Phillies 2025-2026 Hot Stove Discussion

[phillychuck]

But the Phillies have now tried to trade him two years in a row

Honestly, we don’t know that. DD’s front office is pretty buttoned up. The writers are just guessing, and we’re along for the ride with them...

[Austinfan]

Bohm at 31 doesn't have much upside. And a lot of downside as a big 3B who lacks great quickness, his defense could easily nosedive in his 30s. 1B is blocked, DH is blocked and he's not an OF.

They just let him walk after this season.
More like to extend Sosa at a reasonable price.

[zambonir]

I don't think they were guessing. It may not have come from the Phillies but when you offer a player to 10 teams (or 29), writers find out about it (and Boras would have known too). And Gelb is not like Nightengale or Heyman. If he says the Phillies had tried to move him, which he did last year, he's not pulling that out of the air. Journalists in Seattle also reported what the Phillies asked the Mariners for (a top SP) and Rosenthal reported the Phillies asked the A's for Mason Miller.

Now, you can argue they were never serious about trading him if they only asked for an unreasonable return. And this year, I don't know that they were actively shopping him. But he was obviously likely to get traded had they signed Bichette (with Stott less likely but possible).

Boras is no dummy, if the Phillies QO'd Bohm he'd probably take it. Grab the $24 million for one year instead of barely more than that for two. Ryan O'Hearn signed for $25M/2 and he has a 125 OPS+ (Bohm 102) and 2.5 WAR (Bohm 1.5)

To his credit, he has made it further than Cesar Hernandez or Maikel Franco did (though non-tendering Cesar was probably a mistake).

[Deadgmwalking]

Tolkien once wrote of going on a fool’s hope. DD must like LoTR.

[zambonir]

Every baseball team has to hope for things. Hope your prospects can play. Hope your pitchers don't need surgery. Hope your older players are the exception rather than the rule, or at least (and this is definitely what the Phillies believe, right or wrong) extraordinary in some way (an especially high level of talent or conditioning or approach) that makes them outliers for longer.

I'm not really sure what's wrong this team as it currently stands. Last year's team didn't look better than its predecessor and won one more game. Maybe this year's team only wins 89. But the season is a shake-out cruise, there's no secret for how to build a team that can win a five-game playoff series. Even LA doesn't know it. They've just done it the last couple of years.

Obviously depth and talent shows out by the WS in most cases. And the real advantage the Dodgers and Mets are pressing is not that they can sign a Tucker or Bichette but that they do fix their mistakes with more money. As much as the Dodgers beat us with starting pitching this year, the fact that they had like ten starters (with five of them injured at any time) the year before was even more impressive.

[jimbomill]

Every baseball team has to hope for things. Hope your prospects can play. Hope your pitchers don't need surgery. Hope your older players are the exception rather than the rule, or at least (and this is definitely what the Phillies believe, right or wrong) extraordinary in some way (an especially high level of talent or conditioning or approach) that makes them outliers for longer.

Bingo!
Know one knows for sure except maybe in rare cases, like Ken Griffey, Jr, and even then, hoping for good health has to be included.

[andyb]

I am only counting on Miller and Painter as prospects worthy of penciling in long time roles. Everyone else (Crawford included) will need to show more before counting on them long term. That is not hope though. It is just analysis of talent and risk. Does not mean either will succeed. There is just a good enough chance of them succeeding that one can do midrange (3-5 year) planning with them. Crawford will hopefully ascend to that level this season.

The Phillies themselves showed what they think of Bohm this offseason both by pursuing Bichette AND by not trading Bohm. They are fine with him this year but certainly looking around for the future.

[Austinfan]

I'm not too worried about Crawford, tore up AAA at 21. Even with his swing flaws, he's hit consistently at every level, only 40g in AA yet flawless jump to AAA. High BABIP at every level, so not a fluke. BB jumped to 11.5% in AAA so improving plate discipline. Should add power as he fills out his frame and tweaks his swing.
Remains to be seen if he has instincts to utilize his speed in CF, but should at least be adequate and plus in LF.

[flyers19rw]

If Harrison Bader is still out there to be signed, and I believe that he is, bring him back to play CF; move Crawford over to LF until he becomes adjusted to playing in the show.

