The Phillies are not hitting the panic button yet.
Amid a three-game slide — including a 13-2 drubbing Monday at the hands of the rebuilding Nationals — the offense is trying to keep everything in perspective.
“We’ve got 158 games left,” manager Rob Thomson said Tuesday. “You’re going to run through three-game stretches, sometimes five-game stretches, where you don’t hit, you don’t play well. It’s just kind of magnified because it’s the start of the year.”
It’s not exactly business as usual either, though. Trea Turner, who entered Tuesday with a .167 average, hit on the field before the game Monday and Tuesday. That is typically not part of his routine, as Turner usually prefers to hit inside in the batting cages. J.T. Realmuto also joined Turner hitting outside on Tuesday.
Everything is a small sample size at this point in the season, but still there are some troubling trends. The Phillies entered Tuesday 10-for-71 (.141) with just a .197 slugging percentage against left-handed pitching in four games.
Kyle Schwarber entered Tuesday .125 overall and .091 against left-handers.
Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber was batting .125 but hit a home run on Tuesday night.
“As a team I don’t think that we look into right, left, anything like that,” Schwarber said. “It’s more about being able to go out there, and like we say, work your at-bat and work what you want to swing at, what you don’t want to swing at, and work the process, not the result.”
After striking out swinging in his first plate appearance Tuesday against left-handed Nationals opener PJ Poulin, Schwarber bashed a solo home run off right-handed Zack Littell in the third inning, his second homer of the year.
Thomson has said he thinks the offense is trying to do too much.
“I hate saying it’s baseball, but obviously we need to get better,” Schwarber said. “Everyone’s looking to work to keep getting better, and it’s hard to chase a result, especially at the plate. You have to kind of chase the process of it, and the more that you go about that, and the more that you really focus on it, I feel like the results will be there.”
Brandon Marsh knows that as well as anyone. Last season, he went though an 0-for-31 slide in March and April. He began digging himself out after a rehab assignment to triple-A Lehigh Valley for a hamstring strain, where he received a pep talk from catcher Garrett Stubbs.
This year, though, Marsh has been one of the most productive Phillies through four games, with a .417 batting average and 1.083 OPS. He is 1-for-5 against lefties.
“It’s still early, really small sample size, a lot more ball to be played,” Marsh said. “But I like where I’m at, just got to continue, to keep trying to get better every single day. A lot more I can improve on, that’s for sure, offensively and defensively.”
Extra bases
Top Phillies prospect Aidan Miller (back) is still not swinging a bat, but his activities have “increased,” according to Thomson. … Orion Kerkering (hamstring strain) was scheduled to pitch an inning for triple-A Lehigh Valley in Durham on Tuesday as he continues his rehab assignment. … Cristopher Sánchez (1-0, 0.00 ERA) is scheduled to start Wednesday’s series finale against Nationals right-hander Cade Cavalli (0-0, 4.91 ERA).
The only person who takes more undeserved blame than manager Rob Thomson for the shortcomings of the Phillies quarter-billion-dollar lineup is Alec Bohm.
Entering his sixth season, Bohm, the third overall pick in the 2018 draft, is largely considered a semi-bust, especially in the frustrated Philadelphia region. Optically, it makes sense: He’s 6-foot-5, sculpted and wide, and was expected to be a basher coming out of Wichita State who eventually would migrate from third base to first. That hasn’t happened, but he’s nowhere near a bust.
With the exception of a sophomore slump in 2021, Bohm has been a competent major league third baseman. That’s something of a miracle in itself, since the Phillies rushed him to the majors for the COVID-shortened 2020 season with zero experience in triple A.
Has Bohm been the homegrown stud hitter Phillies fans have craved since the days of Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Ryan Howard? No. But he hasn’t been Domonic Brown or Maikel Franco, either.
He’s been a pretty good player on some very good teams surrounded by a bunch of star hitters who couldn’t get the job done. Bohm catches shrapnel for their shortcomings more so than his own, and some folks can’t wait to get rid of him. That was never more evident this winter.
Phillies fans relished rumors that projected Bo Bichette’s arrival as a free agent, not the least because it would mean a corresponding departure by Bohm. He no longer would have a starting spot at third base with the arrival of Bichette, who would have switched from shortstop to third.
Phillies fans thought signing Bo Bichette would force Alec Bohm out, but Bichette opted to sign with the Mets.
But the Bichette deal fell through at the 11th hour. That left the Phillies with Bohm and free-agent gamble Adolis García as first options to bat in the No. 4 hole behind presumptive third hitter Bryce Harper.
In Philly, all hope collapsed, because Bohm has proved himself unfit for that particular job … right?
Well, maybe.
But that’s not the point.
The point is, the Phillies spent more than $200 million so that Bohm wouldn’t have to do the job at all.
Wasted money
As The Inquirer reported last week, no everyday player with an OPS over .800 last season scored fewer runs than Harper’s 72. Harper’s OPS of .844 last season was his lowest in nine years, in part because he saw fewer strikes than any other everyday player. Harper was largely unprotected, and, when he reported to spring training, he let everyone know he wasn’t happy about any of it.
“I think it makes a huge impact,” he said. “I think whoever’s in that four spot is gonna have a big job to do, depending on who’s hitting three or who’s hitting two.”
That big job was never supposed to be Bohm’s job, so to paint the situation as a failure by Bohm is wildly unfair, considering what any realistic expectations might have been for a player surrounded by a constellation of supposed stars.
In 2022, in what would be Bohm’s second full season, the Phillies signed right-handed hitter Nick Castellanos, mainly to protect Harper. Castellanos utterly failed. His OPS from 2022-25 while batting fourth was .705, .853, .645, and .651. Castellanos didn’t hit behind Harper every time, but he hit behind him most of the time. He made $80 million.
J.T. Realmuto (right) has largely struggled protecting Bryce Harper in the lineup over the past four seasons.
When Castellanos didn’t hit fourth, Realmuto often did. He went .953 in 2022, had only 34 plate appearances in 2023 (.458)/, then went .635 in 2024 and .683 in 2025. He made $95.5 million in those four seasons.
In 2023, it occasionally fell to Bohm to hit fourth. He produced .711, .769, and .571 OPS results in the past three years. He made $12.4 million.
Despite Bohm’s poor numbers in 2025, Harper actually was his most productive when Bohm hit behind him, according to MLB.com.
