Miami Marlins news: The Philly threat

I already did something similar when I looked at the New York Mets. The result was that they're looking at 90+ wins again, but as other writers have pointed out the team is surprisingly old and there's a lot of risk for aging to significantly hurt the team. Let's turn to the Philadelphia Phillies now... the Miami Marlins are in the same division as the defending NL Champions, who also just signed top SS Trea Turner. Just how good are they? Can they repeat?

The Philadelphia Phillies are another division threat for the Miami Marlins.

I wish that the Miami Marlins spent in free agency this off-season, I wish that we were in on the top free agents. The Philadelphia Phillies spent in free agency and brought in an elite SS, but are they going to be better in 2023? Will they be worse? One big mistake that is often made, is where a marquee signing is seen as automatically improving the team. Remember when the Boston Red Sox signed Carl Crawford after the 2010 season? Crawford just had a 7.0 WAR season with the Tampa Bay Rays and was now coming to the 89 win Boston team. Did it work out? Boston won just one more game next season and still missed the playoffs.

How about when the buzz was about Philly signing Bryce Harper? The 2018 Philadelphia Phillies won 80 games, with Harper in 2019 they won 81. Star players improve teams, but there's also the rest of the team to worry about. So, how does the rest look like for Philly now? The rotation is losing Noah Syndergaard (3.66 ERA/0.6 WAR) and gaining Taijuan Walker and his projected by Fangraphs 4.47 ERA/1.5 WAR. Um, not a good start. The bullpen had a bunch of veterans who are now all gone: Brad Hand (2.80 ERA/0.9 WAR), Corey Knebel (3.43 ERA/0.6 WAR) and closer David Robertson (2.70 ERA/0.7 WAR). That's 2.2 WAR gone. They did add Matt Strahm ( 3.83 ERA/0.3 WAR), Craig Kimbrel (3.75 ERA/0.2 WAR) and Gregory Soto (3.87 ERA/0.3 WAR). I think that it's pretty clear that their pitching got worse.

What about their lineup? Well so far they're adding Trea Turner and his 4.9 WAR, while losing Jean Segura and his 1.8 WAR. Let's do an approximate math here... Segura, Hand, Syndergaard, Knebel, Robertson and spot starter Zach Eflin (0.9 WAR) add up to 5.5 WAR. They're getting a projected 0.1 WAR (Strahm), 0.5 WAR (Kimbrel), 4.5 WAR (Trea) and 0.3 WAR (Soto) for 5.4 WAR. They're also going to be without Bryce Harper for at least half a season. In short, they will likely win around the same 87 win mark as they did in 2022.