Phillies 2025 Season Preview: World Series Or Bust

PHILADLEPHIA, PA — The Phillies have been the giants atop the National League for three years in a row. They've been to two National League Championship Series. They've been to a World Series. They won the National League East. For much of 2024, they had the best record in all of baseball. They all know there's one more thing to do, and really only one thing: win it all in 2025.

Oddly enough, despite coming off a division title and one of the more dominant regular seasons in franchise history that saw them win 95 games, general faith in the Phillies is low. And that's due to a wide variety of factors.

The most obvious is that the 2025 Phillies are a year older than the 2024 squad, and most of their key players are over 30.

Then there's the Phillies unceremonious exit in the divisional round last year, reminding fans all too much of the 2011 team, a 101-win superstar team similarly felled at its apex in the opening round of the playoffs, to be followed by a lengthy rebuild.

Third up is the Phillies offseason, which was less dramatic and immoderate than recent winters. Couple that with what their top rivals did: the Dodgers sunk an unthinkable amount of money in Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki and former Cy Young winner Blake Snell, while the hated Mets, famously, signed Juan Soto to a obscene contract that would make DOGE dance if they found it on the books.

But all those factors are less material impacts on the baseball field than they are so much fodder for the sports radio hosts and their ilk, who just had a taste of the glory of a Super Bowl win and who now can accept nothing less than overwhelming evidence of unquestioned and unthreatened domination. There's no need to pay heed to the doomsayers. They wanted Jalen Hurts traded in week four and doubted him until the moment the Lombardi trophy was in his hands. The Phillies remain, despite it all, in the small top tier of elite teams with the best chance to win the World Series in 2025.

What's new this year

The Phillies return nearly every single piece from the team that dominated the National League in 2024. The only true losses are reliever Jeff Hoffman and midseason acquisition Carlos Estevez. It's fair to expect the Phils to replace Estevez with a quality reliever at the trade deadline again, and they replaced Hoffman by signing former All Star closer Jordan Romano to cement the back end of the bullpen.

The Phillies expect a step forward from developing youngster Orion Kerkering, who was lights out in 2024 with a 2.29 ERA, and they still have veteran lefties Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado to provide a formidable four man block in close games.

The Phillies also signed free agent outfielder Max Kepler, who struggled with injuries last year but has breached an .800 OPS in multiple seasons when healthy. He's expected to be given a chance to be the every day left fielder, but he will likely compete with some combination of Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas, and Edmundo Sosa for reps.

The biggest move of the offseason by far was a trade with the Miami Marlins for crafty left-handed starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo. Luzardo started one of the playoff games against the Phillies in 2023, and has flashed top of the rotation potential when he's healthy. He currently slots in as the Phillies fifth starter, and gives them what is almost certainly the best rotation in all of baseball.

What to watch for as the season begins

The bullpen is very good. The rotation is elite, likely the best. The defense will, once again, be mostly solid with a few small concerns. The difference maker for the 2025 Phillies, despite all of the moving pieces required to make a good team great, will once again be their big star bats.

The Phillies have always been built around that: a handful of huge, high profile contracts, heavy hitters who write headlines with every swing: Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Bryce Harper.

There are endless storylines here. Schwarber and J.T. are on expiring contracts, though both are negotiating extensions with the front office. Casty's expires next year. All five of them feel they have something to prove, and all five are capable of playing at an MVP level.

The Phillies will need exactly that to get over the hump. Harper's floor, the worst case scenario, already places him as one of the league's better players, and Schwarber has been one of the more consistent players in the game the last few years. Perhaps the most telling thing to watch for the 2025 will be just how good Turner, Castellanos, and Realmuto can be. More than one offseason analyst has specifically pointed to Turner — including Phillies legend Jimmy Rollins — as the catalyst for the entire offense.

That could be especially true in 2025, as it appears likely Turner will be the Phillies new leadoff man. Harper could bat second, and Schwarber will probably move down to cleanup. If Turner is hot, the Phillies offense will again be unstoppable.

Odds and predictions

The Phillies are in a small cadre of "super teams" that are a cut above the entire league. It includes the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the AL champion New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, and the New York Mets. The good news for the Phillies is they were hands-down better than the Braves and Mets a year ago. The bad news is that both of those teams are in their division, and they'll need to reprove themselves over a grueling 162 game schedule to win their second consecutive division title.

Automated projection systems have underestimated the Phillies for three straight years now. Their estimates for 2025 aren't exactly easy to quantify: FanGraphs, for instance, sees the Phillies as the third best team in all of baseball, better than the Yankees and Mets, but trailing the Braves and Dodgers, and only winning 87 games. Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA system is more pessimistic, and has them finishing with 85 wins, placing third in the division, and missing the playoffs. Don't read too much into that one - it was way off in 2024.

Oddsmakers expectedly are heavily favoring the Dodgers to repeat as champions this fall, at plus 240, according to FanDuel Sportsbook. But the Phillies have the fourth best odds in MLB at plus 1000, trailing only LA, the Yankees, and the Braves.

Schedule

The Phillies will play every team in all of baseball at least once in 2025, following a new measure introduced by the commissioner's office to improve parity and fan experience in 2024.

Of course, the Phillies have a harder schedule than most teams in baseball because they play in what is probably the most competitive division. They have 13 games against the Braves and Mets each, which accounts for a significant chunk of their entire schedule.

Some highlights include an early season visit from Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and the absurd international collection of superstars in Los Angeles. The Dodgers will be in Philly from April 4 through April 6.

The first visit from the Braves is May 27, while the Mets and Juan Soto come to town on June 20 through June 22. Meanwhile, the every other year Mike Trout visit with the Los Angeles Angels will be on July 18 through July 20, and the Phillies will visit the Yankees in New York July 25-27.

Other games of interest: the Phillies will play in two stadiums they've never played a regular season game in before: on May 6-8, they'll play the Tampa Bay Rays at Tampa's temporary stadium — Steinbrenner Field, the minor league home of the Yankees — because Tampa's stadium's roof was damaged severely by a storm last year. They'll also play against the Athletics at their temporary home in Sacramento, as they transition from their expired stadium lease in Oakland to a new stadium in Las Vegas in the coming years.

Here's what the opening three series of the season looks like for the Phils:

• March 27, season opener Washington Nationals 4:05 p.m.
• March 29, at Washington Nationals, 4:05 p.m.
• March 30, at Washington Nationals, 1:35 p.m.
• March 31, home opener vs. Colorado Rockies, 3:05 p.m.
• April 2, home vs. Colorado Rockies, 6:45 p.m.
• April 3, home vs. Colorado Rockies, 1:05 p.m.
• April 4, home vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 6:45 p.m.
• April 5, home vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 4:05 p.m.
• April 6, home vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 1:35 p.m.

The full schedule is online here.