The Phillies need an MVP Bryce Harper and Otto Kemp in the lineup ... and even then they need more
With Harper nearing his return, some thoughts on what the Phillies need to see from their struggling offense. They still need a middle-of-the-order bat.
Seven things were clear by the end of the Phillies’ 2-1 win over the Braves on Sunday afternoon.
1) The Phillies have the type of rotation that will make them even money or better in any playoff series they encounter.
2) They have the type of offense that will make them an extreme long shot to win three or four playoff series in a row.
3) If Bryce Harper does indeed come back this week, they need to find a way to keep Otto Kemp’s bat in the lineup on a near-regular basis.
4) They don’t just need Harper back, they need him back in MVP form.
5) Even if Harper is indeed back, and he is indeed back in MVP form, they will still be a middle-of-the-order bat shy of producing the sort of offense people expect out of a $290 million payroll.
6) They probably aren’t going to find the bat they need on the trade market or in the minor league system.
7) The best hope is to try to back up the rotation with a dominant bullpen and hope that the bats get hot at the right time.
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There’s a lot to unpack here. The fundamental problem with the Phillies offense is that they aren’t allowed to bat Kyle Schwarber twice in an inning. If they were allowed to do so, they could at least bat Schwarber behind Schwarber once before the lineup falls off a cliff. As things stand now, it’s hard to see how things will ever go much differently than they did in the fifth inning on Sunday.
It was a microcosm, that fifth inning. Schwarber stepped to the plate with nobody on and two out and did not see a strike. He saw a four-seamer off the plate, a slider below the zone, a four-seamer above the zone, and curveball in the dirt. Four pitches, all balls.
There are plenty of major league teams whose lineup construction would dissuade an opposing pitcher from issuing a two-out unintentional intentional walk with the three-hole hitter on deck. The Phillies’ lineup is not one of them. No, in this instance, walking Schwarber was an indisputably smart move.
As much as it would normally pain Spencer Strider to pitch around anybody, he needed only to look at the on-deck circle to find a spoonful of sugar to help the pride go down. There waited Alec Bohm, the Phillies’ three-hole hitter du jour, 2-for-23 with nine strikeouts in his last six-plus games. A short time later, Bohm whiffed on sliders for the third and fourth time of the afternoon. Strider was out of the inning.
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None of that was Bohm’s fault. There is room in a playoff lineup for a sure-handed third baseman with a league-average bat who gives you a couple of hot streaks per season. The problem is, there shouldn’t be room for it in the top half of the order.
Enter Harper. Rather, the hypothetical version of him. We’re putting an awful lot of faith in the thought that he will be right as rain when he returns from the wrist injury that has sidelined him since June 7. Remember, he was basically a league-average hitter in the 35 games leading up to his trip to the injured list. A .250/.344/.409 batting line will certainly help. But the biggest thing the Phillies have been missing is power. In Harper’s last 154 plate appearances, he had just 13 extra-base hits, four of them home runs.
Anything less than herculean output from Harper will only serve to kick the can down a spot in the order. And even if the Phillies do get Hercules-Hercules over the rest of the regular season, it’s asking an awful lot for two hitters to produce enough runs to win a World Series.
The middle third of the order is where you should look to understand why this Phillies offense is what it has become.
In 2022, the Phillies got 68 home runs from the four, five, and six hitters. This season, through 84 games, they are on pace to finish with 57. The disparity is even more glaring when you get past the Schwarber-Harper part of the lineup. This season, the Phillies have 16 home runs from their fifth- and sixth-hole hitters. In 2022, they had 39. This season, their fifth-hole hitter has a .689 OPS. That ranks 20th in the majors. Of the six teams that have fewer home runs out of the five hole, only one was more than three games over .500 as of Sunday.
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The Phillies were the best version of themselves when Bryson Stott was hitting well enough to lead off and Harper was doing Harper things in the four hole. But it has been nearly two months since we’ve seen either of those two things. Unless Stott’s recent mini-resurgence sticks, we are going to see lots more stretches like the last two weeks: 11 runs in one game followed by 14 in the next four; 10 runs followed by 12 in the next five; a 13-0 win followed by a 6-1 loss and a 2-1 win.
It’s why the Phillies absolutely should try to keep Kemp in the lineup. Put Kemp in left field and keep Schwarber at DH or put Schwarber in left field and Kemp at DH. Ignore the overall numbers for a moment. In his last 15 games, Kemp has a .345 on-base percentage and five extra-base hits in 51 at-bats. On Sunday, he drove in the tying run with a double in the fifth and then scored the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly.
Here’s a fact to chew on. Of the 74 runs that the Phillies have scored in their last 16 games, Kemp has scored or driven in 17 of them. That’s nearly a quarter of all of their runs.
Kemp probably isn’t the answer in the four or five hole. But he certainly adds value to this lineup with his compact swing, line-drive mentality, and overall attitude. Everything we’ve seen thus far suggests he is a major league hitter who could have an extended hot streak in him. The Phillies need as many of those as they can find.