Categories: 2020 Season Preview

Phillies Nation 2020 Season Preview: Adam Haseley

The 2020 regular season is scheduled to begin in late July, which means it’s finally time to talk some baseball! To prepare you for the season, Phillies Nation will be taking an in-depth look at all of your favorite players. Here’s a review of Adam Haseley’s 2019 season as well as what to expect from the Phillies center fielder in 2020.

2019 Statline: 67 GP, 242 PA, 5HR, 26 RBIs, .266/.324/.396 85 OPS+, 0.9 fWAR

Coming into 2019, MLB.com ranked Adam Haseley as the third-best prospect in the Phillies system. Expectations were high for the young outfielder from Florida, who was selected eighth overall by the Phillies in the 2017 draft. He began the season in Reading and was promoted to Lehigh Valley in late May.

Adam Haseley is competing with Roman Quinn for the starting job in center field. (Cheryl Pursell)

Ideally, the Phillies would have preferred if Haseley spent more time in the minors. More time was something the Phillies could not buy, as Andrew McCutchen went down with a season-ending ACL tear and Odubel Herrera was arrested just a week before Haseley’s call-up.

He debuted June 4, 2019 in San Diego, earned his first major league hit the next day and found himself on the injured list by the end of the week with a groin strain. Haseley returned to action after the All-Star break and found his name on the lineup card on a regular basis. He held his own at the plate, slashing .286/.321/.468 in 81 plate appearances.

After going on a hot streak from late-July to early-August, Haseley was sent back down to Triple-A for about a day after Jay Bruce returned and found himself back on the injured list almost immediately. Haseley ended the 2019 season with a .257 batting average and a .652 OPS in his final 155 plate appearances.

Perhaps his finest moment as a Phillie came on a September night in Cincinnati. Freddy Galvis hit a rocket to left-center field. Haseley leaped into the first row. At first, it looked like he came up short in making the catch, but that’s not what happened:

2020 Preview

The 2020 season hasn’t even begun yet and Haseley has already experienced bad luck. His initial test resulted in a lab error and the 24-year-old had to miss the first four days of camp. It was originally reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer that Haseley had been put on the COVID-19 injured list, but that report had been retracted. He never tested positive and was never exposed to anyone who tested positive.

The good news is that Haseley is healthy. The bad news is that the lab error set him back a few days, which is less than ideal considering spring training II is only three weeks long. Roman Quinn, the guy Haseley is competing against for the starting center field job, also looked good in camp while he has been absent. Haseley did not appear in any of the team’s first two intrasquad games but Joe Girardi told the media Thursday that he expects Haseley to get some reps in the coming days.

Way back when, it seemed as though the starting job was his to lose.

During the Winter Meetings in December, Matt Klentak told

MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki that he “expects[s] that Adam Haseley is going to be our regular center fielder.” Klentak also recognized that when healthy and hitting consistently, it will be hard to take Quinn out of the lineup and that Haseley and Quinn will most likely take the majority of reps in center field in 2020.

The good thing for Haseley is that 2020 isn’t a make or break year for him. The Phillies don’t know for sure what they have in their first-rounder from 2017. A shortened 2020 could give the Phillies some clarity but a small sample size wouldn’t be enough to conclude whether Haseley is a viable starting outfielder for years to come.

Haseley proved he can hit the ball around the diamond consistently and hold his own in the outfield as he was worth 14 defensive runs saved in 2019. To solidify himself as an everyday starter, he has to improve against left-handed pitching. He was a .212 hitter against lefties in 2019. By comparison, he hit .282 against righties. His OPS was also 247 points lower against lefties as opposed to righties.

Judging by Haseley’s first season in the big leagues, there’s a lot to like about him. If he has the chance, he can surely make strides in his game and get on his way to solidifying a spot in the Phillies outfield for years to come.

Check out our previous 2020 Season Previews