By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
While it seems less than likely that Jeremy Hellickson will return to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2017, the possibility exists, and manager Pete Mackanin told Ryan Lawrence of Philly Voice that he would like to see it become a reality:
“Yeah I’d like to see him back, (Hellickson has) been a stabilizer for us,” Mackanin said. “He gives us a lot of innings. The best part about this year is getting a getting a look at all of our starters and we’re pretty happy with what we’ve seen from all of our starters."
The Phillies are expected to offer Hellickson a qualifying offer, which he could either accept or decline. If he accepts it, he would be accepting a one-year deal, which ESPN's Buster Olney noted in July is expected to be in the range of $16.7 million.
While Jon Heyman of Today's Knuckleball reported earlier this month that the Phillies wouldn't consider it a disaster of Hellickson did accept the qualifying offer, their hope when they elected to hold onto him this summer instead of trading him was that he would sign elsewhere when offered the qualifying offer, which would allow the Phillies to collect a compensatory round pick.
There doesn't seem to be an in between in terms of the Phillies retaining Hellickson. If he doesn't accept the qualifying offer, it's almost impossible the Phillies would turn around an offer him a multi-year deal instead of trying to obtain the compensatory pick.
Mackanin seems to be a big fan of Hellickson. Heyman reported after the league's waiver trade deadline passed that Mackanin 'preferred to hold onto' Hellickson, which was probably indicative of both the positive veteran presence he's brought to the extremely young rotation and the Phillies needing pitchers to finish out the season.
Hellickson, 29, was the team's Opening Day starter in 2015 after being acquired in a trade this past off-season. In a contract year, Hellickson has gone 11-9 with a 3.76 ERA (4.08 FIP, 2.8 WAR per Fangraphs) and logged over 170 innings. If he does return to the Phillies in 2017, he would seem to be in line to be the team's Opening Day starter in 2017.
