CLEARWATER, Fla. — Inside a closet at Zack Wheeler’s house, preserved and tucked inside a protective case, is one of his ribs.
The Phillies pitcher’s first rib was removed as part of the surgery he underwent in September to treat venous thoracic outlet syndrome. The rib is taken out to relieve compression of the subclavian vein.
It’s common for patients who undergo that type of surgery to receive their rib afterward, though it can be weeks or months later. But Wheeler’s doctor hand-delivered his.
“He was like, ‘I wanted to give it to you personally,’” Wheeler said from his typical corner locker at BayCare Ballpark. “So he just walked in and gave it to me in a bag. It was pretty gross.”
Wheeler, making his first public comments since his TOS diagnosis, had just finished a recovery day on Wednesday, on the first official day of Phillies camp for pitchers and catchers.
“It’s not something that you expect to happen in your life or your career,” Wheeler said. “You might expect to have a shoulder or elbow [injury] throughout your career. The blood clot thing is something that’s kind of rare and you don’t expect to have. So when you get told that, it’s just something you just have to sort of sit back and think about for a second.”
Zack Wheeler said a blood clot is “not something that you expect to happen in your life or your career.”
Wheeler had first experienced heaviness near his right shoulder following a start on Aug. 15 in Washington, and Nationals team doctors identified an upper extremity blood clot.
He underwent a thrombolysis procedure to remove the clot, and multiple specialists afterward diagnosed him with venous TOS, which ended his 2025 season.
“After the surgery, you battle the tightness and the soreness and stuff like that,” Wheeler said. “The first week was really tough after it, soreness-wise, obviously. … Now, I feel pretty much normal.”
Wheeler spent the winter in Philadelphia, where he worked with Phillies trainer Paul Buchheit on getting back his range of motion and strength. Manager Rob Thomson said earlier this week that it is doubtful Wheeler will be ready for opening day on March 26, but that he shouldn’t be “too far beyond that.”
Wheeler has been encouraged by his progress, but he isn’t looking that far ahead. Instead, he’s focused on taking things day by day and checking off each box as it comes.
The next step is building up his arm strength. He is throwing at a maximum distance of 90 feet four times a week, which soon will be extended to 105 feet. Then, it’s flat-ground drills, which are the final step before Wheeler can get on a mound.
Zack Wheeler says he never considered the possibility that he might not pitch again after surgery for a blood clot in his upper right arm.
“I just kind of do what they tell me, ask what I got for the week, and kind of just go about it that way,” Wheeler said. “I try not to get my hopes up one way or the other, and that’s kind of how I’ve always been. Just take it as it comes and just do the work that I’m needing to be done that week.”
Throughout this process, Wheeler, 35, said he never considered the possibility that he might not pitch again.
“I think that any athlete, you have surgery, you’re optimistic about it,” he said. “You always had that good mindset where you come back and be the same performer as you were. So that’s kind of my mindset the whole time. I’m moving back to where I was, and I think that’s the right mindset to have.”
The next time he does step on the mound, he’s expecting to be the same Wheeler, even if he is one rib lighter.
“Hopefully,” Wheeler said, “I can get back out there and do my thing.”
It’s unlikely that Zack Wheeler will be ready for opening day, but he won’t be “too far behind that,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said on Monday.
It was never a given that Wheeler would be back in the rotation for the start of the 2026 Phillies season. After being diagnosed with a blood clot in his upper right arm, Wheeler underwent venous thoracic outlet decompression surgery on Sept. 23, and the general timeline for return is six to eight months.
Wheeler, 35, has not yet thrown off a mound and has continued to throw at a distance of 90 feet. He last threw on Saturday, and Thomson said the reports were “very good.”
“We’re still plugging along,” Thomson said, “and it all depends on his strength and that type of thing, but all that being said, he’s doing well.”
With Wheeler doubtful to be in the rotation to start the season, that leaves an opening for Andrew Painter. The 22-year-old prospect was expected to make his major league debut last year, but he struggled with commanding his pitches in his first season back from Tommy John surgery and the call-up never materialized. Painter finished 2025 with a 5.26 ERA in 118 innings across single-A Clearwater and triple-A Lehigh Valley.
Dave Dombrowski said he saw Painter for the first time this year on Monday, and he looked “in really good shape.”
“He had stuff last year. He still threw hard last year. I’m looking for him to command his pitches better,” said Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations. “ … I’ve talked to our people that have been with him and had a chance to watch him. He’s gone back to long toss, which he hadn’t always done in the past. He’s got his arm angle up a tick more, which they think will help him back to where he was before.”