When the Phillies signed Castellanos to a five-year, $100 million contract in 2022, he was projected to be the cleanup hitter not only through 2022 but also through 2026. But the Phillies released Castellanos last month. He’d been insubordinate last season, but that wasn’t the main reason, because no sport endures insubordination like baseball. Castellanos’ real sin was that, for the better part of four seasons, he stole money.
Casty’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) since 2022 was 1.3. Bohm’s was 5.8.
Who was the real disappointment?
Nick Castellanos was supposed to be the right-handed bat in the cleanup spot to protect Bryce Harper. He was released last month by the Phillies.
Peer pressure
Not only does Bohm compare favorably to the $100 million man, he compares favorably with players of his approximate age.
Among first-round hitters from 2018 with at least 1,000 plate appearances, Bohm’s 5.3 WAR ranks fourth. His .743 OPS ranks second, by just one-thousandth of a point, to Royals infielder Jonathan India. Bohm’s 70 homers rank third. His 719 games played ranks first.
What about the 2017 draft? Among first-round hitters from both 2017 and 2018 combined, Bohm is sixth in WAR, fifth in OPS, sixth in homers, and still first in games played — and yes, we omitted Kyler Murray, drafted ninth overall by the A’s but opted to play in the NFL.
Bohm was picked high in the draft, so how does he compare to those guys? Well, among the first 10 hitters selected in both drafts combined, Murray again omitted, Bohm’s 5.3 WAR ranks second.
It’s true that 2017 is considered one of the worst drafts in recent memory, but Bohm can’t do anything about that. Simply, when compared with his peers, Bohm is outperforming almost all of them.
Alec Bohm has worked hard to transform himself from utterly disastrous defensively at third base to perfectly acceptable in his last three seasons.
Current crop
How does Bohm compare with the rest of baseball over his career?
Since Bohm debuted in 2020, his OPS of .743 ranks 150th among the 382 hitters with at least 1,000 plate appearances. He is far above average.
We can’t make the argument that Bohm is a far above-average player. He’s not. But he’s certainly average at least, and that’s saying something. He’ll be a 30-year-old free agent after this season, and he’ll probably last at least four or five more seasons.
Historically, fewer than 20% of first-rounders collect 1,000 hits. Bohm has 753. Similarly, fewer than 10% of all major league players play at least 10 seasons. Bohm is entering his sixth.
He has been, by any measure, a good first-round pick.
Is he everything folks thought he’d be when he was drafted — that is, a middle-of-the-lineup run-producer? Not really.
Is he adequate protection for a slugger like Harper? Probably not.
Is he the most emotionally stable player? No.
In 2022, on a night when he’d struggled defensively, Bohm made a routine play. Phillies fans cheered sarcastically. TV cameras caught Bohm saying, “I [bleeping] hate this place.”
Alec Bohm confirms postgame that he said "I fucking hate this place" when fans sarcastically cheered after he made a play pic.twitter.com/I0IdZ0lEn9
In 2024, mired in a 2-for-31 slump that bled from the end of the season into the playoffs, Bohm, in full pout mode, was benched for Game 2 of the NLDS. (His replacement, Edmundo Sosa, did not reach base in two plate appearances, Bohm pinch-hit for him and did the same, and the Phillies won.)
Bohm is not a fan favorite. Phillies fans despise a lack of mental toughness.
But Bohm did manage 97 RBIs in both 2023 and 2024. He did hit 20 home runs in 2023, and he was an All-Star in 2024. He worked hard enough at third base to progress from utterly disastrous in his first two seasons to perfectly acceptable in his last three seasons.
Will he hit well enough to protect Harper this year? Probably not. Will García? Probably not.
His overall .675 OPS the past two seasons is far below Bohm’s .762. García was at .712 in the cleanup spot in 2024, .662 in 2025. He’s on a one-year, $10 million deal.
Bohm is making $10.2 million. It’s the first time in his career that he’s outearning the guy who’s being paid to do a job Bohm never was meant to do … unless you count Realmuto, whom the Phillies just re-signed. He’ll make $15 million this season.
For that kind of money, maybe every once in a while J.T. could help out at the four-spot.
After a cold, snow-filled winter in Philadelphia, the city is finally getting its first glimpse at spring, thanks to the Phillies.
The Phillies’ 2026 spring training schedule kicks off Saturday afternoon against the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla., followed by their Clearwater debut Sunday at BayCare Ballpark, their Sunshine State home since 2004.
Fans will be able to tune in to more spring training games than ever. Between NBC Sports Philadelphia, the MLB Network, 94.1 WIP, and the Phillies themselves, there will be a broadcast for all but three games of this year’s 30-game Grapefruit League schedule.
There’s also Aidan Miller, the No. 23 prospect in baseball. The 22-year-old shortstop is expected to start the season in Triple-A, but will get some playing time at third base during spring training, according to my colleague Scott Lauber. That would set up Miller for an early promotion if Alex Bohm gets off to a slow start.
As far as new faces, the most prominent is outfielder Adolis García, who is replacing Nick Castellanos and is just two seasons removed from hitting 39 home runs for the Texas Rangers.
Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream Phillies spring training games:
What channel are Phillies spring training games on?
Phillies broadcasters Tom McCarthy (left) and John Kruk will be back again for NBC Sports Philadelphia.
The bulk of the Phillies’ televised spring training games will air on NBC Sports Philadelphia, which plans to broadcast 17 games — nine on the main channel and eight on NBC Sports Philadelphia+. That’s a big jump from last year, when it aired 12 games.
The schedule includes an exhibition game against Team Canada on March 4 serving as a warm-up for this year’s World Baseball Classic. The multicountry tournament begins on March 5 in Tokyo, and the Phillies will be well-represented — 11 players, including Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber, will leave spring training early to participate.
Returning for his 19th season as the TV voice of the Phillies is play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy, who will be joined in the booth by a familiar cast of analysts that includes Rubén Amaro Jr., Ben Davis, and John Kruk.
MLB Network will broadcast six Phillies spring training games (though just two will be available in the Philly TV market due to blackout rules). ESPN won’t be airing any — the network is broadcasting just four spring training games on their main channel, and six more on its ESPN Unlimited subscription service.
Radio listeners can tune into 94.1 WIP to hear 10 weekend games. Play-by-play announcer Scott Franzke is back for his 21st season calling the Phillies, joined once again by a rotation featuring veteran analyst Larry Anderson and Kevin Stocker.
Cole Hamels will be back, but not Taryn Hatcher
Former Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels (right) called nine games last season for NBC Sports Philadelphia.
A little bit of Hollywood will be back in the Phillies booth this season.
