Every Team's Most Interesting Player: Philadelphia Phillies, Rhys Hoskins

This is the 21st in a series of articles about the most interesting player for fantasy owners on each team heading into the 2020 season. We are going alphabetically, so today we’re going to talk about Rhys Hoskins of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Hoskins came into 2020 as a bit of an underrated slugger for a high-profile Phillies team expected to contend for the World Series. Instead, he was a sinkhole for your team’s batting average and failed to crack 30 home runs despite playing in all but two games for the Phillies. Not that it matters, but he also supplied dreadful defense (I’m just bitter). This poor campaign  makes him even more interesting to me entering 2020, however, because there aren’t any blaring sirens alerting us to a sudden downturn for Hoskins’ career. Quite simply, Hoskins hit a brutal slump, much like Jose Ramirez of the Indians, and it cost him dearly in terms of his final 2019 numbers.

Hoskins actually hit the ball hard 46.2% of the time, nearly a 12-point jump from 2018.

His soft contact % dropped a little more than four points, and half of his batted balls were fly balls, which is perfect for a power hitter.

His home run to fly ball ratio was 14.6%, down from 16% in 2018; both of those numbers are concerning, considering his reputation entering the bigs and his 31.6% ratio as a rookie in 2017. There are some numbers that explain these muted ratios, and do give some pause that he may not be Ryan Howard’s spirit animal as I once thought. Hoskins’ average exit velocity was 89.7 mph, placing him in just the 63rd percentile of MLB. His Brls/BBE% (barrels per batted ball event) left him at 81st in MLB, two spots behind Jackie Bradley Jr. So despite his raw power, and the fact that he does make hard contact, Hoskins has struggled to barrel up MLB pitching and is leaving home runs on the table. He did smoke 38 combined doubles and triples though.

Those contact woes are evident in his consistently underwhelming batting averages. He made contact less than 80% of the time last year, and a zone-contact % of 84.9%, two points below league average. Luckily, Hoskins still walks enough to paper over his poor contact and he posted an .819 OPS in 2019, an impressive number for a career-low. Worst case, Hoskins never really builds on his current contact skills and moves forward as a source of power with clear drawbacks that keeps him from being an elite fantasy asset. Ideally, he at least improves his ability to square up pitches so some of his doubles become home runs, and he consistently hits closer to 40 homers than 30.

He is currently going No. 97 overall, and 12th among first basemen, so he is a huge value at the moment.