Phillies thoughts: Johan Rojas should stay (for now); Orion Kerkering concerns; evaluating the bullpen hype

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Three things I learned about the 2024 Phillies after a week in Clearwater ...

1) Orion Kerkering’s late start is a bigger deal than a lot of people realize.

Nobody needed spring-training reps more than Kerkering. In order to be a legit high-leverage option, he needs to be able to pitch off his fastball. The sweeper is devastating, but the NLCS showed us its limitations. Problem is, he threw exactly nine fastballs in his 60 regular-season pitches last year. Nine. Don’t get me wrong. He has a good heater. But he needs to have the confidence to throw it for strikes. This spring was the time for him to get in that rhythm. Unfortunately, he missed three weeks dealing with the flu and now will be on the injured list until at least April 9. Is that enough time to make up all of the reps he missed? We’ll see.

Gregory Soto showed us last season how much disruption a springtime absence can cause. I’m not saying Kerkering won’t emerge as a go-to option in the eighth or ninth inning. I just think it is a mistake to assume it is preordained. He still has a ton to prove, and less time to prove it.

2) Speaking of Soto, he is one of the key variables that will determine whether the Phillies really do have the best bullpen in the majors.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the Phillies ranked atop FanGraphs’ bullpen WAR projections for the upcoming season. But, hey, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me every single April and I become dead inside.

Daffodils, robins, and optimism about the Phillies’ bullpen. Every year we spend the month of March talking ourselves into hypoxia about the improvements they’ve made. And every April we go looking for the fire extinguisher. Last year, the Phillies’ bullpen came out of April with the sixth-highest walk rate in the majors and the fourth-lowest average fastball velocity. They ranked 19th in ERA, an improvement over 2022, when they ranked 24th.

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The good thing about projection systems is that they are not prisoners of their past traumas. Over the last four months of 2023 (June-September), the Phillies’ bullpen ranked third in ERA (3.23) and first in average fastball velocity (95.8). It was also top 10 in most of the other major rate metrics. Good stuff, especially given that Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado ranked fifth and seventh on the team in appearances during that stretch. Add in Kerkering and there’s plenty of reason to believe the Phillies can be better than they were down the stretch.

In order for that to happen, I think a couple of things need to go right, and nothing go massively wrong.

Let’s assume the Phillies end up getting what they got last year from Alvarado, Jeff Hoffman, and Matt Strahm. You need a fourth guy, especially with the lack of closing experience from that group. And in an ideal world, Strahm is more of a multiple-innings bridge reliever than a true setup man. Which means you need a fifth guy, too. Even if Kerkering ends up filling one of those two slots, the Phillies are still going to need someone to step up.

Domínguez is one option, but he’ll need to be the guy from 2022 and not 2023. I’m not sure he’s at the point in his career where we can bet on that happening.

Soto? He’s a different story. When the Phillies traded for him last offseason, he was coming off a two-year stretch in which he saved 48 games with a 3.34 ERA. Last year’s 4.62 ERA was ugly. But his Fielding Independent Pitching was 3.59, same as it was in 2022. Which suggests that we should expect some positive regression to the mean. Rob Thomson has been encouraged by what he’s seen this spring (a rough outing on Saturday notwithstanding). Soto has struck out 10 of the 30 batters without allowing a home run and while walking just two.

Is Soto a sure thing? No. That has never been his MO. But we are talking about a world in which the Phillies have a truly elite bullpen. And Soto will need to be a big part of that world.

3) Johan Rojas should get a spot on the opening-day roster and a month to earn a permanent job.

I think there’s a strong chance Rojas turns out to be one of those big spring-training storylines that never was a story at all. There’s a legitimate question whether Rojas can hit well enough to stick as an MLB regular, but we’ve seen far more evidence that Cristian Pache can’t. So what sense does it make to wait to find out about Rojas? I keep searching for a valid rationale, but I really can’t.

I suspect it will eventually make sense to have Brandon Marsh in center field and Whit Merrifield in left. But Marsh is coming off knee surgery, and Merrifield is coming off a disappointing end to last season, and the Phillies are opening the year against the Braves in a series where runs could be at a premium. We’ve already seen Rojas change a series against Atlanta with his defense. The obvious move is to start the season with Rojas in center field, then send him to triple A whenever you decide you can’t live with his bat in the lineup anymore. Hopefully that never happens. But if it does, and the Phillies think he can still learn a thing or two in triple A, they can send him there and bring him back after a few months for his defense down the stretch.