2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels will call a few spring training games for the second straight season, beginning in the middle of March. Hamels was something of a natural in the booth last season, calling the nine regular-season games he worked a “crash course” in broadcasting.
“I tried to tell myself, ‘Don’t overtalk. Don’t be long-winded. Don’t just talk to talk,’” Hamels told The Inquirer in September. “I start watching the game and enjoying it, and I forget sometimes I have to talk.”
Taryn Hatcher, seen here during a 2019 media softball game.
One NBC Sports personality who won’t be back is Taryn Hatcher, who joined the network in 2018 and spent the past few seasons covering the game as an in-stadium reporter.
Hatcher’s contract wasn’t renewed at the end of the year and NBC Sports Philadelphia eliminated the position, according to sources.
You can also stream NBC Sports Philadelphia on Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, which will soon roll out a skinny sports bundle. And NBC Sports Philadelphia will stream its games on the NBC Sports app, but a subscription to a cable service is required.
One streaming service where you won’t find the network is Fubo, which hasn’t broadcast any NBC channels since November due to a carriage dispute. NBC Sports Philadelphia is also not available on Sling TV or DirecTV Stream.
For the third straight season, the Phillies will also exclusively stream a handful of spring training games from BayCare Ballpark for free on the team’s website.
The team will also provide an audio-only feed for a few midweek road games that aren’t airing on WIP.
Are there any new MLB rules in spring training?
Umpires will have their balls and strikes face challenges this season.
There aren’t any new rules in play during spring training, but MLB is fully rolling out its automatic ball-strike (ABS) challenge system ahead of its launch in the regular season. The Phillies plan on giving it a healthy test drive.
The rules are pretty straightforward. Pitchers, catchers, or batters can challenge a ball or strike by taping their head immediately after the umpire’s call.
Each team starts the game with two challenges, which they only lose when a challenge is unsuccessful. If a team has no challenges remaining and the game goes into extra innings, they’re awarded one per inning until the game is over.
Phillies news and spring training updates
Trea Turner fields a ground ball during spring training Wednesday.
Trea Turner was still the fastest man in the league at 32. Here’s his secret.
The Phillies will open the season against the Texas Rangers at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies are scheduled to open the 2026 season on March 26 against the Texas Rangers at Citizens Bank Park, where the team will hang its 2025 NL East pennant.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — J.T. Realmuto is in spring training with the Phillies for the eighth consecutive year.
But for a week in January, he wasn’t sure he’d be back.
Realmuto sat down last week with Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast, to talk about his start-and-stop contract talks, which included a call in which president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told the star catcher’s agent that the team was heading in a different direction.
In addition, Realmuto discussed the Phillies’ decision to release Nick Castellanos, offered his outlook for the starting rotation in 2026, and more.
Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Phillies Extra podcaston Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Q: Take me back to that week in January and how seriously you began thinking that you might be somewhere else this year.
A: It was definitely a pretty hectic maybe 48 hours for us. Obviously there were the rumblings about the [Bo] Bichette stuff going on, and then, we were kind of at a standstill with the Phillies for quite a while. It had been all the way dating back to December at that point where there was no momentum. We had many conversations. There was just no momentum on the deal moving anywhere. So, yeah, I got a little stressful there for a couple days where we weren’t sure what was going to happen. Started kind of thinking about our other options and putting the logistics together of what it might be like to go somewhere else. And thankfully it didn’t come to that, because as we’ve stated all along, this is where we wanted to be. So, we’re happy we didn’t have to up and move and go somewhere else.
Q: How much confidence do you have in this starting rotation, and how do you feel about how that group shapes up again going into 2026?
A: I love it. I don’t think there’s any secret that this starting pitching is one of the main strengths of our team. And it’s going to be what gets us to where we want to go. Similar to last year, we were so good in the regular season because of our starting pitching, and they’re going to be the horses we ride again all year long.
It’s obviously not ideal. Losing Ranger [Suárez to the Red Sox] is going to be tough. But also [Zack] Wheeler starting on the IL most likely, it’s tough to replace those type of innings. But we have the depth, and we have the guys back there to do it. You got [Andrew] Painter coming back after being healthy for a full season, coming off that injury. I think he’s going to be big for us this year. [Jesús] Luzardo, [Cristopher] Sánchez, [Aaron] Nola, those guys, Taijuan [Walker] is throwing the ball great for us. So we just have to lean on those guys. And the Phillies are going to go how those guys go. And it’s a really good group to ride with.
Q: There are people back in Philly who are saying the Phillies are running it back, and it’s been the same core for the last four or five years. How do you avoid it becoming kind of a stale feeling in the clubhouse?
A: I understand the narrative that comes from the fans, the media, just the fact that it’s largely the same team. But as far as staleness goes, inside the clubhouse, we don’t feel any. We’re still as hungry as we’ve ever been, because we haven’t been able to finish the job. Obviously, we’ve been a very good regular season team the last few years, had a couple pretty good postseason runs, but we just haven’t been able to get over that hump and win the World Series. We’re still very hungry for that. So, there’s definitely no sense of staleness in the clubhouse. We still really enjoy each other. We love to hang out. We get along together well.
So, the recipe is there. We have the pieces to win a championship. We all know that. I think the fans and the media know that as well. It’s just a matter of putting it together and playing our best baseball at the right time. Last year … I know we lost [in the NLDS to the Dodgers], 3-1, but the series was very close. Every game was very close, one play here and there changes that whole series, so we didn’t feel overmatched. If we play our best brand of baseball, we feel like we can beat anybody. And obviously the Dodgers are the team to chase down right now because they won two in a row, and they even got better this offseason. So, I feel like we have as good a chance as anybody to take them down. They’re going to be the favorites. But in my opinion, the Phillies are right up there with them, and we have as good a chance as anybody to beat them.
J.T. Realmuto said Nick Castellanos (right) “was always a great teammate to me.”
Q: How difficult was last year for Nick Castellanos, and what were you guys trying to do to make sure that you could try to keep Nick in the right frame of mind?
A: Yeah, I’m sure it was tough on him, just coming from the career he’s had, and just being an everyday player, getting everyday at-bats his whole career, being able to have the transition into that role of playing less. That can’t be easy for anybody. And everybody knows Nick. Sometimes he’s going to say what’s on his mind, and that rubs some people wrong, and others love him for it. So, that’s just who he is, and he’s always going to be that way.
So, I’m sure it’s not easy going through what he went through. But to be honest, now that he’s going to be moving on [to the Padres] and hopefully get another good opportunity for himself, I think he would say the same — that it’s best for both parties, just based off of everything that went on last year. And we obviously wish him the best. Our clubhouse loves Nick. I know that some people have feelings about him, but Nick was always a great teammate to me. I love that guy, and I wish him the best moving forward.
