Phillies 2026 Spring Training Discussion

[zambonir]

I think Dombrowski has done a decent job bringing in fresh blood. Gillick was an emergency interim hire. MacPhail was a huge whiff especially since he did a poor job bringing in new blood. Had he picked a better GM he would have gotten the heck out of the way (as he did anyway) and things might have been okay. Middleton was also to blame for the Girardi hire; he lucked out that Thomson was already here with Kapler, already knew Girardi, and worked out as well as he did.

But DD, he came along at a time when all the good candidates didn't even want the job. There was even talk of not having a new PBO for a year. We only got him because he was MacPhail's buddy and his Nashville gig dried up. He's been the right guy for this era, and just as important, the guy who's able to manage his owner. Hopefully Mattingly is the next right guy, because I have a feeling that even if things went really bad and DD left earlier than he wanted do, the inherent conservatism of the organizaion would still keep them on the internal succession plan, as ever (see also:Flyers).

The big inflection point to me was the year they dumped Amaro . That was when the Brewers hired David Stearns away from the Astros in-season. The Phillies waited, even though MacPhail had already been selected, and then hired someone who hadn't really been part of an impressive or forward-thinking organization, but was already known to MacPhail.

[EDmuch]

I think the biggest hope for this season is that Miller's performance sky rockets into the atmosphere and the replaces Bohm early in the year. If he does that it could produce a juice that could energize the whole team. Maybe eve stop Harper from bitching.

[allentown]

Look at last season’s Mount Rushmore of hitters and you’ll see the source of Harper’s frustration.

DD whiffed badly on Castellanos and that contract became an albatross which limited his budget options going forward. He hit with Schwarber. At least for the beginning years of the contract, he hit with Turner. Those aren't bad overall results. He had hits and misses with relievers. DD's FA signings aren't the source of the problems. His BA on those and his trades don't stand out as the problem.

The problem (which possibly is starting to change) is what it has been for a long time: the organizations inability to sign and develop hitters, particularly OFs. They have spent an ocean of bonus $, at least compared to what they spend on pitching, to sign plus amateur OF talent. I think part of the problem is scouting. A big part has been constant churn and inconsistency across levels in hitting instruction.

The Phillies have proven, once again, how extremely difficult it is to buy a championship team with the budget they have, if the farm doesn't produce. They've also proven that using the farm just to provide trade fodder to acquire veterans can't give them the long-term success they seek.

EdMuch - Yes, Miller could really help. This team needs some youthful juice in the lineup. If Crawford can be a high OBP terror on the basepaths, that will be a start. This team has too much the aura of a club of veterans drifting toward retirement. Losing the entitled Casty will help.

[julio]

I think the biggest hope for this season is that Miller's performance sky rockets into the atmosphere and the replaces Bohm early in the year. If he does that it could produce a juice that could energize the whole team. Maybe eve stop Harper from bitching.

What's more likely is that astronomical expectations for Miller, and for Andrew Painter, will be so built up by "fans" and media that the result will be disappointment and disillusionment, and these kids will be labeled as "failures." This, too, is the Philadelphia Way.

[zambonir]

Even just Bohm hitting better would help a lot. He talked yesterday about how he's never going to be the home run guy, but when he's locked in, he hits doubles and makes contact and gets guys home with RISP. Can he do it? Dunno. I'm not the biggest Bohm believer but I also seriously doubt that Miller is going to come up to MLB quickly/early and be a better bat. .810 at Reading is like .700 in MLB, and 1.000 at AAA is something we've seen from any number of AAAA fringe guys like Wilson.

Adolis Garcia is just as important. If he can get halfway back to 2023 that's huge. If not he improves the defense but nothing else.

Murphy also says what I've always said, the offense just never replaced Rhys. Casty was that guy for about half of the 2023 playoffs. JT was no longer than guy. Bohm never became that guy.

[andyb]

Bohm did go from 44 doubles in 2024 to 18 in 2025. Injury or old age? Could be a bit of both. Clearly we need Bohm to be better or Miller will have his job by the end of the season.

[zambonir]

Injury or old age?

Often the same thing! He was injured three times between September of '24 and last year. I definitely think he can do better than last year, he's just not ever gonna be the guy we hoped in the first half of '24.

We want him to be better and Miller to be ready so we can trade him, rather than just benching/dumping Bohm.

[phillychuck]

The best way to understand Bryce Harper is to think about all the things he can’t say.
He can’t say that Alec Bohm is a seven-hole hitter at best. He can’t say that Adolis García is much closer to Nick Castellanos than he is a legitimate four- or five-hole hitter. He can’t say that J.T. Realmuto isn’t the guy he was three years ago. He can’t say that he’d swing at fewer pitches out of the zone if he had more confidence that the guys behind him would get the job done.
Given all of those things, Harper also can’t say that Dave Dombrowski has not been an elite personnel boss for at least a couple of years. He can’t say that Dombrowski’s lack of eliteness is chiefly to blame for the Phillies’ run-scoring struggles. Harper can’t say that he was much closer to the hitter the Phillies needed in 2025 than Dombrowski was to being the roster-constructor they needed. To throw shade at Dombrowski would be to implicitly throw shade at teammates whose “underperformance” is mostly a function of Dombrowski needing them to be something they aren’t.

I cannot overstate how asinine I think this article is. Now matter how bad the hitters are behind you, it’s better to maintain your selectivity and give them a chance. Every hitter’s performance goes up with runners on base--just be that runner, don’t swing at balls and make yourself worse. It hurts you and hurts the team. And of course he can’t say thee things Murphy wrote, which are OPINIONS, not FACTS. And negatively slanted opinions. And the shade Murphy is throwing at Dombrowski is ridiculous... He’s probably been above average, and we don’t know what constraints he is operating under from ownership and management--maybe they loved Casty and didn’t want him traded. Maybe they are committed to Bohm more than we think they are.

