Philadelphia Phillies’ Lack Of Depth Exposed With Bryce Harper’s Absence

Bryce Harper sat out his fifth consecutive game for the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night. This is bad. The Phillies are now 17-17 with Harper in the line up and 1-4 without him.

After receiving a platelet-rich-plasma (PRP) treatment in his right throwing elbow on Sunday, the Phillies have been without the 2021 National League MVP. Subsequently, the ripple effects are revealing the inherent flaw in the Phillies’ roster design.

When the Phillies broke the luxury tax threshold to sign Kyle Shwarber and Nicholas Castellanos, observers were critical of the Phillies’ reasoning in signing two corner outfielders with limited defensive ability. Before the season even started, the Phillies outfield was immediately dubbed the worst defensive outfield in baseball. That was with Bryce Harper slated as the starting right fielder.

Now that Bryce Harper is out, a worst case scenario has unfolded. While it seems for the time being, Harper will avoid Tommy John surgery, the Phillies outfield situation looks more grim than anyone imagined before the 2022 season began.

Their options without Harper have been, Odubel Herrera in center field, flanked by Nicholas Castellanos and Kyle Shwarber in each corner, with Roman Quinn mixed in.

With that formation, the Phillies are forced to play Johan Camargo at 2B or SS (Camargo has not played SS since 2019), Bryson Stott at 2B or SS, and Jean Segura at 2B.

Tthe Phillies optimal remaining offensive line up which would feature both Shwarber and Castellanos in the outfield with either Johan Camargo playing out of position at short or JT Realmuto as the DH or and Garrett Stubbs (160 wRC+) behind the plate or at DH. However, that line up would have both their catcher and their backup catcher in the line up.

The other options are rough as well. They can try to get better defensive players in the mix, but Roman Quinn (-21 wRC+) and Bryson Stott (5 wRC+) are sub-optimal offensive players. They actually may be better off having pitchers hit for themselves if that’s the case.

Without a track record of solid player development, specifically on the position player side, all the Phillies had was hope that players like Bryson Stott or Matt Vierling would emerge as every day regulars. Although Stott may have the better MiLB numbers, there weren’t strong indicators that Vierling would reach his ceiling in the Majors.

The argument can be made that there is a reasonable expectation for Matt Vierling to make it to the Major League club and be a productive player. He was the number eight prospect in the Phillies’ system per Baseball America. However, it’s easy to be the eighth best prospect in an organization when you are 25 years old and in one of the worst ranked farm systems in MLB.

While prospect rankings are not perfect, they are the best publicly available aggregates of organizational talent. Most casual baseball observers only pay attention to the primary organization they cover or follow, so people rely on these lists to get an idea of what is going on with certain organizations.

In the Phillies’ haste to spend their way into contention, the bottom end of their MLB roster and their farm system suffered. The real catch twenty two is that they are not bad enough to earn high draft picks, so their amateur scouting and player development has a much thinner margin of error than other organizations.

With Sam Fuld in as General Manager, he’s faced with the challenge of keeping the Major League team competitive, while rebuilding a farm system that has plummeted in quality.

While Bryce Harper’s injury should only be temporary and he has been relatively durable over the course of his career, his absence reveals the mess Sam Fuld has inherited. It is certainly possible for the Philadelphia Phillies to compete and simultaneously rebuild their farm system, but it will be a tall task for a second year General Manager.