Q: What does it do for a team when you can inject some youth like Justin Crawford, Andrew Painter and Aidan Miller into a roster?
A: It’s awesome. I think it’s just a spark for our team, especially our team where everybody talks about how old we are. So, it’s nice that [we’re] finally getting some young pups in the mix. What was our last youth wave — [Bryson] Stott, [Alec] Bohm, those guys. Bringing those guys up and being able to kind of take them under our wings and show them how to be big leaguers, that stuff is fun for us, for the older guys, and really being able to teach them how to win and show them what matters in this game. Our minor league system does a good job of having guys prepared when they come up, how to act like professionals, and how to play winning baseball. So, it’s always fun for us to get them in the clubhouse and make them feel like part of the team.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — One of the best catchers in baseball history intercepted Dave Dombrowski during a break in the general managers’ meetings in November.
Buster Posey had an itch to scratch.
Posey made roughly $170 million over a 12-year playing career in which he was a seven-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion. But he also observed that catchers, on the whole, weren’t as well-compensated as similar players at other positions, even though they are tasked with calling a game and handling a pitching staff.
So, Posey, now the San Francisco Giants’ president of baseball operations, approached his Phillies counterpart, who has led the front offices of five organizations over nearly four decades.
“He said, ‘Yeah, let me ask you a question: Why does the industry not put more dollar value on some of those things?’” Dombrowski recalled. “It’s hard, I think, the way it is. And we had a long conversation about it.”
Timely, too, as it turned out. Because the Phillies were in contract negotiations with free agent J.T. Realmuto, their catcher since 2019 and a foundational player in one of the winningest runs in the franchise’s 143-year history.
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto shown during the first day of pitchers and catchers practice on Wednesday.
And it would soon be clear that there was at least a $4 million-per-year gulf between what the team and the veteran catcher’s camp believed he was worth.
The Phillies prioritized re-signing Realmuto this winter. They made an offer in December — but at a reduced annual salary (in the $10 million to $11 million range, major-league sources said) after three consecutive seasons of declining offense. Behind the plate, Realmuto, who turns 35 in March, remains unassailable as a game-caller and leader.
Realmuto felt those skills were worth a certain salary. The Phillies valued them differently.
“We had a number in our mind, and we knew what we were worth,” Realmuto said this week on Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast. “And I wasn’t going to take anything less than that.”
It was a familiar stance. Realmuto and his agents, who also represented Posey as a player, have long sought to boost the pay scale for catchers.
In 2021, Realmuto re-signed with the Phillies for a $23.1 million annual salary, a record for catchers — by $100,000. Five years later, the mark still stands. And it’s less than the record for any position other than relief pitcher (Edwin Díaz: $23 million). It’s also less than the seven highest salaries for third basemen and the top nine for outfielders, according to Spotrac.
Realmuto went to an arbitration hearing against the Phillies in 2020 over a $2.4 million difference in salary proposals because he was trying to move the goal posts for catchers. He lost.
“I don’t believe teams — from a) their models and b) their valuations — take into account the nonanalytical special sauce of a catcher,” said Matt Ricatto, Realmuto’s agent at CAA, the same agency that represented Posey as a player. “I think it’s a blind spot for baseball.”
So, Realmuto fought that fight again this winter. It nearly ended with him and the Phillies going their separate ways.
There was some uncertainty this offseason that J.T. Realmuto would not return to the Phillies, but both sides reached a deal last month.
Catch 22
Most people know the story by now.
In January, as talks with Realmuto reached an impasse, the Phillies pivoted to free-agent infielder Bo Bichette, even agreeing to make his desired seven-year, $200 million offer, major league sources said. If the Mets hadn’t swooped in with a higher-salary ($42 million per year) three-year deal, Bichette would be with the Phillies and Realmuto … well, with whom exactly?
“It got a little stressful there for a couple of days,” Realmuto said. “We started kind of thinking about our other options and putting the logistics together of what it might be like to go somewhere else. And thankfully it didn’t come to that because, as we’ve stated all along, this is where we wanted to be. We’re happy we didn’t have to up and move and go somewhere else.”
Indeed, Realmuto lives on Clearwater Beach. His wife and four children are with him throughout spring training. They’re comfortable in Philadelphia. Nobody wanted to leave.
But Realmuto felt it was important to continue his crusade for catcher equity. He held firm on not accepting the Phillies’ initial offers. On the night of Jan. 15, Dombrowski called Ricatto to inform him the Phillies were going in a different direction.
Roughly 12 hours later, once the pursuit of Bichette was foiled, the Phillies raised their offer to Realmuto: three years and $45 million, with as much as $7 million per year in bonuses based on merit (top-10 MVP votes, All-Star elections/selections, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger).
“If you ask any pitcher, any pitching coach, any manager, the most important thing a catcher can do is call a game and know his pitching staff and give them confidence when they’re on the mound,” Realmuto said. “If you can make your pitchers 5% better, 10% better, over the course of a year, that’s extremely, extremely valuable.”
Sure. But game-calling and handling a pitching staff are among the last largely unquantifiable skills in baseball’s analytics age.
“And because it’s not really quantifiable, then you don’t really get rewarded for it,” Realmuto said. “That’s the aspect that I just don’t agree with. It doesn’t sit well with me, so that’s kind of just why I enjoy fighting for it.”
J.T. Realmuto re-signed with the Phillies on a three-year, $45 million contract.
Measuring up
In modern baseball, there’s a metric for everything.
Almost everything.
Who’s the fastest runner? Statcast tracks feet-per-second sprint speeds. The best outfield jump? There’s data for that, too. A hitter’s average exit velocity, launch angle, and bat speed. A pitcher’s spin rate and vertical/horizontal movement.
The metrics for catchers include blocking, throwing, and framing, the technique of receiving a pitch in a way that influences the umpire to call a strike. “Pop time” measures how fast a catcher releases the ball on steal attempts. Realmuto annually has among the best pop times of all catchers. His framing isn’t typically as strong, in part because the Phillies don’t emphasize it as much as other teams.
But there isn’t a reliable gauge for calling a game. Phillies manager Rob Thomson, a former minor-league catcher, suggested catcher’s ERA and OPS as decent barometers.
In that case, opponents have a .682 OPS and Phillies pitchers have a 3.75 ERA with Realmuto behind the plate since 2023. The major-league averages during that time: .722 and 4.18.
