Despite scoring the fewest runs in baseball and earning baseball’s worst run differential, the Phillies finished 2016 with 71 wins. They had the league’s eighth-worst record, a modest success after having baseball’s worst a year before.
Since the 2016 season closed, Matt Klentak has been busy upgrading and fine-tuning the Phillies roster. Poor corner outfield performances have been replaced by veterans Howie Kendrick and Michael Saunders, a bullpen that crashed and burned down the stretch has been renovated to include Pat Neshek and Joaquin Benoit, and the heartbreakingly outmatched Ryan Howard is gone, to name a few.
What these upgrades add up to, per PECOTA, is two wins.