Could this year's Phillies be better than last year's Phillies?

In one area, yes. Here's the math.

Feb 16, 2026

“We’re gonna have three new relievers. We got a new right fielder . . . Crawford's gonna get every chance to play. Probably got a rookie starting pitcher, Painter. We got Otto Kemp, who wasn't here at the start of last year. So we're turning over 20 to 25 percent of our roster. So if you think that's turning it back, running it back, whatever the saying is? Yeah I can’t help you." - Robert Lewis Thomson (Jan. 20, 2026)

Thomson was technically accurate when he invented and calculated his ‘roster turnover percentage’ metric for the Phillies earlier this offseason… Even if three of the players he named were already in the organization last year.

97.3 FM’s Jeff Kerr—friend of the newsletter—crunched the numbers and came up with 23.1%.

That sounds like a lot of turnover, but you’re not alone if you don’t feel like the Phils made significant changes. Can we reasonably expect this year’s team to be any better than last year’s?

Getting to the truth requires taking a closer look at the math.

Most importantly, let’s acknowledge that not all roster spots are created equal. A player’s contribution to the team depends heavily on plate appearances or innings pitched. It also depends on whether the player is talented enough to pull the team’s numbers higher in the time they spend on the field. (Superstar-level improvements need fewer PA or IP to make a true impact than slight upgrades.)

Position players: Probably won’t be significantly better

The 2025 Phillies featured seven hitters with over 300 plate appearances and an OPS of at least .700. Those are the seven players most observers would consider the “core” of last year’s lineup: Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Alec Bohm, Trea Turner, and Brandon Marsh. All seven will return in 2026.

Edmundo Sosa and Otto Kemp were the only other Phillies players with over 200 PA and a .700 OPS last season. They will return as well.

As a team, the ‘25 Phils posted a .759 OPS, fourth-highest in the majors.

Hope for improvement this year is based primarily on replacing 1,063 PA from Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler (who produced a combined .693 OPS) with a roughly similar number of PA from Justin Crawford and Adolis Garcia.

Those 1,063 PA represented 17% of the team’s overall PA in 2025. So there is, in theory, an opportunity for real change here based on how Crawford and Garcia perform.

Holding the returning 83% of the Phillies’ OPS steady at last year’s .773:

Crawford/Garcia combining for a .650 OPS would drop the team’s overall OPS from .759 to .752
Crawford/Garcia combining for a .700 OPS would raise the team’s overall OPS from .759 to .760
Crawford/Garcia combining for a .750 OPS would raise the team’s overall OPS from .759 to .769
Crawford/Garcia combining for an .800 OPS would raise the team’s overall OPS from .759 to .778
Crawford/Garcia combining for an .850 OPS would raise the team’s overall OPS from .759 to .786

For the lineup’s overall OPS to improve significantly, Crawford and Garcia will probably have to combine for an OPS somewhere north of .750. It’s hard to predict whether that is feasible; Crawford is a rookie, and Garcia’s OPS has ranged from .836 in 2023 to .684 in 2024 to .665 in 2025. But it’s fair to say that a meaningful impact will require both players to perform somewhere close to the upper bounds of reasonable expectations.

And by definition, that’s unlikely to happen.

This all assumes, of course, that the other (returning) position players do not hit significantly better or worse as a group. While any individual player could post dramatically different numbers—Schwarber seems like a good candidate to regress from 2025, for example, while Harper is a solid bet to improve—it’s reasonable to expect that, combined, the same guys will give you pretty much the same output.

Defensively, the Crawford/Garcia combo should outperform the Kepler/Castellanos combo. So at least there’s that. And the downside risk is low, because if the new guys combine to hit for only a .650 OPS or so, the numbers above show that they wouldn’t sink the lineup. (Largely because Casty and Kepler were so bad last season.)

Starting Pitching: Probably won’t be significantly better

We can conduct a similar exercise for the starting rotation, where the Phillies will replace Ranger Suarez’s 157.1 IP with innings from rookie Andrew Painter. Last year’s rotation posted a combined 3.53 ERA, second-best in the majors.

Oddly enough, Ranger’s innings represented about 17% of the 930-ish innings thrown by Phillies starters in 2025, meaning the team turned over about the same percentage of its offensive PA and starting pitcher IP.

Unlike the Casty/Kepler starting lineup PA, however, Ranger’s production is hard to replace. Holding the remaining 83% of the Phillies’ ERA steady at last year’s 3.60 non-Ranger mark:

Replacing Ranger’s innings with a 3.00 ERA from Painter would bring the starting rotation’s overall ERA down from 3.53 to 3.50.
Replacing Ranger’s innings with a 3.50 ERA from Painter would raise the starting rotation’s overall ERA from 3.53 to 3.58.
Replacing Ranger’s innings with a 4.00 ERA from Painter would raise the starting rotation’s overall ERA from 3.53 to 3.67.
Replacing Ranger’s innings with a 4.50 ERA from Painter would raise the starting rotation’s overall ERA from 3.53 to 3.75.