A catcher’s ability to handle a pitching staff is almost entirely anecdotal.
Zack Wheeler swears by Realmuto. He barely ever pitches to anyone else (134 of Wheeler’s 157 starts for the Phillies have come with Realmuto behind the plate) and hardly ever shakes off a pitch that he calls.
Cristopher Sánchez, who emerged as the Cy Young runner-up in the National League last year, cited Realmuto’s diligence in putting together a game plan, a process that begins even before the starter arrives at the ballpark. And Jesús Luzardo describes Realmuto as “a no-B.S. guy” behind the plate.
“You show up to the field, he’s already there, doing homework, going over scouting reports, watching video,” Luzardo said. “So, when he goes up back there and he tells us, ‘This is the plan that we’re going to do throughout the game,’ you have confidence that he knows what he’s talking about and that it’s not [him] just winging it.”
In conversations with the Phillies and other teams this winter, Ricatto described Realmuto’s “cascading effect” on a team. Because although he’s not the best player on the roster, “he makes [teammates] better than anyone else at that [catcher] position,” Ricatto said.
Surely, that’s worth something.
But how much?
It’s a question that gets to the heart of Dombrowski’s chat with Posey.
“J.T. is outstanding, right?” Dombrowski said. “He handles the staff well. He does all those other things. But let’s say you had a catcher that, let’s say they hit .150. And they did all that [other stuff]. What would you pay that person? I don’t have that exact answer.
“But it’s one of those where it’s a combination of the value, the defensive performance, and all that — and the hitting aspect of our game. The game has rewarded offense [more than anything] throughout the years.”
Phillies ace Zack Wheeler (left) has said he almost never shakes off a pitch called by J.T. Realmuto.
‘I never felt like Plan B’
Realmuto is coming off his worst offensive season since his rookie year in Miami. But he wasn’t a .150 hitter, either. He batted .257 with 12 homers and a .700 OPS. Based on OPS-plus, he was 9% less productive than league average.
But even at Realmuto’s offensive peak, his agents believed he was paid less simply because he’s a catcher.
After the 2019 season, Realmuto filed for $12.4 million in arbitration because his numbers were comparable at the same point in his career to then-Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon, who made $12.3 million in 2018. But a three-person panel ruled in favor of the Phillies’ $10 million offer, still an arbitration record for catchers.
And although the judges didn’t provide an explanation, Jeff Berry, one of Realmuto’s agents at the time, believed it was because they compared Realmuto only to fellow catchers, notably Baltimore’s Matt Wieters, who made $8.3 million in his third year of arbitration in 2015.
Which doesn’t mean Realmuto gets paid squat. He has made approximately $135 million since 2016. When his new contract expires, he will have made at least $180 million.
It’s little wonder, then, that Realmuto said he doesn’t have any hard feelings toward the Phillies after they nearly broke up with him last month. He insisted he doesn’t feel like a consolation prize for not landing Bichette.
“To be honest, I never felt like Plan B because I could have signed with the Phillies a month and a half earlier,” he said. “They just valued me differently than I valued myself.”
So, Realmuto stood on principle, just like he always has.
Just a few hours after J.T. Realmuto’s new contract became official Tuesday morning, he was at the Phillies’ facilities in Clearwater, Fla.
Pitchers and catchers don’t report until Feb. 11, but Realmuto’s family typically heads to Florida in mid-January. Not only does it offer a reprieve from chilly weather of his offseason home in Oklahoma, it also gives him a head start on his preparation for the year.
The routine seems like it will hold for the next few years after Realmuto re-signed with the Phillies for three years and $45 million. The new deal will take Realmuto, who turns 35 in March, through his age-37 season. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Realmuto, the Phillies designated utility man Weston Wilson for assignment.
“I’m glad we’re back here, and this is where we wanted to be the whole time,” Realmuto said. “My focus was just on my legacy here and being able to finish my career with the Phillies and not having to uproot my family and start over.”
But the veteran catcher conceded Tuesday that there were points during his free agency when it felt like an agreement wouldn’t come together. While both parties had been interested in a reunion from the beginning, they disagreed on the dollar amount.
“In my opinion, catchers are just undervalued in this game, as far as contracts and dollars go,” Realmuto said. “I truly believe it’s one of, if not the most important position on the field.”
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto struggled at the plate last season but believes he can get back on track with a few tweaks.
The Phillies were prepared to move on from Realmuto last week as discussions intensified with free-agent shortstop Bo Bichette and had contingency plans in place at catcher. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said they had other targets they could have added to their mix of Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs.
But when the New York Mets swooped in with a shorter-term, higher-dollar offer for Bichette — which Dombrowski described as a “gut punch” — the Phillies then called Realmuto back with an improved offer.
“We’re thrilled that J.T. is back because that was always a priority for us over the wintertime,” Dombrowski said. “We think he was the best catcher out there, as far as free agency was concerned.”
Realmuto posted one of his worst offensive seasons in 2025, hitting .257 with a .700 OPS over 134 games. But he remained elite defensively at catching runners stealing, catching plus-6 runners above average, according to Statcast.
For his pitching staff, most of Realmuto’s value comes from the work he does behind the plate and behind the scenes.
“Every time that I walk in, J.T. is already in the kitchen. He has a laptop in his hands. He’s looking at the opposing team, coming up with the report, helping us out,” Cristopher Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “And I just think that’s a testament to him and the preparation that he puts [in] for us to go out there and [be] able to thrive.”
Added reliever Tanner Banks: “After games, [he’s] doing workouts when guys are showering to go home. He’s a bulldog behind the dish.”
Realmuto said he was “self-aware” about his offensive decline over the last few seasons, but he believes he can turn it around.
“I know that I haven’t had my best years [the] last couple years, but I do believe that it’s not, like, age or physically related,” he said. “It’s something that I can improve on and work on and be better for the years to come.”
His training regimen is a big part of that, and it has evolved over the years. Rather than lifting as heavily as possible and bulking up, as he did when he was younger, Realmuto now focuses on training for mobility and longevity.
The aging curve typically is unforgiving for catchers. Yadier Molina is the only other catcher in baseball history to start more than 130 games behind the plate in his age-33 season or beyond.
Realmuto played 132 games behind the plate last season, at age 34, and stayed healthy. With a multiyear deal, the Phillies are betting that Realmuto can continue to defy the odds.
“He’s a great athlete. I mean, a lot of times you don’t see catchers in that same type of situation,” Dombrowski said. “… It wouldn’t shock me if you’re sitting here in another three years, and J.T. is talking about a multiyear contract beyond that. He’s that type of individual. You look at historical aspects, but I also think you’re talking about a unique individual that will continue to perform very well.”
