Phillies 2022 season preview: Biggest storylines, predictions, roster outlook and more

The curtain is about to go up on the 2022 season and a re-tooled Phillies team that came out of the lockout spending on a pair of big bats. With Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos (a combined $179 million in salary) joining Bryce Harper, the reigning National League MVP, and Rhys Hoskins and J.T. Realmuto, the Phillies are counting on their offense to carry them and break a 10-year playoff drought.

But there is a lot more to know about this Phillies season, which begins at 3:05 p.m. Friday against the Oakland Athletics at Citizens Bank Park.

Check back here all week as we preview the season.

In doubling down on offense, the Phillies morphed into Sluggers, Inc. They added Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos to Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, and J.T. Realmuto, and supercharged a lineup that may challenge the single-season club record of 224 homers set by Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Raúl Ibañez, Chase Utley, and the rest of the 2009 Phillies. It’s a lineup that could get Charlie Manuel to wax on about “hittin’ season” again and inspire all sorts of creative nicknames.

But will the strategy translate to wins? That’s the Phillies’ $240 million question this season.

Because of the truncated spring training after the owners’ 99-day lockout, Major League Baseball will allow teams to carry 28 players — two more than usual — through May 1. The result: an 11-man bullpen and 15-man pitching staff.

Check out our predictions and stats projections for every player.

Will the Phillies finally make the playoffs? Citizens Bank Park hasn’t hosted a postseason game since 2011. Is this the year? Which teams represent the Phillies’ stiffest competition? Who are the players to watch? The Inquirer’s baseball insiders make their predictions for division winners, wild-card winners, the playoffs, the World Series, and individual awards.

Is there any question that Bryce Harper puts on a show? Nightly. For six months. And in perhaps the toughest sports town in America. Carson Wentz got himself traded out of Philadelphia. Ben Simmons withered here. But if there was a playbook for the city’s highly paid star athletes, Harper pretty much keeps running the “Philly Special” over and over.

It’s hard to imagine the Phillies bullpen being much worse than it was over the last two seasons. Catcher J.T. Realmuto was behind the plate for those seasons, in which the Phillies relievers collectively blew 48 saves and posted a historically bad 7.06 ERA in 2020.

But he has reason to believe the bullpen could be a strength in 2022.

The biggest change for the Phillies broadcast booths will be on the radio, where Larry Andersen will be calling only 40 games this season alongside play-by-play voice Scott Franzke, who enters his 17th year with the Phillies. With Kevin Frandsen calling games in Washington, D.C. this season, the remaining 122 games will be split by a rotation of four former Phillies players — Michael Bourn, Chad Durbin, Erik Kratz, and Kevin Stocker.

And in addition to paying for a cable subscription (or a streaming service that carries both Fox and NBC Sports Philadelphia), Phillies fans will also need to log on to both Apple+ and Peacock to watch a handful of games this season.

After a flurry of offseason activity, the Phillies have one more move to make: Pick up Joe Girardi’s option.

The manager is entering the franchise’s most important season in a decade but the team has put him in a powerless position. Give him power. Don’t risk wasting 2022.

Why? Because if they don’t pick up the option, they’re telling a team full of stars that they’re not sure about the leader’s leadership. They’re saying that the voices coaching them might be different voices as soon as next year, and those sorts of voices tend to get ignored.

There was only one acceptable answer. Credit the Phillies for realizing it. There are plenty of scenarios that would have offered Dave Dombrowski and John Middleton an opportunity to talk themselves out of including the organization’s top hitting prospect on the opening-day roster. In a lot of those situations, the Phillies would have been doing the right thing the same way they are now.

Bryson Stott isn’t getting his shot because of morals or ethics or organizational goodwill. He is getting his shot because it makes the most sense, both competitively and economically, short-term and long-term.

The consensus line for the Phillies projected win total this season is 86.5. Hitting the over would be a decent improvement on last season’s 82-80 mark and would mark the most wins the club has had since setting the team record in 2011 when the Phils went 102-60.

DraftKings has Bryce Harper at +900 to win his second consecutive MVP. Washington’s Juan Soto is +280, followed by returning Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr. at +700.

See how the rest of the forecast for the Phillies in 2022 is playing out.

At a time when teams are scaling their starting pitchers back, Zack Wheeler is wired to go six, seven, eight or even nine innings. His 213⅓ innings pitched led all of MLB last season. It’s something he takes pride in, and he’s not alone. In 2021, the Phillies’ five starters — Wheeler, Zach Eflin, Ranger Suárez, Kyle Gibson and Aaron Nola — tied for third among all 30 MLB teams in innings pitched per games started with 5⅔.

It’s an old-school mentality, but it’s one that suits the Phillies’ needs well. With a bullpen that has been taxed the past few seasons, having starters who can go deep is essential. Because of the shortened spring training due to the 99-day lockout, manager Joe Girardi is planning on holding back his starters a bit in the first month of the season. But once they get going, it will be hard to rein them in.

The ceiling is as high as it has been — and as easy to envision — as it has been since the end of their last era of greatness. In Bryson Stott, Ranger Suárez and Seranthony Dominguez, they have three young players whose pedigree and track records warrant hope that the Phillies can finish the season in legitimate contention. If all of them are at least average, and one of them stars, you’ll feel really good about September once it arrives.

The ifs are still there. But the list is a lot shorter, and its potential is as tantalizing as it has been in some time.

The most unheralded player in the Phillies’ probable opening-day lineup wasn’t a blue-chip prospect or a sabermetrics darling. He didn’t have a spot on the 40-man roster a year ago. He wasn’t even prominent on the team’s radar until he volunteered at the 2020 fall instructional league that he’s at ease playing multiple positions.

But Matt Vierling could always hit a baseball hard. Very hard. And now he will get the chance to do so this season on a regular basis as the Phillies center fielder.

New Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long figured a change in the direction of Mickey Moniak’s stride could spur more rotation with his hips. But it was all predicated on shuffling his feet in the left-handed batter’s box and moving him closer to the plate.

Moniak was willing to try it, so Long went to work. The results were clear as the 23-year-old outfielder turned in a strong spring. And when the Phillies line up for pregame introductions Friday at Citizens Bank Park, there may not be a more unlikely player on the opening-day roster than Moniak, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft who was all but written off by team officials when the offseason began.

Another game-changer in Moniak’s turnaround? A little black book that he has used to journal his thoughts on the way to making the Phillies roster.

Bobby Dickerson, 56, is in his fifth decade in baseball, the last four as mostly an infield instructor. He has worked for five organizations and coached four Gold Glove Award winners. Manny Machado swears by him. He doesn’t care much for defensive metrics. He prefers to be hands-on.

It’s fair to say, though, that Dickerson hasn’t met a challenge like his task with the Phillies. They rehired him in October to improve the majors’ worst infield defense, with one catch (unfortunate pun intended): They didn’t change the personnel.

Citizens Bank Park is tapping some new and familiar names to join the food lineup. Here’s what to expect from these new spots, plus details on new menu items throughout the park.

Among the new eats: The Big Piece is returning to first base at Citizens Bank Park as the fried chicken restaurant partly owned by Ryan Howard is opening a concession stand.