No huge changes here, even if Painter posts a fantastic 3.00 ERA.

But while Ranger is the only core member of the starting rotation who won’t return this season, it’s probably fair to assume that Aaron Nola will not post another 6.01 ERA. If we consider both Ranger’s 157.1 innings and injured-Nola’s 94.1 innings as “replaced,” there’s more room for improvement; we’re now swapping out about 27% of the starting rotation’s IP at a weighted 4.25 ERA. Holding the remaining 73% of the Phillies’ ERA steady at last year’s sparkling 3.26 non-Ranger/non-Nola mark:

Replacing Ranger and injured-Nola’s innings with a combined 3.00 ERA from Painter/healthy-Nola would bring the starting rotation’s overall ERA down from 3.53 to 3.19.
Replacing Ranger and injured-Nola’s innings with a combined 3.50 ERA from Painter/healthy-Nola would bring the starting rotation’s overall ERA down from 3.53 to 3.33.
Replacing Ranger and injured-Nola’s innings with a combined 4.00 ERA from Painter/healthy-Nola would bring the starting rotation’s overall ERA down from 3.53 to 3.46.
Replacing Ranger and injured-Nola’s innings with a combined 4.50 ERA from Painter/healthy-Nola would raise the starting rotation’s overall ERA from 3.53 to 3.60.

The rotation’s potential now look much more encouraging. Not because Ranger’s innings will be easily replaced by Painter, but because healthy-Nola should (emphasis on should) be able to improve dramatically on injured-Nola’s horrific 6.01 ERA.

Like so many other Phillies seasons, this one could hinge on A-A-ron.

Still, the path to significant improvement is narrow. It depends on Nola and Painter combining for an ERA below 3.70 or so.

It’s also dependent on Wheeler and Sanchez dominating once again with sub-3.00 ERAs. But we don’t need math to tell us how important Wheeler and Sanchez are to the team’s success.

Relief pitching: Probably will be significantly better

We have one last place to look for potential improvement: the bullpen.

Here’s last year’s group, which posted a 4.27 ERA (20th-best in the majors):

Using the same methodology that we used for the rest of the team, we can split the bullpen’s overall ERA into two pieces: a weighted 4.97 ERA for the 34% of the bullpen’s 511 IP that departed (primarily in the form of Matt Strahm, Joe Ross, Jordan Romano, and David Robertson), and a weighted 3.91 ERA for the remaining 66%.

Holding the 66% piece of the Phillies’ ERA steady:

Replacing the 34% of IP that sported a combined 4.97 ERA with a 2.50 ERA from new additions would bring the bullpen’s overall ERA down from 4.27 to 3.43.
Replacing the 34% of IP that sported a combined 4.97 ERA with a 3.00 ERA from new additions would bring the bullpen’s overall ERA down from 4.27 to 3.60.
Replacing the 34% of IP that sported a combined 4.97 ERA with a 3.50 ERA from new additions would bring the bullpen’s overall ERA down from 4.27 to 3.77.
Replacing the 34% of IP that sported a combined 4.97 ERA with a 4.00 ERA from new additions would bring the bullpen’s overall ERA down from 4.27 to 3.94.

Finally, we find an area where we should expect the Phillies to improve. It is easy to imagine the additions of RHP Brad Keller (2.07 ERA in ‘25), RHP Jonathan Bowlan (3.86 ERA in ‘25), and LHP Kyle Backhus (4.62 ERA in ‘25)—plus heavier doses of Jhoan Duran and Jose Alvarado—posting a combined ERA lower than 4.00.

These results say less about the talent of the new guys (we discuss that here) than they do about the brutal 2025 numbers from Romano and Ross. Classic addition by subtraction.

‘Too long, didn’t read’ summary:

The math exercise confirms what most of us knew from the start:

It will take very strong seasons from Justin Crawford and Adolis Garcia to significantly improve on the Phils’ 2025 offense;
Andrew Painter has a high bar to clear to improve on Ranger Suarez’s ‘25 numbers, but the rotation should benefit from a healthy Nola;
We shouldn’t expect the lineup or rotation to be much worse; and
The bullpen has a clear path to improvement.

The messaging from the Phillies this offseason largely missed the mark. Dave Dombrowski, Rob Thomson, and others kept trying to argue that they made significant changes (“we’ll have more Otto Kemp!”), when in reality there’s no crime in bringing back most components of a team that won 96 regular season games. Once Kyle Schwarber re-signed, there simply weren’t many paths to improvement other than the failed Bo Bichette effort.

Maybe the club is fudging the truth because its reality is tough to accept… The “success” of another 162-game slog hinges on whether the same core players perform better in the postseason.

It’s free to subscribe to this newsletter! Just enter your email below.