The goal remains the same for the Phillies, but the approach setting up for it this winter was a bit different. 

Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler got re-upped to stay in red pinstripes, but there wasn't a major splash from the outside to try and put the club over the edge. 

The Phils are going with what they already have for 2024, with any improvements made being ones at the margins. 

The hope is that this will be the formula that finally gets them that third-ever World Series title and that elusive parade down Broad Street at the end of it all. 

Because they've been pushing for it for two seasons now, came close in each of them, but were stopped short in both and left searching for that final answer. 

Now set to run it back beginning Thursday Friday against the Braves, is this finally the year they crack the riddle?

Here are 10 storylines that will be key to finding out...

Run it back

The team the Phillies are going into 2024 with is largely the same one they left 2023 with, given a couple of tweaks.

Bryce Harper took up first base and now that will be his position full-time going forward, their big offseason splurges were to ensure that Nola and Wheeler would stay put at the top of their rotation, Johan Rojas is going to stay up in the majors to play center field at least to start, and the rest of the projected lineup will still be filled out by Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, and Brandon Marsh. 

There was no substantial shakeup this year. This is it. The Phillies are going to run with the core that got them an NL pennant in 2022 and had them just a game shy of another in 2023, as much as how that run ended still stings. 

But forget about that for a second (as hard as that can be) and look at the overall body of work over the past two years. This is a good team, a World Series-caliber team, and the front office is trusting that it still is, with the hope that more marginal additions like Whit Merrifield and Spencer Turnbull will be enough to fill in the gaps. 

There are still going to be murmurs of other possibilities for sure and the trade deadline late in the summer will always present the chance for any last upgrades, but the Phillies had the luxury here of knowing what their club was going to be well ahead of the spring. Now whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to you. 

But overall, few surprises here. The Phillies are running it back. This is the group they're banking on getting them back to the postseason and taking them even farther. 

Finally time to see if they can.

Strong out of the gate

Part of getting back though is kicking a nasty habit that has plagued them for the past couple of years and cost them dearly in the divisional race. 

President of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski lamented over the offseason that he doesn't want to see this team start off so slow anymore, and if they have ambitions of keeping up with the Braves in the fight for the NL East, they're not going to have any other choice but to. 

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The 2022 season had leeway from the club fumbling under Joe Girardi and a throw gone awry that went on to take Bryce Harper permanently out of right field. They caught fire under Rob Thomson, found a solution in having Harper settle in as the regular designated hitter, and the rest was history. 

But then the same thing happened in 2023. They didn't have Harper to start as he was still rehabbing his way back from Tommy John surgery, but the rest of the team was in place, yet everything about them stayed all out of sorts for a bit. Yet once again they course-corrected and more than caught up to clinch another Wild Card spot, comfortably so this time.

Still, that stall out of the gate pretty much cost them any chance of giving the Braves a battle for the division. It became a race for second. 

Take any way into the postseason, because anything can happen once there, but the Wild Card round brings up to three extra games to account for and a lot more dice rolls to take when it comes to the rotation. It's to the Phillies' benefit to try and bypass that this time around, and really no excuse for them not to go for it. They're going to have their full lineup ready for Opening Day, mostly (relatively) healthy and a full year of having played with one another as that ideal lineup.

There's no reason that they shouldn't be able to pick up right where they left off. 

Then again, baseball is weird, and Philadelphia sports are weirder, so who can tell?

Healthy Harper

A major aspect working in the Phillies' favor heading into this season: They'll have Bryce Harper (relatively) healthy and in the field from Day 1, which they haven't had for a couple of years now. 

As mentioned earlier, he has his spot at first base now, which frees up Kyle Schwarber to be the DH full-time, which in turn lends to a more athletic outfield between Marsh, Rojas, and a Castellanos who boasted a much better glove last year.

His presence in the field alone makes the Phillies a much more balanced club defensively, but having his bat for finally – hopefully – a full season now, too? Another MVP-level campaign could be in store. 

The extension conversation

But with Harper performing well is also going to come more and more chatter about that idea of a contract extension. 

It's been lingering for a bit now and everyone is going to have their opinion about it (you can see the ones across our sports staff HERE). But whether you believe it's warranted or absurd, it's not going to go away. 

Maybe something gets done in the summer, or maybe that can gets kicked down the road or the thought dismissed entirely because the Phillies really don't have to do anything on the count of the already guaranteed 13-year contract. 

However, it's going to be a beat to keep an eye on either way because you already know Harper and agent Scott Boras will make sure that the thought stays out there. 

The best bullpen?

While researching for our annual positional previews, I was pretty stunned to see that FanGraphs' wins above replacement projections for 2024 actually favor the Phillies' bullpen considerably well – like best in the majors well – and that same realization hit a lot of other people when MLB noted as much with this graphic pushed over its social media channels last week. 

