Philadelphia Phillies: What To Do With Rhys Hoskins

The Phils Should Keep Hoskins

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The Philadelphia Phillies are in desperate need of pitching help, as the club finished 23rd in starting rotation fWAR in 2019. Although they should pursue big-name free agents such as Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg, GM Matt Klentak should also explore the trade market. Arms such as German Marquez, Jon Gray, and Noah Syndergaard could be had for the right deal, and Hoskins, at the age of 26, has the combination of skills, experience, and potential that could entice front offices.

In dealing Hoskins now, however, the Phillies would be selling extremely low on their first baseman. He ended 2019 with this one of the worst stretches of his young career. Even more so, there is evidence that his struggles could be turned around. Despite a rise in groundballs and whiff, consider this: Hoskins actually made solid contact more often in August and September than he did prior.

It seems as if Hoskins needs to spend his offseason working on hitting high fastballs while resisting the urge to chase breaking balls low in the zone. The slugger once tagged as an offensive cog is still in there, and the Phillies would rather have him re-emerge in Philadelphia than some other city.

All Major League hitters endure slumps, some of which become especially dreadful. Rhys Hoskins battled through quite a difficult one at the end of 2019, but there are reasons to be optimistic that his performance then is an outlier, not the new norm.

With some key players returning from injury and hopefully some big free-agent signings, the Philadelphia Phillies should find themselves in a prime spot to battle for the NL East title in 2020. If so, I’d wager a resurgent Rhys Hoskins is a big reason why.