Phillies: Are there really any viable Plans B at this point?

And, Finally…

Then, there’s the slugging first baseman, Hoskins, who is a Phillies building block (much like the recently departed third baseman, who is now with the Royals).

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Not so very long ago, a little more than two years ago, Hoskins turned Philly fans’ eyes into saucers with his early home run barrage. He suggested the Second Coming of Ryan Howard, but maybe with better judgment about pitches to swing at. It seemed that if he wasn’t dropping a long fly into the left field stands, he was trotting down to first base. Oh, sure, here and there he made an out. Technically.

After last spring and summer, however, Hoskins strikes some as perhaps more tentative than selective. It’s not a bad thing, of course, to tally 116 walks in a season in the middle of the lineup, as the first baseman did, but it’s not an especially good thing to drive in only 85 in that same middle of things.

And no matter how much one is inclined to discount batting average, .226 is not good. Hoskins’ BA has gone straight downhill from the .259 he posted in 2017 when he broke into MLB with a splash.

So, what’s Plan B here? This is a talented, strong hitter who seemingly needs to take some swings at strikes early in some counts. Perhaps the famously fiery new manager can inspire that.

That talk could start like this: “Rhys, you do know there’s no actual trophy for leading the league in pitches seen, right?” Maybe the volume on that sentence needs to be turned up a little.

But if that doesn’t work, what happens? Will Hoskins, that rare creature, a Phillies homegrown player, be shipped out at mid-season? Will Alec Bohm be brought up from Double-A Reading and made to switch out of his position as he enters MLB, like Scott Kingery?

It might be argued that if a very expensive team like the Phillies is properly assembled, then all the available money will be committed to Plan A, and Plan A must work. It’s hoped that none of the four worst individual potentials for Philadelphia comes to pass in 2020.