The Philadelphia Phillies only used four starting pitchers to open the 2015 season because of how the schedule was laid out. Those four were Cole Hamels, Aaron Harang, Jerome Williams and David Buchanan. By the end of the 2015 season, Hamels was with the Texas Rangers, and the other three were no longer in the team's rotation. Having zero members of your Opening Day rotation finish the season in the rotation is a pretty sure bet to put your team on the cusp of picking number one overall, and it did just that for the 2015 Phillies.
With Spring Training looming, Williams and Harang are currently free-agents, Hamels will be suiting up for a playoff contender and Buchanan would need nothing short of a miracle to open the season in the big-leagues.
So how will the Phillies rotation look to start the 2016 season? Here's a pre-Spring Training look.
Which five will be in rotation?
This will come down to a few people competing for the fifth spot. In no particular order, Aaron Nola, Jerad Eickhoff, Charlie Morton and Jeremy Hellickson are relative locks to be in the rotation. The first two are locks because they pitched well down the stretch and figure to be part of the team's long-term plan. The other two are scheduled to make enough money — Morton at $8 million and Hellickson at $7 million — that the Phillies wouldn't have traded for them if they didn't intend for them to be in the rotation.
The three that have a chance to fill out the final spot rotation are Vincent Velasquez, Adam Morgan and Brett Oberholtzer.
Velasquez, the key piece acquired in the Ken Giles trade with the Houston Astros, probably won't start the season anywhere other than Philadelphia, but there are some who believe he is better suited to be a closer. Given the team's depth of innings eaters, this may be a chance to try him out as a late-inning reliever. He may eventually transition into being a starter, or perhaps, much like what happened with Aroldis Chapman, the team will find out he's better suited to be their long-term closer.
With that in the Phillies back-pocket, seriously considering Velasquez for the rotation to start the season would seem to be unnecessary.
From there, Oberholtzer would seem to be the favorite for the fifth spot. He was also acquired in the Giles trade by general manager Matt Klentak, and it would be a strange thing for him to acquire someone who is out of minor league options if he didn't intend for him to be in the rotation.
Morgan, depending on how the bullpen shakes out, could be the team's long-man, or fill another role in the bullpen. Another possibility is that he starts the season in the minor-leagues, which seemed extremely unlikely given that he was fairly serviceable last year. Either solution speaks to Klentak attempting to build up the organization's upper-level pitching depth, one of the many issues the team had in 2015.
Who will start on opening day?
Aaron Nola told Ryan Lawrence of Philly Voice that he would like to get the ball on Opening Day, but also hinted that because of how early he is in his career, he knows he may not get that opportunity.
Eickhoff and whoever ends up being the fifth-starter won't be competing to start in the first game, but Hellickson and Morton, who have a bit more experience, could also be possibilities.
On paper, Nola is the best starter on the team and should start on Opening Day. Would he feel added pressure from technically being the team's number one starter? Maybe, but even if he starts in the second of third game, he's still going to be viewed as the team's best starter.
The reality is that who the Opening Day starter is doesn't normally mean much. From 2007 to 2009, Brett Myers started for the Phillies on Opening Day. During that period, the Phillies ended up winning three division titles, two National League pennants and a World Series. Brett Myers has been extremely kind to me in my limited experiences with him, but needless to say, Myers wasn't starting game one of any playoff series.
Phillies nuggets
- I think people who believe that the Phillies are going to approach going .500 this season are getting ahead of themselves. That said, a lot of national outlets are going to predict the Phillies to compete with the Atlanta Braves for the worst record in both the division in the league. Because of that, this Fangraphs article about how the Phillies will be exciting in 2016 is worth a read, because I believe they've had enough turnover that won't be the case. I'm not sure how many games the Phillies will win in 2016, but it should be a fair improvement over the 63 games they won in 2015.
- As MLB.com's Todd Zolecki noted after the Ken Giles trade, Jimmy Cordero, who the team landed in return for Ben Revere, is very much worth watching in 2016. General manager Matt Klentak spoke highly of Cordero earlier this off-season and seemed to suggest that he could develop into a closer, and the Phillies don't have a clear-cut long-term closer.
- Watching the Broncos celebrate a Superbowl victory once again puts how badly things in Philadelphia sports have been in terms of producing championships. There have been seven world champions since the Phillies won the World Series in 2008. You don't even want to know the numbers of how many championships have been won since any of the other three won a title.
Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) is the Managing Editor of Philliedelphia.com, focusing on news and features.