Beyond Painter, the Phillies have thin rotation depth in the minor leagues, which could be an issue in the event of an injury to the staff. Three projected members of the rotation — Cristopher Sánchez (Dominican Republic), Aaron Nola (Italy), and Taijuan Walker (Mexico) — are also set to participate in the World Baseball Classic in March.
Dombrowski said the Phillies front office will continue to look for starting pitching depth as the spring begins.
“I do think that this is going to be a spring where you continue to have more trade conversations than you normally do during spring training,” Dombrowski said. “Just because of the late developing signing of players, which puts a focus on movement for other players when somebody signs.
“But when our scouts go out there, that’ll be one of our focuses. And we may develop that internally, too; there’s some guys that we do like. But that’ll be a focus of ours, is starting pitching depth.”
Super Bowl LX will monopolize our attention Sunday as only the Big Game can. But once the buzzer sounds on Patriots-Seahawks, mitts will be poppin’ across Florida and Arizona.
With Phillies pitchers and catchers set for workouts beginning Wednesday in Clearwater, Fla., LX baseball notes:
I. Before the continuation of the “Is Bryce Harper still elite?” debate, another note from last season: Only one of the Phillies’ 43 biggest hits, based on Win Probability Added, belonged to Harper. He had four of their 13 biggest hits from 2019-24.
II. So, whatever you thought of Dave Dombrowski’s assessment that Harper “didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past,” can we agree that 2025 was un-Bryce-like?
III. It’s probably giving Dombrowski too much credit to suggest he was being calculated. But the last time anyone publicly poked Harper, he homered twice in Game 3 of the 2023 division series and stared a hole through Braves shortstop “Attaboy” Orlando Arcia. A chip on Harper’s shoulder wouldn’t be the worst thing for the Phillies.
IV. Fact: Harper faced a lower rate of strikes (43%) than any hitter in baseball last season.
V. Another fact: Harper swung at 35.6% of pitches out of the strike zone, 129th among 144 qualified hitters and far above his career mark (29.3%), according to Statcast.
VI. It’s about Harper’s swing decisions, then, as much as lineup protection. “If he gets that [chase] number down to 32, just drop it 3%, now he’s swinging at better pitches, he’s going to do more damage,” hitting coach Kevin Long told The Inquirer’s Phillies Extra podcast. “The onus falls on me to make sure he’s swinging at the right pitches and him to make sure he’s not expanding. No matter what, he has to control his at-bats.”
Kyle Schwarber batted in front of Bryce Harper for most of last season, when he hit 56 homers and was runner-up for NL MVP.
VII. Still, don’t be surprised if Rob Thomson puts Kyle Schwarber behind Harper in the batting order. It was the other way around for most of last season.
VIII. A month before the Mets signed Bo Bichette — out from under the Phillies’ nose, by the way — they pushed hard for Schwarber, league sources said. The Phillies re-signed Schwarber to a five-year, $150 million contract, the biggest deal ever for a full-time designated hitter.
IX. Speaking of Bichette, set a calendar reminder for June 18-21, the Mets’ first visit to South Philly.
X. The Mets lost 18½ games in the NL East standings in 108 days, missed the playoffs, then overhauled the roster … and fans bemoaned not bringing back Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, and Edwin Díaz. The Phillies won another division title, had a bad week in October, then ran back the core of the roster … and fans bemoaned keeping the band together. Strange days.
XI. BetMGM set the Phillies’ over/under win total at 90.5. Same as the Mets’.
XII. July will be a big month for business at the corner of 11th & Pattison: Futures Game (July 12), Home Run Derby (July 13), All-Star Game (July 14), Mets (July 16-19), Dodgers (July 20-22), and Yankees (July 24-26).
XIII. Schwarber has 340 homers. If he hits 32 per year — and a work stoppage doesn’t wipe out part of the 2027 season — he would reach 500 homers before his new Phillies contract runs out in 2030.
XIV. Harper has 363 homers and would need to hit 23 per year to reach 500 before the expiration of his 13-year contract in 2031.
XV. Players who hit their 500th homer with the Phillies: Mike Schmidt, on April 18, 1987.
Zack Wheeler is recovering from thoracic outlet decompression surgery in September.
XVI. After being diagnosed with a blood clot in his upper right arm, Zack Wheeler had venous thoracic outlet decompression surgery in September. The recovery for a pitcher typically takes up to eight months, Thomson said, which would put Wheeler on a May timetable.
XVII. Bet on Wheeler to beat that projection. He began throwing from a mound this week, a source close to the 35-year-old righty said. The Phillies won’t push Wheeler, but he’s motivated to make as many starts as possible in what he has said will be his second-to-last season.
XVIII. Not every pitcher recovers at the same rate, but Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly had vTOS surgery in September 2020 and started Arizona’s second game of the 2021 season.
