Looking back on 5 Philadelphia Phillies predictions for 2023 and seeing what we hit and missed
Looking back a one's preseason predictions can be especially harrowing when the team involved is the Philadelphia Phillies.
Once upon a time, in the City That Hates You Back (Philadelphia for the uninitiated), there was a sportswriter, Bob Ford, who annually looked back on his stories about the Phillies and other local teams to pinpoint errors. This fellow was quite humorous and now that he's retired, I will baldly steal his format ... minus the faux apologies of his publisher.
Today, we will look at my January Call to the Pen predictions for the Philadelphia Phillies’ 2023 regular season, and when needed, I will call myself out.
Prediction Number 1
“Philadelphia will win at least 90 regular-season games for the first time in a dozen years.”
Bingo. The Phillies, once again despite a roller coaster ride since late March, did win exactly 90 regular-season games. This moved them up to the number one NL Wild Card slot, two rungs higher on the ladder for the ’23 MLB postseason tournament than their perch last season.
Less encouraging was the fact that a new acquisition, Trea Turner, on whom this prediction was largely based, decided to imitate Nick Castellanos’ difficult adjustment to Philadelphia from 2022. This ended when, at the urging of personnel at WIP, a sports-talk radio station, fans gave the fumbling shortstop a nice round of applause for his first at-bat after a return from a road trip in August. The player then began to produce in earnest as an individual burdened with a $300 million contract.
You can not make this up.
Or this: The WIP talk show hosts are now debating whether the show producer who suggested the warm welcome deserves a World Series ring, should the Phillies need to produce any such jewelry.
Prediction Number 2
“Kyle Schwarber will have a higher batting average than .218, the figure he posted in 2022.” As suggested in my winter piece, some preseason predictions are inevitably “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
However, in this case, does it matter? While Schwarber did not very often take advantage of the new shift rules, and ended up hitting .197, he also hit 47 home runs, drove in 104, and along the way, walked 126 times. All these figures are improvements over his 2022 figures. The guy is truly Dave Kingman 2.0.
But better.
Prediction Number 3
“Former Phillies second baseman, Jean Segura, [in January] a Miami Marlin, will hit at least .310 against Philadelphia.”
This matter was complicated by the fact that Segura, an important member of 2022 NL Champion Phils, was traded by Miami to Cleveland, released immediately, and then decided to take a vacation. Reportedly, the infielder will attempt to find another team to sign him as a free agent next season.
So, Segura had only 28 at-bats against the Phillies in seven games, and eight hits. This works out to .286 (better than his .219 seasonal average) but not .310. He did hit .500 against Philly during a three-game series in July, which does not erase this error.
Prediction Number 4
“Matt Vierling, who basically platooned with Brandon Marsh after the trade deadline this past season, will be traded at the coming season’s trade deadline for an unknown need at this point. Marsh will become the everyday Phillies center fielder….”
Vierling was, in fact, traded to Detroit, but this occurred January 7, two days after my prediction, not at the trade deadline. Also, while Brandon Marsh did play a fair amount of center field for Philadelphia this past season, by the end of the season, it became fairly apparent that rookie Johan Rojas will be the Fightin’s regular center fielder moving forward.
While Marsh is a good outfielder, Rojas is a superior defender and a surprisingly effective hitter.
Thus, the technical term for this two-part prediction is “a mess.”
Prediction Number 5
“Aaron Nola will finally win the NL Cy Young at the age of 30 after two top four finishes since 2018….”
Sheese, anyone who looked at the back of Nola’s baseball card might have done better with this one since it is fairly obvious that Nola might well follow up a season with an excellent ERA (like 2022 — 3.25), with an ERA over 4.00. Nola’s ERA this season was 4.46, and Cy Young awards never go to pitchers with such ERAs.
More encouraging to Phillies fans than this wildly wrong prediction, however, is that the number two starter has been pitching much better late in this season than he has sometimes done in the past. His seven-shutout innings October 4 to push the Marlins from the current postseason were emblematic, perhaps, of another deep Phillies run towards the World Series.
But who knows? This prediction game is very, very iffy.
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