Extra bases
Zack Wheeler continues to progress in his rehab from thoracic outlet decompression surgery and has thrown up to 90 feet. “He looks good, but there’s no guarantees when he’s going to get up on the mound. He eventually will,” manager Rob Thomson said. … There is mutual interest between Sánchez and the Dominican Republic national team for the World Baseball Classic, but Sánchez said he still is discussing it with the Phillies and has not made a decision on his participation.
Late Thursday, within the hallways of One Citizens Bank Way, Phillies officials believed they were close to signing Bo Bichette.
How close?
“We were very close to having a deal done,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Tuesday without divulging details. “We thought it was going to happen.”
Bichette, through his agent, informed the Phillies that he would sign if they met his seven-year, $200 million asking price, two major league sources confirmed. The team agreed. All that was left, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, was “crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s” on the Phillies’ offer to the star infielder.
That process was underway Friday when Bichette changed course, agreeing shortly before noon to a shorter-term (three years), higher-salary ($42 million per year) contract with two opt-outs from the Mets, who lost in their attempt to sign free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker.
Most Phillies officials found out about it like the public did — through reports in the media.
“It’s a gut punch,” Dombrowski said. “I mean, you feel it.”
Bichette didn’t give the Phillies the chance to outbid New York. Even so, they wouldn’t have sprung for the fourth-highest annual salary in the sport or included opt-out provisions.
And that’s how the Phillies and J.T. Realmuto found their way back to each other.
Because the Phillies “almost certainly” were going to sign Bichette or Realmuto, not both, a major league source said. And if things had gone as they anticipated Thursday night, their longtime iron-man catcher would be meeting the media from a different city this week.
Yet here were Realmuto and Dombrowski, narrowly spared from divorce, trying to avoid sounding like staying together was more than a consolation prize for either side.
“Things got a little hairy there at the end, but I’m glad we’re back here,” Realmuto said. “This is where we wanted to be the whole time.”
Said Dombrowski: “We always wanted to bring J.T. back. That was always a priority for us. They knew it. We also knew that he wanted to come back. Just there was a disagreement as far as dollars were concerned.”
Indeed, Realmuto made a catcher-record $23.1 million per year since 2021. At age 35, amid a three-year decline at the plate, he conceded he would have to take a pay cut.
But Realmuto also believed a team should pay a premium for his strengths behind the plate, notably game-calling and handling a pitching staff, among the last intangibles that can’t be measured by metrics. The Phillies appreciate his skills in those areas, but valued it differently.
“We couldn’t bridge that gap,” Dombrowski said.
It led the Phillies to Bichette, with whom they met over a Zoom call on Jan. 12. The positional fit didn’t seem obvious earlier in the offseason. Bichette has only ever played shortstop. But as talks with Realmuto stalled, the Phillies began thinking about improving the roster in other ways.
A shortstop with the Blue Jays, Bo Bichette would have played third base with the Phillies.
The Phillies would have played Bichette at third base and displaced Alec Bohm, who likely would’ve been traded. And Bichette was open to switching positions. The Zoom meeting went well enough that Dombrowski called Realmuto’s agent to inform him the Phillies might be going in another direction. Things began to get more serious.
Or did they? Given how it all turned out, did Bichette use the Phillies as a stalking horse to get the deal he wanted from the Mets?
“I can’t [say that] because you never know 100% what’s going on from their perspective,” Dombrowski said. “I do think he was sincere about thinking about coming to Philadelphia. Yes, I do. I think he was. We were at the numbers that they really asked us to match. [The Mets] jumped in at the last minute and made him a short-term offer that was very appealing to him.”
Some within the Phillies’ front office were furious. But Dombrowski said Bichette’s camp didn’t renege on a deal or negotiate out of bounds because the sides never reached the point of signing a “memo of understanding,” a document that would have preceded a completed deal.
“It wasn’t that we weren’t moving toward that direction,” Dombrowski said. “I did think that we were going to get there based upon our conversations. But we did not get to that point, so I can’t say that I ever thought we had it done.”
The Phillies thought their willingness to stretch the term of the contract to seven years with more guaranteed money would be an advantage over the Mets (or potentially the Dodgers if they hadn’t signed Tucker). It’s a tactic they used to help land other marquee free agents: Bryce Harper (13 years), Trea Turner (11 years), and Aaron Nola (seven years).
Instead, the Phillies missed out on a coveted free agent, a rarity since they signed Harper in 2019. They pivoted back to Realmuto within an hour of Bichette’s agreement with the Mets — “It was very quickly,” Dombrowski said — and bumped up their offer. They aren’t considering a run at any other big-ticket free agents, including Cody Bellinger.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said he was “upset” after finding out Bo Bichette picked the Mets, “but you have to pick yourself up and shake it off.”
They might actually be better off with Realmuto at the controls of the pitching staff than with Bichette’s right-handed bat in the lineup. Pitching, after all, remains the strength of the roster, and Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez, and others swear by Realmuto’s guidance.
Still, four days after Bichette slipped through the Phillies’ fingers, it was impossible to not hear the disappointment in Dombrowski’s voice.
“That day you are very … upset, I guess is the way to say it,” he said. “But you have to pick yourself up and shake it off. Because you can’t just wallow in what took place. So, after a day of feeling that way, or a time period, you need to move forward. That’s how you handle it.
“We did rebound in the sense that we signed J.T. right away. We’re very fortunate he didn’t sign somewhere else.”
In time, maybe it will start to feel more like it.
Less than 24 hours after losing out to the Dodgers in the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes, the Mets pivoted to Bo Bichette.
After New York swooped in with a three-year, $126 million deal for the infielder, the Phillies immediately made a pivot of their own. They agreed to terms with catcher J.T. Realmuto on a three-year, $45 million contract, a source confirmed to The Inquirer. The contract was first reported by The Athletic. The deal includes incentives worth up to $5 million more per year in awards bonuses, for a potential total of $60 million. The awards bonus package is a record for a free agent, a source said.
The contract will take Realmuto, who will be 35 in March, through his age-37 season.
He is coming off a down year offensively, slashing .257/.315/.384 with 12 homers, but has remained one of the top defensive catchers in baseball with a game-planning and pitch-calling ability that is highly touted by many Phillies pitchers.
“I’ve had a lot of great catchers I’ve been around. [Jorge] Posada. [Iván] Rodríguez for a short period of time. It goes on and on and on,” manager Rob Thomson said in October. “This guy, to me, is the most prepared guy I’ve ever been around as a catcher.”