XIX. If Wheeler isn’t ready, top prospect Andrew Painter almost certainly will occupy a spot in the season-opening rotation. Painter, who turns 23 on April 10, could be the Phillies’ youngest starter since Ranger Suárez on Aug. 16, 2018 (22 years, 355 days).
XX.Justin Crawfordturned 22 on Jan. 13. If he makes the team out of camp, as expected, he will be the youngest position player on a Phillies opening-day roster since Freddy Galvis in 2012 and the youngest outfielder since Greg Luzinski and Mike Anderson in 1973.
XXI. Crawford’s ground-ball rate in triple A last season (59.4%) would’ve easily led the majors, topping Christian Yelich’s 56.7% mark.
XXII. But Crawford also would’ve ranked fifth with 67 bolts, defined by Statcast as sprints of at least 30 feet per second. (Trea Turner led the majors with 117 bolts.)
XXIII. Is it really so bad, then, that Crawford tends to hit a lot of balls on the ground? “Hopefully it doesn’t matter,” Lehigh Valley hitting coach Adam Lind said. “His approach works right now. He’s super fast. His swing works to where he can hit the ball all over the yard. Whenever a defender has to take one step away from first base, that usually means he’ll be safe.”
XXIV. Quiz: Crawford could be the Phillies’ eighth different opening-day center fielder in nine years. Name the others. (Answer below.)
XXV. Upon stepping down as Twins president last week, Derek Falvey cited ownership’s “different plan” for the team’s direction. If Minnesota enters a full rebuild, All-Star center fielder Byron Buxton would be widely coveted, including by the Phillies. Buxton, 32, has three years and $45 million left on his contract, plus no-trade rights.
XXVI. The Phillies’ projected luxury-tax payroll is $316.3 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, trailing the Dodgers ($402.5M), Mets ($376.6M), and Yankees ($335.5M). For a second consecutive year, the Phillies will pay a 110% tax on every dollar spent above $304 million, the highest of four thresholds.
XXVII. In 2025, the Phillies paid $56,062,903 in luxury taxes on a $314,329,912 payroll, the Associated Press reported. Their tax bill has risen from $2,882,657 in 2022, $6,977,345 in 2023, and $14,351,954 in 2024.
XXVIII. Owners will gather Wednesday in Palm Beach, Fla., for their quarterly meetings. Many owners are pushing for a salary cap in the next collective bargaining agreement. The players’ union has historically opposed a cap. It would take eight of 30 owners to block a salary-cap proposal. The existing CBA expires Dec. 1, with a lockout likely to follow.
XXVIX. Last month, commissioner Rob Manfred told a New York radio station that MLB has discussed schedule changes, including an in-season tournament similar to the NBA Cup. The players would need to agree to any new formats.
XXX. The Phillies will send 11 players from their 40-man roster to the World Baseball Classic: Schwarber, Harper, and Brad Keller (U.S.); Cristopher Sánchez and Johan Rojas (Dominican Republic); José Alvarado (Venezuela); Taijuan Walker (Mexico); Aaron Nola (Italy); Garrett Stubbs and Max Lazar (Israel); Edmundo Sosa (Panama). Preliminary round games begin March 5, with the final set for March 17 in Miami.
XXXI.Jesús Luzardo was invited to pitch for Venezuela and Team USA but declined. “It’s very important for my family, for me, to represent Venezuela,” Luzardo told Phillies Extra. “But just in terms of intelligent decision-making, after a long last year and looking forward to a long this year, I thought the correct decision would be to take a slow spring training and make sure everything’s along the right line to be prepared for the year.” Luzardo is eligible for free agency after this season.
XXXII. Left-handed pitcher A: 3.59 ERA, 544 strikeouts, 1.287 WHIP, 117 ERA-plus in 588⅓ innings since 2022.
XXXIII. Left-handed pitcher B: 3.83 ERA, 602 strikeouts, 1.186 WHIP, 116 ERA-plus in 529⅓ innings since 2022.
XXXIV. Suárez (Lefty A) signed a five-year, $130 million contract with the Red Sox last month that will cover his ages 30-34 seasons.
XXXV. Luzardo (Lefty B) will pitch at age-28 this season.
XXXVI. Quiz answer: Brandon Marsh (2025), Rojas (2024), Marsh (2023), Matt Vierling (2022), Adam Haseley (2021), Roman Quinn (2020), Odúbel Herrera (2019), and Aaron Altherr (2018).
Jesús Luzardo posted a 3.92 ERA in a career-high 183⅔ innings in his first season with the Phillies in 2025.
XXXVII. Sánchez threw the most changeups (1,084) in baseball last season. Among 72 pitchers who threw at least 300, he ranked ninth in opponents’ batting average (.170) and slugging (.243) against his changeup.
