This is INSANE...You Weren't Supposed to Notice

The Philadelphia Phillies were not as active in the offseason as many fans hoped with Max Kepler and Jesus Lozardo headlining their list of moves. Well, are we underselling what the impact that these two can make as we have a bold declaration from an anonymous MLB player on how fearful Max Kepler is as well as Jesus Lozardo getting back on track to his dominant start to the season and a clear reason for why things were fading. If you want to touch on it all on this video, these are the two guys that the Phillies will continue to need to step up and be difference makers. It is not just them as you can go down the list on this team with plenty of guys that you can dive in and nitpick and have fair critiques of, but I do want to touch on these specific additions and what they can mean for this Phillies team as we begin to get closer to the ending of the first half of the season and the real stretch of this year coming into full effect. Now, before I dive fully into this and once again want to reflect on this wild proclamation from an anonymous MLB player here, I do want to remind you guys as always to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. At this point in time, 73% of you guys watching these videos have not subscribed to us here at Phillies Digest just yet. We're going to keep this Phillies Digest family growing. I am feeling refreshed, feeling confident that this Phillies team can get back on track and give us a little bit of things to root for down the stretch and want as many of you along for the ride as possible, so make sure you're hitting that button. It helps us out a ton here on the channel and now to get into the topic of today, got to start off with this anonymous poll from TheAthletic.com with a simple question and we've seen this across all sports at this point. Let's not forget Tyrese Haliburton going on an all-time heater in the NBA Finals, taking his team to the Finals after being called the most overrated, but we got an interesting Phillies name entering the mix for the question of what hitter would you least want to pitch against in Game 7 of the World Series. So the first couple names make sense here. Juan Soto, not a surprise. Shohei Ohtani, of course. Aaron Judge, deservingly so. Jordan Alvarez, okay, can live with it. Freddie Freeman, can see it. Mookie Betts, of course. Jose Ramirez has been tearing the cover off the ball. Bobby Witt Jr. and Bryce Harper, all fairly expected names there. No names that jump off to me, but then in that little section below, you can see the other names that were mentioned and some anonymous pitcher out there voted Max Kepler as the hitter you would least want to pitch against in Game 7 of the World Series. Now I don't think we've seen Max Kepler's best baseball in a Phillies uniform just yet, but I think even when we do, we're going to look at this as an absolutely insane declaration here. Max Kepler, an okay baseball player, a fine baseball player, certainly a guy that you should not be fearful of in Game 7. Now to reflect on everything that Kepler has brought to this team this season, he does have 7 home runs, does have 24 RBIs, a .296 on base percentage, which is not excellent there, crosses 200 at bats, has 42 hits, 22 walks, 48 strikeouts, 32 years old, a slugging percentage of .380. This is not the stuff to write home about. I can't believe that any pitcher legitimately wrote that. I do wonder if it could have been a joke or a guy, maybe a former teammate, just trying to show him a little bit of love, something like that. But absolute insanity that I did have to get on here and talk about a little bit. Now maybe I am underselling him a little bit, as let's not forget that Juan Soto is at the top of the list, and if we are going to have a discussion here, that Juan Soto, all 700 million plus dollars that he signed on the dotted line for this offseason, looking pretty comparable to the production that we've seen from our guy Max Kepler here. So maybe, Max, I got to give you a little bit more respect there. Now, the other part of this conversation that I think is a bit more pressing and a bit more important for the larger part of the Philly season is Jesus Lozardo. Lozardo has been a guy that has absolutely shined for the greater part of this year. When he came off back-to-back stretches, or back-to-back games, in which he was absolutely hit around. And what was most telling to me is this was not a situation where he had lost velocity or the stuff did not look the same. It looked like he was throwing pretty much as usual, just every single pitch that came in was getting whacked across the board here. Well, we have officially figured out the reason why, as Jesus Lozardo was tipping pitches, the latest Philly pitcher to be a part of this borderline epidemic here. Let's not forget Jordan Romano going through these very similar situations at the start of the year and did get himself back on track. But you can see the pretty clear difference in the way that Lozardo was holding his glove here. MLB teams are smart, man. This is what they do all day, every day, and they're looking for any sort of inside edge that they can find. Clearly, that proved to be the case with Lozardo. And looking at his fantasy points, which I know are obviously not the best way to judge, but you can see at the start of the year, 29, 33, 19, 10, 23, 24, 14, 11, 25, 33, 24, and then the past two starts, negative 18 and negative 13. Yeah, a pretty clear drop off there. And frankly, the production on the field looked even worse than what those numbers indicate there. I still am kind of critical of Rob Thompson and the Brewer series for leaving him on the field as long as he did. I understand that the bullpen is a whole other problem and a whole separate discussion with this Phillies team in regards to not having enough bodies or reliable enough arms on a night-by-night basis, but there comes a point where you gotta wave the white flag. And when a guy does not have it that day, then I don't see the point in letting him gut it out. And