to be accounted for: Suarez has never thrown more than 155.1 innings in a professional season and Sanchez set a nearly-identical career high last season between Triple-A and the majors. Walker threw a career-high 172.2 innings in 2023, but he had a delayed start in Clearwater, has a noteworthy injury history and appears to be regressing (Walker will turn 32 in August).
The Phillies signed Turnbull and Allard, two starters who once showed promise, to be their most obvious depth options should a major league starter go down with an injury, but neither has proven to be reliable whatsoever: Allard has a career ERA of 6.10, while Turnbull has only accumulated 31.0 major league innings over the last two seasons with an ERA of 7.26.
After a disastrous Phillies debut in his lone start against the Atlanta Braves, Covey was moved to the bullpen, where he was stashed as a long reliever who typically took on mop-up duty and nothing more. With the caveat that he almost exclusively pitched in low-leverage situations, Covey's ERA out of the bullpen was 2.76. Covey the only member of the group who is out of minor league options, which may give him the inside track on a similar long man role in the majors whenever he is healthy enough to pitch. Nelson made 20 starts in Lehigh Valley in 2023, and the numbers he posted were not encouraging: his strikeout rates plummeted and his WHIP nearly reached 1.5.
Then there are the options who are not on the 40-man. The most noteworthy option is the team's second-best pitching prospect, Mick Abel, who is expected to start the season in Lehigh Valley. Abel struggled quite a bit with his command in the minors in 2023, but the 22-year-old former first-round draft pick has the requisite talent to be a major league starter.
The rotation the Phillies have put together was stellar last season, and it may be again in 2024. But this is not a video game in which injuries can be toggled off — the Phillies are going to need at least competent starts from at least one or two arms not named Wheeler, Nola, Suarez, Sanchez or Walker.
As brutal as Kimbrel's postseason performance was, his regular season was excellent. He dominated opposing hitters for much of the summer and the month of September. While Phillies manager Rob Thomson does not always subscribe to traditional norms when it comes to assigning bullpen roles, nearly every team in the majors eventually lands on a designated closer. With Kimbrel now being a Baltimore Oriole and the Phillies having not added any established relief pitchers during the offseason, it is unclear who that player would be.
Thomson's most dangerous weapon out of the bullpen is the left-handed flamethrower Jose Alvarado. But over the last two years, as Alvarado has emerged as possibly the best lefty reliever in baseball, Thomson has shown an affinity for using Alvarado against the heart of the opposition's order, regardless of inning.
Jeff Hoffman became the Phillies' most reliable right-handed reliever by the end of 2023, but his specialty is cleaning up messes in what Thomson refers to as "dirty innings," when runners are on base and someone has to get out of a jam — Hoffman's remarkable strikeout numbers last season made him the ideal guy for that role.
Strahm closed out the Braves in Game 4 of the NLDS last season, but was mostly used in the middle of games. Strahm's ability to take down more than three outs in any given appearance makes it unlikely that he will close — his multi-inning potential is rare in today's game.
Gregory Soto had an underwhelming first season in Philadelphia, as he was especially prone to brutal outings. But he was an All-Star closer for the Detroit Tigers in 2022. He could be a candidate to fill that role. The same could be said for Seranthony Dominguez. Entering his sixth season of major league action, Dominguez has on several occasions switched between being extremely shaky and outright dominant. His run alongside Alvarado in the 2022 postseason was legendary, but he did not look as good in 2023.
That leaves one wild card option: Orion Kerkering. Kerkering, who never threw a single pitch at a level above Double-A as of Sep. 20 of last year, has just three regular season major league appearances under his belt — and eventually lost control in the NLCS when asked to pitch on back-to-back days for the first time in his professional career. And yet, it feels as if Kerkering, who will turn 23 about one week into the regular season, has already been penciled in for a significant role in the Phillies' bullpen. It is not hard to understand why: Kerkering has exhibited tremendous composure during his young major league career, and more importantly, has an absolutely ridiculous slider. There may be a world in which he becomes the Phillies' closer in his first full major league season.
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