Stay Or Go: Will Johan Rojas Roam CF For Phillies In 2025?

The Phillies season is over. After finishing with the 2nd best record in baseball, they were the first of the teams who earned the bye week to be sent home. The Mets ran right over them, the way the Phillies had run over the Braves the past two years. Guys like Johan Rojas, Alec Bohm, Brandon Marsh, JT Realmuto, Trea Turner, and Kyle Schwarber, were mostly no-shows. The bullpen imploded. And now it is over.

It leaves the question of what they do next. Do they blow it up? Will this roster be shaken up after yet another playoff choke?

We are going to run through some of the names on this roster whose future here looks murky. Leaving out the names that will obviously stay like Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and others who are locked up long-term.

Related: Stay or Go- Is Alec Bohm Still the Phillies Future at 3rd?

Related: Stay Or Go: Will Brandon Marsh Be Back In 2025?

Now, we will look at the Phillies Center Fielder. Johan Rojas.

Let's start with the good with Rojas. His glove is as good as it gets. He wasn't quite so great out of the gate. But after a brief trip to the minors, he came back looking like the Gold Glover we thought he could be. His Range, Arm Value, and Arm Strength, all rank among the top 10% of the league according to Baseball Savant.

There is real value to having him out there. He turns balls that would be hits for most outfielders into outs.

We did not see it play out much this postseason. The Phillies kind of got run over and it wasn't close enough for his fielding to make a difference. But in 2023, it made a difference. Who knows what happens if he doesn't make this catch against the Braves in game 4? At the very least it is a tie game. It may have given the Braves the lead.

So when talking about him, you have to take the glove into account. The problem is everything else about him.

As good as he is in the field, he is just as bad at the plate. His actual stats don't do justice to just how much he struggles there. Yes, he hits .243 which is not completely awful, but he has a slugging % of just .322.

His Slug, Average Exit Velocity, Barrel Rate, Hard Hit Rate, and Walk Rate are all at the very bottom of the league according to Baseball Savant. Literally in the worse 5%, or even worse 1% of those categories. His Chase Rate is in the bottom 10%. The only part of hitting he doesn't rank that low in is his Whiff Rate and K rate, which are league average.

It was the same story last year, even though he hit .302, and it has been the same story in the playoffs both years. He simply is not a good hitter. There is not even a thing you can look at and say he is good at that part of hitting.

He has speed. If he put the ball in play, he could be a Dee Gordon-type hitter who uses his speed to get on base. and then steals bases. But he isn't really even doing that, at least not enough to make him a viable option at the plate. His OBP is under .300.

It is hard to see him as an everyday player putting up those numbers. His glove is good enough to make up for a mediocre bat. It is not good enough to make up for a bat that has no viability at the plate.

Dombrowski gave very little away in his end-of-season press conference. He talked about nearly every player asked about as if they would be on the team. That does not mean they will be, but any plans he does have he kept close to his vest.

But there was 1 player he did not talk about that way, Johan Rojas. Here is What Dave Dombrowski said about Rojas.

"We like Rojas, but we need offensive improvement there from him. We have a plan. He is going to live in Clearwater... He's reduced his chase rate. He's still an outstanding defensive center fielder. He can run. But I can't say he's for sure going to be our center fielder."

They said something similar last season. They had plans to fix his bat, and if anything, it got a bit worse. They say he reduced his chase rate, but his chase rate was in the bottom 10% of the league.

I don't think they are going to cut him, and I don't know how much trade value he has. But if you were to ask me will he be their everyday Center Fielder next year? I would doubt it. He could be down in AAA, or he could be up here as a 4th Outfielder.

Outfield is the place they are most likely to add to. That could come in the form of a Left Fielder. It could be that Rojas and Marsh platoon in Center. They were supposed to do that when the Phillies acquired Hayes, but that plan didn't work out. But if they add someone like Jurickson Profar or Anthony Santander, those guys are playing every day.

Rojas will be in the organization. But he will not play 120 games like he did last year, at least not in the MLB. His best hope would be a Center field platoon. But he might be back in the minors. As great as his glove is, they can't keep running him out at the plate. He has no chance there and has shown no sign of getting better.

The Phillies just collapsed epically. Their bats went ice cold, and they let the hated Mets kick them out in 4 games. After 3 straight years of the bats blowing up in an important place, people want to shake things up. And the most obvious place to upgrade is in the outfield.

Much of the team is locked up. 1B and SS are not changing anytime soon. You could feasibly move Trea Turner somewhere else, like 2nd Base. But if that happened, it would just mean they are moving Stott to SS.