in Lozardo's case specifically, that really statistically ruined his entire season. These are numbers that he's not going to just bounce back from. And for a guy that was in borderline Cy Young discussions for his start to the year, I don't think he ever would have ended the season in those discussions or would have had a legitimate case. But just on a pure numbers basis, through his first 9-10 starts of the season, absolutely have a case. But taking a look at the numbers now, not any longer with Jesus Lozardo. In his 14 games that he has pitched, 78.2 innings, allowed 6 home runs, struck out 93, 86 hits allowed, his ERA climbed all the way to 4.23 simply because of those two starts there. The whip at 1.398, his current ERA plus of 98+, his BIP of 2.66. These strikeouts are the biggest thing that I was thrilled to see yesterday. Struck out double digits and to give a kind of a crazy stat on just how good he's been from this perspective, shout out to Tim Kelly who tweets out a pretty crazy note from at Philly's nose via Elias Sports Bureau. Jesus Lozardo is the first Philly with 4 or more double digit strikeout games in their first 15 starts of the team since Steve Carlton in 1972. Carlton had 5, but still. From one lefty to another, maybe we're seeing something a bit similar with Jesus Lozardo. He probably is never going to be quite Steve Carlton, but I am very impressed with what we've seen from him. Another thing that I continue to compliment, what has jumped off the page about Lozardo specifically, the stuff is one thing. That is something that, you know, you can tell when a pitcher has it, when you just have the raw end ability to. That break on his slider down the way is the real deal. His fastball, he can blow it by guys, but the pitchability and the mental toughness that he's shown really impresses me. It's not the easiest thing in the world to get absolutely bashed around in back-to-back starts and then step back on the mound and just look dominant, striking out hitter after hitter there. Especially in the early parts of this game and if the pitch count was a little bit lower, we could have been talking about him going deep into that ballgame there. But that's exactly what we wanted to see with Lozardo and when putting him in the full context of this Philly's team, they need him to continue to be this guy. That pitching just straight up has to be a strength of this Philly's team. They no longer are this home run, long ball. We're going to mash, we're going to hit double-digit runs on a nightly basis here. They're just not that team anymore. The power is not there. Kyle Schwarber, still mashing baseballs, but who else? Bryce Harper, on their injury list and hopefully coming off soon. Nick Castellanos, we have not seen that tear from him. Trey Turner, smacking the cover off the baseball, but it's singles, doubles, and a guy that's hitting for average, not for power and that's been something that is clearly everyone's okay with inside the organization, that's been publicly discussed. Alec Baum, a guy who, sure, he hit a home run last night at the point of me recording this, but he is a guy that has essentially become a singles hitter. Bryson Stott, what's going on at the plate, my guy? There is just not this level of production. Even Max Kepler, who, you know, the most feared hitter in Game 7 history, according to one anonymous pitcher there, is just not a guy that is produced at a reliable enough rate. So with all this in mind, with the bullpen having its questions, with the lineup not delivering to that same level, the Phillies need the pitching to be the identity of this team. They just straight up do. Zach Wheeler is going to be that guy. Lizardo could be that guy. Christopher Sanchez had his breakout season last year and has built off it. Ranger Suarez has settled in. Andrew Painter is coming eventually. Nick Abel showing some flashes. And Aaron Nola will eventually find himself once again. There's a lot of good arms and bodies to talk about in this Phillies rotation and that's got to become the identity of this team. So Lizardo being back in form is a huge step towards getting that. I do hope that these two key additions, which by the way, the Phillies, Rob Thompson and Dave Dombrowski, were pumping their chest out a little bit once these guys did heat up a little bit. Well, they came back down to earth and I do need to see a little bit of that same energy. You believe in these guys, if you feel confident that these were the right decisions, continue speaking through the lows because it has gotten a little darker for each of them. With Kepler specifically, I would say in regard to that. I've seen enough to believe that he can be an everyday left fielder. I think he's a fine guy to have around, but like, can you seriously look me in the eyes and say that this guy is notably better than what we got out of Austin Hayes in the brief stint in the second half of the season? I think statistically, Hayes is having a much better season this year and a guy who had some ridiculous power numbers, especially in the early parts of the year. So I'm not here to hate on these guys. We'll be rooting for them and do hope that they still find their best baseball on the season than Kepler in specific. And mostly regarding that, I see the vision with Lizardo and a guy that I bought into way more, but pretty interesting that we will see what sort of difference maker those guys will make. But do want to hear your guys' reaction to each of these here. How insane is it that we get Kepler on that type of list and are you back on the Lizardo bandwagon here? It was just two bad starts. He got the tip pitches out of the way and he's going to be back to himself moving forward. Let me know where your head is at and one more time, as always, do a reminder guys to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. Again, only 27% of you guys watching these videos have subscribed to us here at Philly's Digest just yet. So make sure you're hitting that button. Drop a like on this video here. I'll be back talking to you next time. Peace!