Re-signing Realmuto, who has backstopped the Phillies since 2019, had been a main focus of the club throughout the offseason. But while the parties were apart on a deal, the Phillies began to show interest in adding Bichette as a lineup upgrade.
They met with Bichette virtually earlier this week, but instead of landing the two-time All-Star, they will now have to contend with him in the National League East.
A shortstop with the Blue Jays, Bo Bichette is expected to move to third base with the Mets.
Bichette spent the first seven years of his career with the Blue Jays as a shortstop. A right-handed contact hitter, Bichette posted a .311 batting average in 2025, second in the American League behind Aaron Judge. He injured his knee in September but returned to Toronto’s lineup in the World Series, playing second base for the first time in his major league career.
The Mets have an established shortstop in Francisco Lindor and traded for second baseman Marcus Semien earlier this offseason. Per multiple reports, Bichette is expected to play third base for the Mets, a position he has not played before.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has said repeatedly over the offseason that bringing back Realmuto, who has backstopped the team since 2019, remains a priority. And that isn’t just the sentiment in the front office. Shortly after Kyle Schwarber signed his own five-year extension in December, he shot a text to Realmuto to try to coax him to do the same.
“He’s one of the best catchers in the game,” Cristopher Sánchez said in September. “We’re basically nothing without him.”
Five years ago, when Realmuto signed his last contract with the Phillies, they didn’t come to an agreement until Jan. 26. But if the sides don’t reach a deal this time, what happens at catcher?
Here’s a breakdown of the Phillies’ options behind the plate if they don’t reunite with Realmuto:
Rafael Marchán made just 30 starts as the backup to J.T. Realmuto last season.
Option 1: Internal
Entering the 2025 season, the Phillies anticipated giving Realmuto, who will be 35 in March, more time off to prioritize his health. In spring training, manager Rob Thomson even floated the idea of Realmuto seeing time in left field, since the designated hitter spot was taken by Schwarber.
That suggestion never went anywhere. And in fact, rather than cut back, Realmuto played 134 games in 2025 and avoided spending any time on the injured list. Of those games, 132 were behind the plate, which tied him with 26-year-old Patrick Bailey of the Giants for most defensive games played as a catcher in the National League.
That also meant that backup catcher Rafael Marchán made only 30 starts.
The Phillies agreed to terms on 2026 contracts with Marchán and Garrett Stubbs this offseason, and they are the only catchers on the Phillies’ 40-man roster. If bringing back Realmuto isn’t in the cards and the Phillies stick with the status quo, it likely would mean a large increase in workload for the 26-year-old Marchán, who also has an injury history.
Marchán, a switch-hitter, had a .210 batting average and .587 OPS in 118 plate appearances last season. He was solid defensively in a small sample size, with a 96th percentile pop time of 1.88 seconds and catching four runners stealing above average.
In 2024, Marchán was limited to 55 games between the minors and majors because of lower back and shoulder injuries.
Stubbs saw more consistent at-bats in triple A, where he spent most of the season before being called up in September when rosters expanded. He hit .265 with a .754 OPS for Lehigh Valley, where he also developed a rapport with top pitching prospect Andrew Painter.
Neither has played more than 54 major league games in a season. It would be a significant gamble for the Phillies to rely on a Marchán-Stubbs tandem without bringing in an external option.
Stubbs and Marchán are out of options in 2026, and the catching depth beyond them is thin. To bolster it, the Phillies signed Mark Kolozsvary to a minor league deal in December and René Pinto to a minor league deal last week. They likely join Paul McIntosh and Caleb Ricketts as depth options in the minors next season.
Kolozsvary, 30, played 30 games last season between the Boston Red Sox’ double-A and triple-A affiliates and landed on the full-season injured list in June. He hasn’t made a major league appearance since 2023.
Pinto played 19 games for the Rays in 2024, hitting .214 with a .721 OPS. The 29-year-old spent the majority of last season in triple A between the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays organizations. He slashed .259/.309/.498 in 64 games.
Veteran catcher Victor Caratini posted 0.9 WAR with the Astros in 2025.
Option 2: Free agency
Realmuto remains the top catcher available in free agency ranked by wins above replacement (2.5 bWAR in 2025).
Several other options are off the board in an overall thin market for catchers this winter. Danny Jansen signed a two-year contract with the Rangers, and James McCann signed a one-year deal with the Diamondbacks.
After Realmuto, Victor Caratini, 32, is one of the more established names remaining. The switch-hitter slashed .259/.324/.404 in 114 games for the Astros in 2025 with 12 homers. He posted 0.9 WAR in 2025.
Jonah Heim is another veteran option after he was nontendered by the Rangers in November, two seasons removed from being an All-Star selection and Gold Glove winner in 2023. He hit .213 with 11 home runs in 124 games and posted 0.4 WAR last season.
Heim averaged minus-1 blocks above average and caught minus-1 runners stealing above average.
Option 3: Trade
The most likely path to find a catching replacement comparable to Realmuto would be via trade. There’s already been some movement elsewhere, with the Nationals acquiring the Mariners’ top catching prospect, Harry Ford, in exchange for reliever José A. Ferrer in December.
There hasn’t been much buzz lately around the Orioles’ Adley Rutschman, who was the subject of trade rumors after Baltimore signed top prospect Samuel Basallo to an eight-year extension in August.
Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias told reporters at his season-end news conference that “Adley’s the guy. He will be our front-line catcher.”
The Twins have so far retained catcher Ryan Jeffers, who is entering his final season of team control. But dealing the 28-year-old could be a way for the Twins to recoup some assets as they continue building for the future after their trade-deadline fire sale in 2025. Jeffers hit .266 with a .752 OPS in 119 games last season.
Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson, 29, also becomes a free agent in 2027 and could be a trade chip for Cincinnati, which has some flexibility at the position. The Reds have locked up Jose Trevino as their backup and also claimed Ben Rortvedt off waivers from the Dodgers in November.
Stephenson hit .231 with a .737 OPS over 88 games in 2025.
If they made a movie about the Phillies as 2026 begins, the climactic scene would feature Bryce Harper at the plate, flipping his Victus bat, and shouting four words at a bloodthirsty crowd.
It’s a fair question. Because the Phillies have a $300-plus-million payroll and as many stars as a planetarium. They won more games in the last three seasons than all but two teams (Dodgers, Brewers). And only the Dodgers have a streak of playoff appearances longer than the Phillies’ four-year run.
