This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
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Suarez, Bohm, Stott...all homegrown Phillies who were contributors to good teams and who are now much better. Add Sanchez (a Rays signee acquired back in 2019) and Orion Kerkering, and a pattern starts to reveal itself. For all the deserved focus on the team’s frontline stars, on big free-agent signings like Wheeler and Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, the Phillies have become a modern organization that develops its own talent and then makes that talent better in the major leagues. Throw in what pitching coach Caleb Cotham has done with scrap-heap reliever Jeff Hoffman (5.68 ERA before Phillies, 1.99 with Phillies) and Matt Strahm (30/1 K/BB, 0.15 FIP this year), and you have to start thinking of the Phillies the way we do the Dodgers and Rays and Braves, a top-tier baseball machine.
