Philadelphia Phillies Given Highly Questionable 2023 Predicted Win Total
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Preseason projections always generate conversation.
Especially when the projections are a bit outlandish.
ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle released projected victories for the 2023 Major League Baseball season.
OK, that’s cool. There will be plenty of these types of charts as the regular season inches closer in March.
Two teams reached the World Series in ’22 with the Houston Astros getting past the feisty Philadelphia Phillies in six games.
Naturally, the Astros and Phillies would be at the top of the list again, right?
Wrong.
Doolittle (I’m not even sure who this is) picked the Astros sixth with 93 wins and the Phillies 12 – yes 12th – with 85.
The New York Mets came in first with 103 projected victories followed by the San Diego Padres (100), the New York Yankees (99), the Atlanta Braves (99), the Tampa Bay Rays (94), the Astros (93), the St. Louis Cardinals (92), the Toronto Blue Jays (90), the Los Angeles Dodgers (90), the Cleveland Guardians (88), the Milwaukee Brewers (86) and the Phillies (85).
No list is perfect, but this is skewed way too much.
After all, the Phillies won 87 games last season, advanced all the way to the World Series and then enhanced their roster as much as any team in MLB.
Trea Turner, Taijuan Walker, Matt Strahm and Craig Kimbrel will be joining an already strong team.
Maybe Doolittle is factoring in the absence of Bryce Harper as the biggest reason why they’ll only win 85 games. If Harper doesn’t recover quickly from Tommy John surgery, the Phillies won’t be as daunting. That’s true.
But the roster is loaded top to bottom regarding position players and pitchers.
Until the season starts and injuries are sorted out, we won’t know how good some teams might be. Some teams might come together later in the season. If Harper returns in mid-July and sparks the Phillies to a winning streak of 18 of 23 for instance, an 85-win season could morph into a 93-win season.
This is all very arbitrary.
To place the Phillies as an 85-win team, two less than last season, seems like a very weak argument.
No matter who’s on the injured list.
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