Four offseason names to know for the Phillies — and one big philosophical point

In their pursuit of the final step, the worst thing the Phillies can do is lose sight of the conventional wisdom that has brought them to the precipice. No play in baseball is more impactful than a long fly ball that lands on the shady side of the fence. No skill is more valuable than the ability to hit those balls. Dave Dombrowski and Rob Thomson can talk about chase rates and contact percentages until they are blue in the face. But their desire for improvement in those departments shouldn’t come at the expense of dingers.

Dingers win ballgames. Dingers win playoff series. Dingers win championships.

For what it’s worth, Tony Gwynn never won a championship. Ted Williams never won a championship. Rod Carew never won a championship. Wade Boggs won his only championship at 38 years old. Doesn’t really mean anything, but I found it interesting. Williams would add some value to the Phillies lineup. If the next one is out there, they should probably consider it.

Any conversation about the Phillies’ offseason strategy needs to keep dingers at the forefront.

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Dingers, dingers, dingers.

The Phillies didn’t hit enough of them against the Mets. That’s why they lost. The Mets hit a lot of them. That’s why they won. Of the 23 runs the Mets scored against the Phillies in the NLDS, 12 were driven in by home runs. The Phillies scored 12 runs total, four of which came on home runs.

That’s not a fluke. It is the way of the world.

Look at the World Series. The Dodgers and Yankees combined for 49 runs. Only 19 of them were scored by something other than a home run. Look at the postseason as a whole. Nearly half of the 357 runs scored this October came by way of the home runs (170 runs on 98 home runs in 37 games).

I’m not trying to minimize the other concerns that Dombrowski and Thomson will look to address this offseason. You can certainly argue that the biggest weakness with the Phillies lineup is that it is too much of a monoculture, too many players look for the same pitch, over the same part of the plate, too few players who can hit a pitcher who is throwing different pitches elsewhere. There is plenty of truth there, and very little in the notion that a lineup full of veterans can turn themselves into different hitters.

I’m not trying to minimize any of that, nor am I suggesting that the Phillies should not be taking these things into consideration as they look to augment their lineup. I’m simply saying that they should not overcorrect.

Four names to file away.

The Cardinals could be looking at 2025 as something of a reset year. Donovan ranks well down on the list of players a rebuilding team would be looking to move. At the same time, he is the kind of a guy that such a team might be willing to part with for the right price. At 27 years old, he’s isn’t exactly young. And he doesn’t profile as a centerpiece sort of superstar. But his approach numbers are best-in-class with a 12.4% strikeout rate and a 9.4% walk rate to go with superb underlying discipline numbers. He’s also a right-handed hitter who can play second, third, or the corner outfield. If you were to draw up a player to add to this Phillies lineup, it would be Donovan.

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Very much the inspiration to the prelude you just read. Santander’s top-line numbers suggest he’d be more of the same: a streaky, all-or-nothing hitter whose best comp might be Nick Castellanos. Which may be true. Santander’s chase rate in 2024 ranked in the worst 15% of outfielders with at least 200 plate appearances. That said, he makes contact. His out-of-zone contact percentage ranked sixth out of 148 outfielders (Castellanos: 120th), and his overall contact percentage ranked in the top 20%. There aren’t a lot of players who have hit 44 home runs in a season, as Santander did this year. A lot depends on the market. If he ends up settling for a short-term deal, he’s the exact sort of guy the Phillies shouldn’t rule out.

I still don’t understand why the Phillies thought it wiser to give Whit Merrifield four times as much money as the Arizona Diamondbacks ended up giving Grichuk. He ended up having a phenomenal season as a rotational outfielder for the Diamondbacks, with a .373 weighted on-base average that ranked eighth among outfielders with at least 200 plate appearances. He saw big improvements in his plate discipline metrics and set a career high with a 7.2% walk rate.

A lot depends on whether one of India, Bryson Stott, or Trea Turner could man third base. If so, an Alec Bohm-for-India swap would make some sense. India’s walk rate spiked last year and he is 27-for-31 on stolen base opportunities over the last couple of seasons. Could be one of those rare one-for-one swaps that would interest both teams.