After he accepted the Philadelphia Phillies qualifying offer this offseason, pitcher Jeremy Hellickson said that he thought the team could compete in 2017. His manager also thinks that the team could begin to turn the corner in 2017.
Speaking at the Williamsport Crosscutters hot stove banquet, Mackanin told the collective media, including Mitch Rupert of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, that he doesn't think the team is far from contending:
"I believe we are very close to being contenders again, mainly because I choose to believe those young guys are going to take a step forward and become better players. If they do that we are going to be more competitive."
The Phillies are a young team and will see various top prospects make their Major league debuts during 2016, but Mackanin's words seemed to be aimed at four individuals: Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrera, Aaron Nola and Vince Velasquez. Those four are the most important young talents with major league experience, and how they perform in 2017 and 2018 will go a long way in determining if the Phillies return to contention.
Franco will need to consistently demonstrate the ability to hit the ball to all fields, because when he does that he projects to be a player that hits closer to .280 and 35 home runs. If not, he may have peaked at being a player than hits around .250 and can hit 25-30 home runs per season. New hitting coach Matt Stairs' biggest responsibility has to be getting Franco to hit to all fields, something he discussed in the television broadcast booth all 2016.
Stairs' second biggest assignment will be to get the freshly extended Herrera to consistently have good timing at the plate and to be patient, because when he does both of those things, he's an All-Star caliber player.
Nola first needs to prove his health. If he is, as Mackanin says, healthy, then him picking up where he left off in the first two months of the season last year — he posted a 3.55 ERA in April and a 2.31 ERA in a dominant month of May — would be a nice place to start.
Vince Velasquez faded in the second half of 2016, but flashed front of the rotation potential early in the season. He needs to prove that he's able to go deeper in games and is more geared to be a starter than a late-inning reliever. Health, as always, will be worth monitoring with Velasquez as well.
Mackanin should be encouraged by the fact that the Phillies have added some veterans to take pressure off of their young talent. Howie Kendrick and Michael Saunders should take a bit of the burden off Franco and Herrera, while also giving them two veteran players to watch prepare day-in-and-day-out. The Phillies retained Hellickson and added Clay Buchholz, which should help both Nola and Velasquez.
If these four players grow in 2017, the Phillies probably won't be a playoff team, but they could push closer to being a .500 team. When you consider that the Phillies have a top five farm system and a ton of money to spend, seeing these four progress would make 2017 a successful season.
