2017 Phillies player review: Jeremy Hellickson

If you believed the media reports from the summer of 2016, the Phillies could have dealt Jeremy Hellickson at the trade deadline and moved on from a player that would have been just a one-year rental. When the deal didn’t go down, there probably weren’t a ton of people who would have expected Hellickson to accept the Phillies’ qualifying offer of $17.2 million to come back and play baseball for a team that wasn’t expected to contend in 2017, the Phillies’ front office among them.

Conservatively estimating things, Hellickson might have gotten a three-year, $34-36 million type deal had he declined the Phillies’ qualifying offer and tested the free agent waters last winter. Whether he didn’t…