[VoteForKalas]

The thing is, I see measuring organizational success by winning out in the post-season, as opposed to reaching the post-season (i.e., excelling in the regular season) as foolish, to be blunt. The post-season is a crapshoot. If you roll snake eyes, it's not because you brought the wrong dice (assuming you're not cheating, of course! ).

The Phillies in 2025 won 96 regular-season games. That is a successful season. They didn't win out in a multi-layer tournament involving 12 teams - a tournament that turns to a great degree on luck.

The issue with this perspective is that there is a certain thing called the future.

The future of this team is bleak if they continue to stand still and not adapt their roster, strategies and overall approach to winning.

The last 2 offseasons they have done almost nothing to fix the fundamental issues leading to that bleak future and making it harder to win in the present as well. The point is to assemble the best team possible and put them in the best position possible to win games every season.

The Dodgers do not win by accident or by luck. They put the best team possible together every season and do whatever they can to make it successful. They are very active in the international market. They draft & develop talent effectively. They invest heavily in their farm system and their ML roster. They pursue FA with vigor and are also active in the trade market. They leave no stone unturned to win. Their future is bright now AND in the future.

96 wins and a division title is a successful season. The Phillies were one of the best teams in the league.

But, again, that team no longer exists. Suarez, Bader & Strahm are gone. No one knows if Wheeler at age 35 will ever reach his performance level again. Nola is 32. Schwarber is 32. JT is 34. Harper is 33. Turner is 32. Expect decline in production across the board; we've already seen some already for several of our core players.

After the 2023 season, they needed to implement more bold & fundamental change to inject talented youth, extend the competitive window and help balance out several of these huge contracts for older players that will be ugly in the later years. Unfortunately, I think they have waited too long and missed that opportunity. I expect next season to not be as good as we start to see the dropoff accelerate. Painter, Miller & Crawford need to pan out, they need to reinforce the rotation and optimize the offense to stop that trend IMO. We'll see what happens.

[allentown]

There are two serious questions about Crawford: can he be a good CF and will his approach to hitting work at the MLB level -- it is possible for flawed hitters to excel in the minor leagues, because the pitchers make more mistake pitches. That's true for all young MiLB hitters, as we saw with Domonic Brown -- they can live against lesser pitchers and pound the pitchers' errors. The risk seems larger with Crawford, because of his negative loft swing: he will encounter better fielders with stronger arms in MLB, making it harder to pound a ground ball through the IF or beat out a ground ball. At the MLB level, teams will focus far more upon analyzing his deficiencies and pitching to defeat them. The average MLB pitcher will leave fewer mistake pitches for him to hit. He will be the exception to the rule if he is able to thrive with the unusual hitting approach which worked for him in the minor leagues. I still view him as a big question mark and put him in the 'hope' category as we think of who will man the Phillies OF this season. Adolis Garcia and Marsh are the surest OFs, but Garcia had only a 93 OPS+, while Marsh is streaky and likely must be platooned.

I am glad that the Phillies are giving Crawford a chance to be their regular CF and want him to be given a thorough chance and not be benched when first slump occurs, but ours truly is a very iffy OF.

[zambonir]

With Bader on this team Crawford and Marsh would be redundant to each other (well, except for the part where Bader isn't even that good a hitter and has largely been a platoon player himself, in which case he would de facto be one of their back-ups). You would want to trade one of them for what the team really needs, a middle-of-the-order bat, but that's still easier said than done, as it has also been on all but the very top of the FA market. But trading Crawford mortgages the future while trading Marsh makes the team worse now.

If Bader's market is not what he or the Phillies expected, you certainly consider him. They could also still trade Bohm and sign Eugenio Suarez if he's available for less money or fewer years.

I don't think they are done, in any case. A lot can still happen in three weeks. They might even trade Nick yet (vs. releasing him). But the willingness to offer Bichette suggests they won't just stick to what had appeared to be a fairly conservative, sort of run it back (they did still change two of the nine positions) plan.

[allentown]

With Bader on this team

I'd love to have Bader back on the Phillies.

[zambonir]

But you just said you want Crawford to be the regular CF, which IMO should mean playing him every day, including against LHP. And they're not going to trade or release Garcia who is just as good a fielder with a theoretcial (very theoretical) better bat anyway. I don't think it's truly possible to sign Bader to be our weakside platoon LF (nor that for CF) or get him to take a deal like he did last year (cheap and full of AB incentives added to his buyout). He'd certainly be an upgrade over Rojas and Kemp though.

