Phillies 2026 News and Discussion

[EastFallowfield]

Kemp's back, Reyes down

[David_Criss]

Carter Kieboom is the best hitter at LeHigh Valley. Why not find a 40-man spot for him over Kemp? Neither are going to win a gold glove.

[Callison]

I'm looking at Marsh hitting .250 against lefties. IMHO Crawford can do that. Did not mean to say more.

Looks like Marsh is on his way to a career season. And he looks for real, not just on top of the cycle.

We can see what Mattingly thinks of Crawford at leadoff, though. Even when Turner had a night off, he didn't try it. Looks like Mattingly, like Rob, is all in on the first 3 in the order so much that he won't disturb it. Sure has been working lately!

[andyb]

Carter Kieboom is the best hitter at LeHigh Valley. Why not find a 40-man spot for him over Kemp? Neither are going to win a gold glove.

Because Kieboom has shown definitively that he is NOT a major league hitter. Career sub-600 OPS and he is not a special fielder either. His OPS of 790 in Lehigh Valley is much lower than one would expect from a legit major league hitter especially given his age (28). In short, Kemp is a better hitter now and is still young enough to get a little better. Kieboom is kind of a lesser Weston Wilson at this point in his career (and ideally that roster spot has someone who can play a little OF too).

[zambonir]

Yeah Kieboom would have to be Kiebooming at 1,000 OPS in AAA just to be better than Weston Wilson was.

[andyb]

If we are looking for a better hitter from AAA we should get to see Keaton Anthony as soon as this week. He certainly has the potential to be a decent hitter even if he does not have much power. Question with him is whether he can play an acceptable LF and if I recall Spring Training he is not there yet.

[Austinfan]

I think with Anthony it's throw him out there, give him a couple hundred PA and 40-50 games in LF and see if he improves enought to be a credible option after the All-Star break. Right now he's a bit of an unknown.

[phillychuck]

Anthony is actually good 1B and rumor has it that Harper can play OF acceptably...

[andyb]

The point about Anthony is that he too is young enough to improve a bit. His flaws are huge though. He only plays 1B on a team with a full time 1B and is now a terrible LF. And two, he really lacks the power for the positions he plays.

His chance is most likely as a pinch hitter who can get on base at a relatively high clip. Think of a current day Greg Gross. But given that we now have a 3rd catcher taking up space on our bench, a utility player who does a handful of things well might be an improvement.

There is really nothing else at AAA now. Riincones can't hit LHP and needs an injury to a left-handed bat to even fit on our roster. Cairo is a nice emergency option in the infield but that is probably all. Reyes needs to improve his approach to get a chance. Anthony is a more refined Reyes with less power. Could that be a fit if Kemp fails again? Possibly, though it is still a really low ceiling.

[MichaelJackSchmidt]

Chris on Instagram: "This might be one of the most bizarre stats I’ve seen 😂...

[BostonRoss]

Anthony is actually good 1B and rumor has it that Harper can play OF acceptably...

Like many rumors, that doesn't seem to be true. A quick look at the last four seasons in which Harper was mainly an outfielder shows him with -3.9 dWAR (and one of those seasons was only 60 games). Those were his age 25-28 seasons; he's now 33 and has been seriously injured since those poor defensive seasons.

[phillychuck]

I was mainly being a wise guy with that post. With Harper entrenched at 1B, Anthony is only an emergency option and trade bait. Really, the emergency option is probably Bohm at 1B and Sosa at 3rd and another multi-positional IF on the bench (maybe Kieboom or Cairo or someone from outside of the organization).

[zambonir]

Schwarber plays more OF than Harper these days. But is Anthony really that much more unplayable in LF than Kemp or Reyes?

[andyb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrFTpXJcIno

[zambonir]

Hey I've seen our good fielders do that. I am not saying he is actually an option for this year, and probably no more than Kemp or Reyes is long-term. Or a trade throw-in.

[andyb]

From what I read in Spring Training Anthony is more in the Hoskins group now. Kemp can at least run and Reyes has the most experience out there. Guessing Sosa with a little practice would be better than all of them defensively.

The reason I brought Anthony up was not because he was better than those guys in the OF. It is more about him being better as a pinch hitter late in the game when Kemp strikes out too much and Reyes chases too much. He actually has the skills you want in a pinch hitter. If he could learn to play LF acceptably he'd be an OK bench player that would get occasional starts but probably would not be in a strict platoon. It would probably be a good thing for instance to get Harper at DH once a week with Schwarber in LF.

[phillychuck]

The collision above was somebody’s fault for not taking charge, probably Anthony should have called the SS off. Neither guy looked too concerned about chasing the ball down afterward, either...

[zambonir]

I dunno that bringing Rhys back would have been a good decision in any way (he certainly wouldn't have gotten the same shorter cheaper deal he had to take from Milwaukee), and he's not looking too good now (nor did the Phillies have a place for him). Certainly his presence might have swung a few key moments in any given playoff series.

But man, this list:

But the leaguewide trend since 2024 is more offense from first base (.749 OPS, according to Statcast) than right field (.737). In keeping Harper at first, the Phillies churned through righty-hitting outfielders/utility types: Cristian Pache, Whit Merrifield, Johan Rojas, Weston Wilson, Austin Hays, Otto Kemp, Harrison Bader, Adolis García, and Felix Reyes.

Rhys Hoskins’ injury was a sliding door moment in Phillies history. And it still...

[andyb]

Weston Wilson should have gotten more of a chance. He never hit that badly and also offered some speed and average defense (more infield than outfield). We kept wanting more than a platoon utility guy, but sometimes what you have is actually as good as the players you keep wanting.

[zambonir]

He got a pretty decent chance last year. Injury hurt him early, and then Kemp just outplayed him after roster expansion (when there was plenty of playing time to go around with injuries). Of course it's easy to say now that they should have kept him and just optioned Kemp had Wilson won the job in spring training, instead of cutting him loose so early. Orioles still wound up DFAing him and keeping him in AAA until a few weeks into this season. One imagines the Phillies had hoped he'd go unclaimed in the first place.