They have 1 more year of JT Realmuto and 2 more years of Castellanos. CF could change, Dombrowksi certainly did not make any commitments to Johan Rojas, but they might have that spot earmarked for Justin Crawford.

Left Field is the place to look at. Dombrowski might have said that the team likes Brandon Marsh, but that does not mean they will keep him there. He is a platoon player, who has not even been consistent in his half of the platoon.

Looking at the landscape of the Free Agent Market, Left Field is also the easiest place to upgrade. Jayson Stark joined The Best Show Ever this week and talked about some of the places the Phillies could go.

"You've got Anthony Santander, who's a switch hitter with power and is a good outfielder. You're watching Teoscar Hernandez with the Dodgers. He's strikeout-prone, but he's a he's a winning player. Tyler O'Neill is definitely a name to watch. He's hurt a lot, but right-handed hitter with big thump. I know they kick the tires on him at the deadline. Jurickson Profar is to me the profile of the kind of hitter they desperately need." 

Stark also mentioned to not completely rule Juan Soto out. It is not likely, but also not impossible. We talked about that in the below article. But for this list, we are going to keep it to names they have a decent chance at signing.

Related: Juan Soto Unlikely To Come To Phillies, But Dont Rule It Out

So how well do those 4 guys Jayson Stark mentioned fit with this team? Let's take a look at each of them.

Santander has 105 Hrs over the last 3 seasons. He hit 44 last season, with over 100 RBIs. The Phillies need some right-handed pop, they have needed it since they lost Rhys Hoskins. He can certainly provide that. His AVG is a bit low, but he is not a big swing-and-miss guy despite that. His whiff rate of 20% is better than 76% of the league. His K rate of 19.4% is better than 66% of the league. He might be a power guy with a low average, but he does put the ball in play.  

To this point, he has played in Right Field. But you could move him over to Left if needed. He might look too similar to the guys already on this team, but the actual numbers suggest a more careful approach than some of the current Phillies.

Teoscar Hernandez would fit right in with the current lineup. He is a big power guy, 116 Hrs over the past 4 seasons, with a lot of strikeouts, just under 400 over the past 2 seasons. So if you want something different, he is not your guy. Signing him would be doubling down on the current approach of this lineup, which we saw cost them vs the Mets. He is just as much of a swing-and-miss/chase guy as some of the hitters currently on this team.

But as we are seeing this year, he is a big-time playoff performer. He has helped carry the Dodgers while some of their big names put up smaller numbers than you would expect. His OPS was over 1.000 in the Padres series. But he is 0-14 in the NLCS. So you can see the hot and cold he provides. Maybe something the Phillies want to avoid given they already have other guys like that. That said, he will provide you with moments like this.

Tyler O'Neill will remind people of Kyle Schwarber, just from the right side. He hits HRs, he walks, and he strikes out. He hit 31 HRs this year in 113 games. That is some big thump from the right side. He is also a better fielder than Schwarber. O'Neill won two gold gloves in Left field earlier in his career. His overall numbers don't paint the picture of an elite left Fielder though. He has a great arm, but average range. But even if he doesn't win another Gold Glove, he would not be the liability Kyle Schwarber used to be out there. At worst, you are getting average. The Phillies won both their World Series with far worse fielders in Left.

There are some heavy splits there though. His OPS drops from 1.180 against Lefties, to .693 vs Righties. But he did hit 15 HRs vs righties. He is not unplayable vs righties the way Marsh is vs Lefties, but there is a large dropoff that takes him from being a great player on 1 side, to an average player on the other.

Like Jayson Stark said, he is a name they have looked into in the past. They tried to get him at the deadline, but nothing came to be. Now that he is a free agent, he might be the guy Dombrowski looks at. Will it fix the issues they had with not putting the ball in play? No. But he would basically provide what Rhys Hoskins used to provide for this team.

Jurickson Profar might be the guy who excites Phillies fans the most. He has okay pop, but more importantly, he makes contact. His Whiff Rate, K Rate, Chase Rate, and Walk Rate are all in the top 10% of the league. He would bring a different element to this Phillies lineup.

Jayson Stark talked about how the Phillies need a different kind of hitter.

"They need somebody in that lineup who will make contact in a big spot and understand that's enough. Too many big swings in that lineup where only contact was needed. You watch the Mets play and you see how they take what the defense gives them in big moments in the postseason. Who's the Philly who does that? I'm sure that they will be shopping for that kind of guy."

Profar is that different kind of hitter. Stark described exactly what Profar did for the Padres. He might also provide a shakeup to the culture of the team, that desperately needs a change. For me, this is the guy. The other 3 would be good options, but Profar feels like the exact kind of player they need to fix the problems that cost them in each of the past 3 seasons.