The Philadelphia Phillies shocked the world by making an improbable run to the World Series. They had a 2-1 lead over the Houston Astros as well, but fell in six games. Ordinarily, teams might be pleased with that and continue with their schedule.
The Phillies are not most teams, though. They are clearly not interested in being known as the team that nearly won it all. They want to win it all and their offseason proves it.
MLB podcaster Jared Carrabis has noticed this and is all-in on the Phillies going all-in.
Carrabis tweeted:
"The Phillies are having the exact kind of offseason you’d love your team to have if they got all the way to the World Series and lost. Instead of falling back on them being a sixth seed who just 'got hot at the right time', Dave Dombrowski said, 'Fuck that. We’re going back.'"
The Phillies weren't supposed to make the World Series. They barely even made it in thanks to an expanded playoff field. Many teams might read into the World Series run and believe they're good.
Dombrowski, who loves to spend money, recognizes that the roster he had was largely the one that won 87 games and that the World Series run was a bit of an outlier.
He's geared up to do even better this year, adding Trea Turner in free agency and trading for Gregory Soto from the Detroit Tigers.
The NL is very deep, but it's hard not to consider the Philadelphia Phillies true contenders after all they've done this offseason.
Philadelphia Phillies' expected win total in 2023
The Philadelphia Phillies only won 87 games last year- a fact that often gets lost by their stunning run to the World Series.
The Fangraphs' projections model expects them to only win 85 games this year, even after adding Turner and Soto.
It should be noted that the projections are extremely conservative as the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees are projected the most wins at just 93 and 92, respectively.
Using WAR, it can reasonably be expected that Turner (6.3 fWAR in 2022) and Soto (0.6 fWAR) can add about 7-8 wins to their total.
They're largely the same team as last year, which means 93+ wins can reasonably be expected.