A few days before Christmas, the Phillies learned that Yoshinobu Yamamoto had accepted a $325 million offer from the Dodgers. The next day, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said that the team planned to move forward by finding pitching depth before Spring Training.

But that depth does not mean Blake Snell or Josh Hader. Sources have said repeatedly throughout the offseason that both are unlikely to sign with Philadelphia.

What about an outfielder?

“Not outfield,” Dombrowski said then. “When we talked about outfield, we said [we’d] keep an open mind, but we also are in a position with [Johan] Rojas where we’re really not trying to block his path to the big leagues.”

That thinking has not changed, Dombrowski reiterated this week.

If an opportunity presents itself, yes, the Phillies will act on it. But the plan is to have Nick Castellanos in right field, Brandon Marsh in left and Rojas in center, an alignment that worked well late in the 2023 regular season. The Phillies believe it can work again -- if Rojas hits. Rojas posted 2.5 WAR in only 59 games as a rookie, which tied for seventh on the team with Taijuan Walker.

Rojas was so impactful because he played Gold Glove-caliber center field and because he had a .772 OPS in 164 plate appearances.

But he also went 4-for-43 with one walk and 15 strikeouts in the postseason, which is why there is such external concern about the Phillies’ outfield depth. But the team’s belief that Rojas can produce enough offensively, while knowing he will be one of the game’s truly elite center fielders, explains why they are not planning to acquire a prototypical fourth outfielder before Spring Training.

A prototypical fourth outfielder is almost certainly a veteran, and any veteran is going to want a certain number of plate appearances. Those plate appearances will not exist if Castellanos, Marsh and Rojas play as much as the Phillies hope they’ll play. (They seem to figure that Cristian Pache and Jake Cave can pick up the remaining at-bats.)

But desperate times call for desperate measures. If a veteran outfielder is lingering on the market as Spring Training approaches, perhaps they might come to Philly without expectations. And that is why Dombrowski has said the Phillies will continue to keep an open mind.

Seventy-five pitchers have thrown 500 or more innings for the Phillies over the past 100 seasons (1924-2023). Which of them has the lowest WHIP with Philadelphia?

A) Roy Halladay
B) Jim Bunning
C) Cliff Lee
D) Zack Wheeler 

MLB this week launched “Ballpark Zen,” a two-hour ambiance background stream on YouTube of aerial shots of six ballparks, including Citizens Bank Park. The others are Oracle Park, PNC Park, Coors Field, Target Field and Busch Stadium. (For what it’s worth, Oracle, PNC, Target, Coors and CBP are probably in my top 10 MLB ballparks.)

MLB Pipeline’s Jonathan Mayo recently chose Phillies prospect Aidan Miller as his “biggest riser among current top 100 prospects.” Miller, selected by the Phils in the first round of the 2023 Draft, is the Phillies’ No. 4 prospect and the No. 90 overall prospect in baseball.

“I think he’s one of these high school bats who should’ve gone higher in the Draft and was a little under the radar because of [his] injury. People are going to realize how good he is with a full season of at-bats in pro ball in 2024,” Mayo wrote.

On Jan. 11, 1960, the Phillies traded Richie Ashburn to the Cubs for Al Dark, John Buzhardt and Jim Woods. The deal made the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported that the Phils had tried and failed for a few years to trade Ashburn.

(Who knew?)

Ashburn led the Majors in on-base percentage (.415) in his first season with Chicago (1960), and he posted 6.1 WAR over the final three years of his career with the Cubs and Mets. Dark played a half-season with the Phillies (-0.1 WAR), and Buzhardt pitched two seasons (-0.2 WAR). Woods, a highly regarded infield prospect at the time, was supposed to be the prize of the package, but he had just 92 plate appearances in two years with the Phillies (0.0 WAR). He never played again in the big leagues.

D) Zack Wheeler

Wheeler has a 1.06 WHIP in 629 1/3 innings, topping Lee (1.09), Bunning (1.11) and Halladay (1.12).

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