Surely, the 3.3 million fans who surged through the gates of Citizens Bank Park last season enjoyed all that.
Except, well, you know what keeps happening to the Phillies in October: divisional-round ousters in 2024 and ’25 after the Game 6 and 7 soul-crushers at home in the 2023 National League Championship Series. That’s eight losses in 10 playoff games — and nothing to show for so much regular-season success.
So, when the Phillies re-signed Kyle Schwarber last month and made an offer to bring back franchise catcher J.T. Realmuto, it mostly was met with a shrug from fans who are more wary than they should be about keeping together the guts of a roster that chased 90 wins three years ago with 95 and then 96.
But before channeling our inner Gladiator and questioning the entertainment value of yet another winning summer spent with the cast that disappoints every autumn, the Phillies went and set up a meeting next week with star free-agent infielder Bo Bichette, a major league source said Thursday, confirming a report by The Athletic.
Entertaining? Maybe. Interesting? Definitely.
Free-agent infielder Bo Bichette is scheduled to meet with the Phillies over video next week, according to a major league source.
Bichette, who will be 28 next season and twice led the American League in hits, would bring a high contact rate and right-handed power to the Phillies’ lineup. Imagine a batting order that looked like this:
But the real explanation for the fans’ collective endorphin rush is that Bichette — son of former major leaguer Dante Bichette, godson of ex-Phillies manager Joe Girardi — would represent the biggest change of the mix since Turner’s arrival as a free agent in December 2022. And let’s be clear: Signing Bichette would be like taking a blender to the roster.
Not only would the Phillies need to teach Bichette a new position (third base), but to squeeze him into the budget — with the payroll pushing up against the highest luxury-tax threshold — they must move third baseman Alec Bohm’s $10.2 million salary and say goodbye to Realmuto.
Are the Phillies really better off with Bichette? Maybe. Realmuto is older (35 this season) and amid a three-year decline at the plate. But he still has more wins above replacement over the last three seasons (9.0, as calculated by Baseball-Reference) than Bichette (8.0). And he’s beloved by the pitchers for his leadership and game-calling.
The Phillies remain hopeful of retaining Realmuto, but the sides have been locked in a contractual staring contest for a month. There isn’t a Phillies story — and depending how things go Sunday at the Linc, maybe not a Philadelphia sports story — that will dominate the news more than the Bichette-Realmuto saga for as long as it lasts.
But 2026 will bring several entertaining Phillies storylines, such as:
Phillies ace Zack Wheeler is seeking to return from thoracic outlet decompression surgery.
Whither Wheeler?
When we last heard from Zack Wheeler, it was August, and he was where he normally is, smack dab in the conversation with Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, and maybe Garrett Crochet for the best pitcher in baseball.
Then, in the flash of his fastball, he was gone, diagnosed with a blood clot near his right shoulder.
The clot was brought on by venous thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which the subclavian vein gets compressed between the collarbone and rib cage. Wheeler had season-ending surgery to remove the clot, then another procedure in late September in which his top rib was removed to relieve the pressure on the vein.
(Aside: It’s difficult not to wonder if the divisional series against the Dodgers would’ve turned out differently if the Phillies had Wheeler and reliever José Alvarado. Then again, they scored only seven runs in the three losses — and lost by a total of four runs. Pitching wasn’t the problem.)
Wheeler is throwing again — from 75 feet, manager Rob Thomson said before seeing him in person this week. The Phillies are optimistic he won’t miss much of the season. As one major league source put it, his recovery is “going great.”
“The trainers seem to think he’s doing very well,” Thomson said, purposely not venturing a guess for Wheeler’s return.
But thoracic outlet syndrome isn’t as common as, say, Tommy John surgery, and the return isn’t always as smooth. Maybe Wheeler, 35 in May, will make a full recovery, à la Diamondbacks righty Merrill Kelly, who was in his 30s when he returned from TOS. Maybe he will need to reinvent himself on the mound.
Either way, it won’t be as automatic as winding up Wheeler and watching him dominate for 200 innings. And the rest of the starting rotation, still the Phillies’ backbone, must be adjusted accordingly.
Bryce Harper finished with an .844 OPS last season, 11th among qualified National League hitters.
But there are tangible things that Harper can improve.
Start here: Harper swung at 35.6% of pitches out of the strike zone last season, 129th among 144 qualified hitters, according to Statcast. Not only was it worse than the league average (28.4%) but also his career mark (29.3%).
Harper was hampered in the first half of the season by an inflamed right wrist, which eventually sidelined him for 23 games. And he did still finish with an .844 OPS, 11th among NL hitters who qualified for the batting title.
Not bad. Just not … elite.
There’s that word again.
“He expanded a little bit more than we’re accustomed to,” hitting coach Kevin Long said in November on Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast. “I don’t know what his actual chase rate ended up being, but it was probably 35%. That’s high. If he gets that number down to 32, just drop it 3%, now he’s swinging at better pitches, [and] he’s going to do more damage.”
Justin Crawford (left), Andrew Painter, and Aidan Miller are among the Phillies’ top prospects.
Will the kids be all right?
The Phillies had 12 players make their major league debuts in the last three seasons — fewer than any team, based on FanGraphs research.
That’s about to change.
Barring a spring training from hell, Justin Crawford will be part of the Phillies’ opening-day outfield, likely in center, on March 26 against the Rangers. There’s a decent chance Andrew Painter will be in the season-opening rotation, especially if Wheeler misses the first few weeks.
And if infielder Aidan Miller plays well for a few months in triple A, he could accelerate the Phillies’ timetable to call him up.
The existing core is aging, though not yet old. Harper and Schwarber will play at 33 all season; Turner and Aaron Nola will turn 33 in June. And if this is the year that the Phillies finally scale the October mountain, their stars will have led the charge.
But it’s imperative that the Phillies’ trio of top prospects graduate to majors and provide at least as much impact, if not more, than the last wave of young players.
“I’ve said this all along, and I still believe this: We need to start working our young players into our [roster],” Dombrowski said last month. “We have good young players, and we’ll be better for it. I do think that good organizations can blend young players with veterans.”
Speaking of the Phillies’ previous youth brigade, Stott and Marsh finally got better results at the plate last season after making midyear changes. Stott hit .294 with an .855 OPS after the All-Star break; Marsh batted .303 with an .836 OPS after a hitless April. Can they build on that success?
And will reliever Orion Kerkering bounce back from his devastating season-ending throwing error?
File them away among the subplots in the Phillies’ 2026 soap opera.
