Have the Phillies erred by ignoring their starting rotation?

As these few words are typed, the Philadelphia Phillies are facing a new and interesting question about their club since they’ve now re-signed the big name players who catch and play shortstop for them. Whether those guys would actually return dominated the winter’s discussion. Now, apparently, the Phillies must pivot to face this suggestion: They may have mistakenly ignored their starting rotation.

Or did they?

This is truly a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t matter.

Which starters would the Phillies want for subtracting J.T. Realmuto and Didi Gregorius?

While it is certainly true that the Phillies starters should give any observer pause, their lineup without J.T. Realmuto and Didi Gregorius cannot sensibly be called perfectly fine with the addition of – well, you get to pick the pitcher or pitchers.

How about Trevor Bauer without J.T. and Didi? How about a different catcher and shortstop, but the addition of Corey Kluber and Marcus Stroman?

These are the kinds of trade-offs we’re talking about here. That is to say – significantly weakening the Phillies offense in all likelihood and their defensive middle for sure.

While it’s true that both Realmuto and Gregorius could both step back offensively this coming season, that seems unlikely, barring injuries – plural.

It seems even less likely that another catcher the Phillies might have selected instead of Realmuto would end up with a better defensive year than his, no matter where he might be playing in this fantasy. Maybe Marcus Semien will have a better year in ’21 than Gregorius, but he ended up being more expensive for the coming campaign than the Phillies’ choice.

And the Phillies are bumping up against the luxury tax threshold. They signed a couple of minor starters.

This is not to say that Philadelphia should not have considered paying for stepping across the penalty doorway. After all, in the past few weeks, they and their observers have begun to talk about being in “win now” mode.

They’re not yelling it from the rooftops exactly – a number of things have to work out in terms of their starters, and all of them happening together seems unlikely, but who knows? The front two in their rotation could have better Septembers than last year; their third guy could continue to improve. New lefthander Matt Moore could work out, and the patchwork project that will fill the fifth slot could go, say, 9-9 with a 3.75 ERA.

The Phillies chose to spend their money on two guys who play four or five days out of five instead of one.