But ever since, José Alvarado has figured things out and established himself as a top late-inning option alongside Seranthony Domínguez, while other relievers like Gregory Soto, Connor Brogdon, Jeff Hoffman, Matt Strahm, and Orion Kerkering offer the Phillies maybe the most depth and promise than they've had in quite some time. 

They can all fit into numerous spots, throw hard, and deliver some nasty break. So maybe it's not that far-fetched that this relief corps could be one of baseball's best – and that's not even including all the arms they have working with minor-league options that they can send to and from. 

But will that stop you from holding your breath or pulling your hair out when 95 mph sliders are spiking into the dirt with two men on? 

No, probably not. 

Good and stressful aren't mutually exclusive. 

Invincible infield?

Another point made by our own Evan Macy late into spring training was that now that Harper is locked in at first, with Stott at second, Turner at short, and Bohm at third, that could very well be one of the strongest infields the Phillies have had in a long time – like since the Rollins, Utley, Howard era. 

Harper's, well, Harper; Turner now has a full year in Philly under his belt and the knowledge that the city is fully behind him: And both Stott and Bohm have gotten better with each full season they've been in the majors.

There's talent there, chemistry that's been building since last season, and now the certainty that they can all keep running with it into the next one. 

"It's a group of guys that has one more full year together," Bohm said a couple of weeks back. "Trea and Bryce have history all the way back to Washington, me and Stott being drafted a year apart, the communication aspect of stuff, the nonverbal and all that, that sort of chemistry keeps growing. We sort of just move together without talking, shifting and stuff, the double play combo up the middle and Bryce getting more and more comfortable at first base."

Maybe that adds up to a Gold Glove or two. 

Rolling with Rojas

Rojas came straight up from Double-A late last summer and provided just the type of athletic glove the Phillies' needed in center field to carry them defensively the rest of the way. He held up pretty well at the plate for that last stretch of the season, too. 

But on the much bigger stage of the playoffs, even though his glove was just fine and arguably saved the entire NLDS against the Braves, his bat was overwhelmed. 

The 23-year-old spent the winter bulking up and working on his approach and swing in anticipation of having to win the center field job back, and even though his numbers didn't look particularly great in the spring, the spot will be his on Opening Day against the Braves. 

So long as he can keep providing that stellar glove in the outfield, the Phillies seem set to let him figure out the rest deeper into the order. 

“If he does well enough – and I don’t mean hit .300 – he feels good, feels confident, he keeps feeling good about himself, [he’ll be fine],” Dombrowski said from Clearwater earlier this week (via MLB.com's Julia Kreuz). “And the feeling is that he will do that. He is that way now, he works very hard. He’s continued to improve on what they're talking to him about. It doesn't always translate to the game, but we’re making strides.”

And in the meantime, he'll be the focal point of...

A dependable outfield

If there's one sore spot about this current era of Phillies baseball, it's that defense has always kind of been an afterthought in favor of hitting tons of homers and scoring the most runs humanly possible. 

Make no mistake, this club still revolves around the all-mighty dinger, but a couple of pivotal decisions over the past couple of years have shifted that narrative a decent bit, even if many haven't particularly noticed.

The first was getting Brandon Marsh from the Angels at the 2022 trade deadline, which immediately gave them an outfielder who could cover a whole lot of ground among a group that comparatively couldn't. The second was calling up Rojas last season, whose speed and athleticism made him the guy in center and allowed Marsh to shift to left, which accounted for two-thirds of the field. The third, quietly, was Castellanos becoming a better outfielder himself in right field, which he started to show flashes of during the 2022 postseason run, then showed pretty clearly right away in 2023.

And overall, this is a much more dependable group of gloves the Phillies have going in, which is also something they haven't been able to say in a while. 

Ready, willing, and Abel

Mick Abel, Griff McGarry, and Andrew Painter are the top pitching prospects who have been on the way for a couple of years now.

Painter, the biggest of them all, is going to have to wait until 2025 now as he rehabs from Tommy John surgery. 

But Abel and McGarry? They're going to start the year in Triple-A Lehigh Valley, but they might not be too much further away. 

The 22-year-old Abel especially made waves this spring when he fanned new Yankees star Juan Soto on a rising fastball. 

Is it all enough?

The Phillies are running almost entirely with what they had, which again, has gotten them incredibly far. But it hasn't gotten them to that third-ever World Series title, not yet, and at the same time, baseball isn't sitting still for them either. 

Yeah, they've had the Braves' number in the postseason for two years now, but they didn't go anywhere and could just as well come back even fiercer. The Diamondbacks, who bested the Phils in the NLCS, are back and know now how good they actually are, and oh yeah, the Dodgers restocked with Shohei Ohtani. 

The Phillies as they are now on paper are looking to be really good, but nothing is ever a given.

And after two monumental Red October runs in South Philly each stopped just short of the ultimate party, will the third time finally be the charm after 16 years?

Thursday Friday will be the start of finding out. 

MORE: Phillies predictions roundup from national media

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