This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Happy New Year.

Phillies pitchers and catchers will have their first workout in Clearwater, Fla., in exactly six weeks on Valentine’s Day. If you’ve been unplugged from the world since Christmas, don’t worry, you didn’t miss any Phillies news. They have been quiet ever since they signed Aaron Nola to a seven-year, $172 million contract in November.

Philadelphia pushed to sign right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto late last month, but he took a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers instead. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and others said the organization made a competitive offer, but in the end, it would not have mattered how much money they offered Yamamoto. He simply preferred to land elsewhere.

“I think we were extremely competitive,” Dombrowski said. “We were very, very competitive. We were aggressive. … We were optimistic. We thought we had potential for it to happen, yes. We had ownership support. John Middleton and our ownership group were very supportive of it.”

The Phillies’ interest in Yamamoto does not mean they are setting their sights on Blake Snell, Josh Hader or other high-end arms. Sources said they planned to make an exception for Yamamoto because he was such an exceptional talent.

Now, the Phillies are back to building around the edges, which means looking for rotation and bullpen depth.

“The one thing I think you always have to be careful about is -- and I understand this -- individuals are fascinated -- and I like them -- by star players,” Dombrowski said at the Winter Meetings. “Right? We have a bundle of star players. Right? You’ve got two starting pitchers in [Zack] Wheeler and Nola who are stars. We’ve got an All-Star catcher. We've got an All-Star first baseman now. We’ve got an All-Star shortstop, highly paid. DH, right fielder. That's seven. And that doesn't even include our young guys -- the Stotts, the Bohms, the Marshes, the Walkers, the Suárezes. It doesn’t include anybody from the bullpen.

“You can only have so many stars. I think your better clubs have complementary players. … Now, we've been fortunate that [Bryson] Stott, [Alec] Bohm, [Brandon] Marsh are those types of guys. [Cristopher] Sánchez is that type of guy. I'm not saying that, hey, if somebody said, 'Here's a star for nothing,' you do that. I want to keep some of our young players. Because they're good.”

Will it be enough to run down the Braves in the NL East? Will it be enough to once again beat the Braves, or possibly even the Dodgers, in the postseason? The Phillies think so, though they understand the concern from fans who have become accustomed to bold offseason moves.

“I think you're going to get a better Stott, a better Bohm,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said last month. “The younger guys are going to -- I think they will improve a little bit. You’ve got a full year of Trea [Turner] that's going to be Trea, hopefully. You're going to have [Bryce] Harper for a full year, hopefully.”

Projections and predictions in January mean nothing and are long forgotten come October, but FanGraphs’ 2024 projections have the current Phillies roster listed at 42.7 Wins Above Replacement, which is the seventh-best mark in baseball and the third-best mark in the National League behind the Braves (54.1) and Dodgers (50.6), who rank as the top two teams in baseball.

In the NL East, the Mets (38.1), Marlins (33.7) and Nationals (22.0) trail Atlanta and Philadelphia.

The Phillies think that with a better start to the season they can not only hang with the Braves, but perhaps surprise some people and win the division.

“I love our roster,” Thomson said. “I love the makeup of our club, the talent of our club. I think we're right there.”