The Philadelphia Phillies are in the heat of a tight pennant race. They are currently battling with the Los Angeles Dodgers to avoid the Wild Card series. With Zack Wheeler being out for the remainder of the season, the Phillies will lean on their southpaw starters in Ranger Suarez and Christopher Sanchez in the playoffs.
However, the Phillies' front office also has two major decisions to make following the 2025 season in free agency. Both Suarez and MVP candidate Kyle Schwarber are set to hit the open market, and the Phillies may not be able to hold onto both.
Phillies predicted to move on from Ranger Suarez
In a recent FanSided prediction piece that predicts players that could leave in free agency from relevant teams, Ranger Suarez is the pick for the Phillies:
"It might be controversial to prioritize a 32-year-old DH over a 29-year-old starting pitcher, but this comes down to need. The Phillies can be offensively challenged at times even with Schwarber having an MVP-caliber year. It’s hard to envision this team being good enough offensively without Schwarber to win a World Series. Suarez, on the other hand, is far easier for the Phillies to replace. Even without him, they’ve got Zack Wheeler, Christopher Sanchez, Aaron Nola, Jesus Luzardo, and even Andrew Painter knocking on the door."
It will be extremely hard to re-sign both all-star players, especially if other MLB teams are aggressively pursuing both of them, which is likely to happen.
Suarez is having another stellar season for Philadelphia. In 137 innings, his ERA is 2.89 and his bWAR is 4.6.
The Phillies are loaded with starters, so the idea is that they can afford to lose Suarez in free agency more than they can afford to lose Schwarber.
Regardless of what Philadelphia does in the 2025 playoffs, expect the president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski, to be active in the offseason. If they do get rid of Suarez, there could be another lower dollar starter that the Phillies' front office will target.