XXXVIII. Changeup artist Cole Hamels on why Sánchez’s is so dominant: “One thing I’ve noticed is you cannot recognize the spin. It’s the same [as the two-seamer]. So, it’s a coin flip: Am I going to try to hit 97 [mph] with sink, or am I going to hit 87 with drop-off-the-table [action]? And he’s not scared to throw it in any type of count, with anybody on.”
XXXIX. By finishing second in the Cy Young voting last year, Sánchez’s club options for 2029 and 2030 increased by $1 million apiece to $15 million and $16 million.
XL. The automated ball-strike system is coming to MLB after being tested last year in spring training and the minors. Each team is allowed two challenges per game. Thomson prefers that challenges be initiated by the catcher or batters, with specific hitters getting a green light to challenge.
XLI. Opinions about ABS are varied. “There’s a human element pitchers like with umpires,” reliever Tanner Banks said last month. “Maybe you steal [a strike] because the catcher does a great job. But at the end of the day, you want consistency. The umpires I’ve talked to are for it if it helps make the right call.”
XLII. Imagine if the Phillies could’ve challenged umpire Mark Wegner’s missed strike call on Sánchez’s 2-2 pitch to Alex Call with one out in the seventh inning of Game 4 of last year’s NL division series. Call walked on the next pitch and scored the tying run. Sánchez said Wegner admitted that he got it wrong.
XLIII. A catcher’s game-calling is among the last skills that are largely immeasurable through analytics, which explains why it took so long for the Phillies and J.T. Realmuto to reach an agreement in free agency. At 35, amid three years of declining offense, Realmuto’s value is tied to his intangible impact on the pitching staff.
XLIV. Since 2023, opponents had a .682 OPS and Phillies pitchers had a 3.75 ERA with Realmuto behind the plate. The major-league averages were .722 and 4.18.
XLV. “In my opinion, catchers are undervalued as far as contracts and dollars go,” said Realmuto, who eventually accepted a three-year, $45 million offer. “I truly believe it’s one of, if not the most important position on the field, and I just enjoy fighting for that.”
XLVI. Quiz: Realmuto started a career-high 132 games behind the plate last season. In the last 80 years, how many catchers started that many games at age 34 or older? (Answer below.)
XLVII. Player A: .260/.306/.426, 121 doubles, 82 homers, 100 OPS-plus in 2,477 plate appearances.
XLVIII. Player B: .237/.296/.441, 118 doubles, 110 homers, 107 OPS-plus in 2,473 plate appearances.
LIX.Nick Castellanos (Player A) in four seasons with the Phillies (ages 30-33).
L.Adolis García (Player B) in the last four seasons with the Rangers (ages 29-32).
LI. Castellanos ranked last among all outfielders in defensive runs saved (minus-41) since 2022; Garcia was tied for ninth (plus-23).
LII.Bryson Stott lowered his hands, moved them closer to his body, and batted .294 with an .855 OPS after the All-Star break last season. It’s one reason Phillies officials are confident in running back almost the same lineup.
LIII. Here’s another: Marsh batted .303 with an .836 OPS after May 1.
LIV. If depth is a factor, and it usually is, the open seats in the bullpen could go to Rule 5 pick Zach McCambley and Zach Pop, who is out of minor league options. But Thomson is talking up Kyle Backhus, a lefty with a low arm slot who was acquired in a trade with Arizona.
LV. Righty-hitting outfielder Bryan De La Cruz will be in camp as a nonroster invitee after signing a minor-league contract in November. De La Cruz, 29, has major-league experience, mostly with the Marlins. He was MVP of the Dominican Winter League, batting .301 with eight homers and an .888 OPS in 46 games.
Chase Utley is getting closer to being elected to the Hall of Fame.
LVI. Lefty reliever Génesis Cabrera also will be in camp as a nonroster invitee. Once a promising reliever with the Cardinals, Cabrera hit Harper in the face with a 97 mph fastball in 2021. The Phillies will be his sixth team since 2024.
LVII. It’s clear that Chase Utley will eventually get elected to the Hall of Fame after reaching 59.1%, 68 votes shy of the requisite three-quarter majority, in his third year on the ballot. But will it take one more voting cycle or two for him to get to the 75% mark?
LVIII. The electorate changes each year, depending on how many writers join the process upon reaching 10 years of membership in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. But consider Carlos Beltrán’s path to election: 57.1% in 2024, 70.3% in 2025, and finally 84.2% this year. So, pencil in Utley for the Class of 2028 … and maybe book a hotel in Cooperstown for 2027 just in case.
LIX. Quiz answer: Six. Realmuto (2025), Yadier Molina (2017), Jason Kendall (2008), Tony Peña (1991), Elston Howard (1964), and Bob Boone (1982-86).
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.