[allentown]

No, it should not mean playing Crawford every day, even if he proves himself good enough to be our regular CF. And as I wrote, that is a hope and a very big if. Marsh shouldn't hit against LHP. Garcia should certainly get days off. Through getting dinged up and the need for rest days, it's unlikely that any of our OFs/1B/DH will play every day and, including injury, some will play well less than every day. There absolutely is a need for an OF, especially a RHB like Bader, as a 4th OF who gets a ton of playing time. Harper appeared in 132 games last season, Garcia in 136, Schwarber did have 162 but probably could have benefitted from a few days off. I'd be surprised if Crawford played more than 140, even as the regular. Marsh played in 133 games but didn't start or finish that many and should be platooned. Bader played in 146 games last year, but only 501 PA. He can match that with this year's Phillies. He is young enough for a 2-3 year deal., since it won't be a big $ deal. Any way you slice it, the Phillies are an OF short and that guy should be a RHB not named Castellanos.

[zambonir]

There's no chance it will be Castellanos. He may be on the 40-man roster for now. He won't be. But either way, Kemp, Rojas and Wilson are all ahead of him to take the two bench OF spots.

We'll see what Bader gets. Mets are interested in him because they didn't get Tucker. Lesser teams also might pay him bigger money on a one-year deal. And his season last year was an outlier for staying healthy/PAs as well as hitting (and then we saw him flatten in both regards in September and October), which is why his incentives with the Twins started at 400. He got more than that for the Mets but also stunk at the plate. He has a career 96 OPS+. Luckily for him he's a free agent coming off last season and someone might pay him based on that. I would not give him a three-year deal. He's 32 and not that good. That's why they picked Garcia over him, for the single year of risk and cheaper price.

If that's not the case, sure, try to steal him and let him play some CF and LF. Kemp and Rojas both have options. Garcia will need days off but they should probably go to a LHB, which I guess the Phillies aren't really going to have (just Stott and Marsh and Crawford when they don't play against LHP).

[zambonir]

Fairly thorough summary of Bader's situation

Where will Harrison Bader wind up? | OnPattison

If the Phillies really wanted to, they could consider trading Marsh, opening up the opportunity to bring back Bader to play left and/or center field. But while he does have limitations — namely, hitting against left-handed pitchers — Marsh batted .300 with an .838 OPS against righties last season. He's also going to make $5.2 million in his penultimate year of arbitration eligibility. Bader declined his half of a $10 million mutual option for 2026, so he's presumably seeking more than $10 million annually on a multi-year deal.

__The Phillies could still seek a right-handed hitting platoon partner for Marsh, though Bader is overqualified for that role. Wherever he signs, he's going to play every day, not just on the short side of a platoon. (Either going internally with Otto Kemp or trying to sign a veteran like Randal Grichuk to platoon with Marsh is probably more likely.) Also, having Bader on the team — even if the initial plan was just to be a platoon partner for Marsh — would make it difficult for Crawford to get his footing at the MLB level, because the second the 22-year-old struggled, there would be calls to have Bader cut into his playing time in center field.

[schillingfan]

Well the Cleveland losses sucked, but I’ve enjoyed the Sixers this year. But really I can think of so many other cities I would not like to be a fan of, like Oakland, who lost all its teams, or Arizona, or fans in our sibling Pittsburgh.

Yeah I didn't read it as sarcasm per se. Obviously Eagles just won a Super Bowl and Phillies are one of the best teams in baseball but the Eagles' reign is over, the Phillies have been disappointing for three straight Octobers (crap shoot or not) and we're still bruised from one of the worst Sixers seasons since they won nine games, and they've lost a few bad ones in the past week. And the arguably brightest spot (albeit with a lower standard than we have for the Eagles), the Flyers, currently spiraling. Plus the Union still I haven't won MLS Cup.

[zambonir]

For JT

Phillies Designate Weston Wilson For Assignment

[andyb]

Probably a realization that he and Kemp's roles are redundant and both were not going to make the roster.

Good chance he clears waivers I imagine. They did bring in Cairo in AAA as a backup infielder and I also think it is not unlikely that Rojas will make the team as the 5th OF anyway (though that depends on Crawford to some degree).