Murphy is a hack. Now he’s letting Harper use him as a mouthpiece.

[zambonir]

Murphy is the best general columnist in town, and also the most baseball-smart. And while it's a work of imagination/exaggeration and opinion (which anyone who can read the column inherently understands, that's what columns are), just as it's easier said than done to not swing at pitches, it's easier said than done to tell yourself the next guy's got it.

Anyway, it's not like Harper doesn't still take his walks or be selective. It's just that he's not doing at the level of, one of the five best players in the game. Which is why there wasn't really anything wrong with Dombrowski's comments either. But the highly paid star player always draws more fire on the blogs and radio shows. Murphy's perspective is a corrective to that.

[andyb]

Being aggressive to knock in runs when there is no real threat behind you in the lineup is a real thing. Now analytics would probably tell hitters it is better to take the walks because the threat of scoring more runs with lesser hitters is real if there are more baserunners.

This is a mix of old school stuff and newer logic where being aggressive at certain points is a huge part of the game for power hitters. Both Harper and Schwarber can be selectively aggressive early in the count and it has been a big part of Harper's game the last few years. Bryce has probably become too aggressive when he has no confidence in those behind him and it is probably up to the Phillies to show him better analytics on that approach if they think it is costing the team runs.

[phillychuck]

There is no such thing as “no real threat behind you” in lineups. That was one of the first things Bill James studied, the idea of lineup protection. It doesn’t exist. Players hit the same with great players hitting behind them as they do when the great player gets injured or traded and is not there. He studied dozens of comps. No difference.

It’s Harper’s problem if he expands the strike zone and makes himself worse, and he should stop doing it. It’s a real sign of arrogance--"those other guys are so bad, I’m better than they are even swinging at balls.” That is BS. NO hitter in baseball is better swinging out of the zone than an average-ish player is batting behind him and swinging at strikes with an additional runner on base. Certainly Harper isn’t, being a hitter who relies on selectivity for production. Cut it out, stop blaming everyone but yourself, and be the best you can be and trust your teammates. Get your butt on base and score some runs.

Expanding the zone is one of the worse remnants of the pre-analytic, old-school-baseball-type's boneheaded thinking. Fans berated Abreu for taking all those walks when he could have hit .200 expanding the zone and trying to drive in runs. One of my pet peeves about Phillies phans.

[zambonir]

The granular nature of this debate sidesteps the issue. It's not about protection, it's about the Phillies simply not having enough power or enough on-base after the three best hitters ("after" in the general sense, not in the line-up). Harper still got on base plenty - second highest OBP on the team full-season (Bader, incredibly was ahead of him and our leadoff hitter behind him). DD's critique was fair given how high a standard "elite" is mean to be - like top 3 MVP finisher. But Harper's hardly the problem with the Phillies offense. And the Phillies offense wasn't even that bad.

[andyb]

I think the studies on lineup protection are a little more mixed than just saying it does not exist. Studies have shown the protected batter gets more strikes and more extra base hits. Where the data gets cloudy is that the walks for an unprotected batter do help that batter's value too. It is also tough to verify because obviously the unprotected batter is always in a weaker lineup overall or there would be protection. Bill James was also looking at overall lineup production with different ordering rather than whether it helps the individual player.

The effect is likely minimal though not zero. It probably works best with a relatively patient hitter like Bryce as well since he knows the strike zone.

How to Quantify Lineup Protection in Baseball — The Paraball Notes

Bigger problem of course is that the whole lineup is kind of mediocre after our 3 top hitters now and those hitters are aging. We really need another 800+ OPS bat to emerge that does not need to be platooned. That is why Miller is so important because he is really our only hitting prospect at the moment that projects to be that type of bat. Crawford at the moment is more of an OBP threat than power. Same with Nori. Escobar has a little potential though does not protect as high as Miller. Rincones is a platoon bat only with more power but less contact and defense than Marsh in comparison.

It is really a lineup problem that only a trade or Miller can probably solve. It is why we wanted Bichette.

[allentown]

Expanding the zone is one of the worse remnants of the pre-analytic, old-school-baseball-type's boneheaded thinking. Fans berated Abreu for taking all those walks when he could have hit .200 expanding the zone and trying to drive in runs. One of my pet peeves about Phillies phans.

It was and wasn't the Phillies fans. This is what the radio and TV announcers, chosen by the team, drummed into fans. The Phillies' official philosophy was that a 'star' who took a walk with a man in scoring position was a coward, who had chosen to shirk is responsibility, take the walk, and leave it to the next, lesser, hitter to drive in the run. The was the organizational philosophy in hte minor leagues. The coaches and managers were extremely critical of Michael Bourn for not being an RBI guy, which he wasn't built to be, rather than an OBP machine which fitted his abilities. The Phillies did their best to ruin him. He was the best OF the Phillies produced in recent years, although Houston got the benefit. I remember the write-ups when the Phillies drafted Dugan. Gillick overflowed with his enthusiasm for Dugan's nice swing, which kept his bat in the zone for an extra-long time. Although he was derailed by injuries, the development staff could not make him the best OBP hitter he could be, he had to be more of an upper cut hitter to generate more power. Just another case of drafting a guy for what he does really well and then trying to turn him into something else, entirely.

Abreu managed to be the best of both worlds: OBP and speed with above-average power. Even that wasn't good enough.

Ironically, when the Phillies have a plus power hitter, the team (through announcers), fans, and media moan about the large number of Ks and swear nobody (or team) with that many Ks can be good.

[schillingfan]

The 2:00 show on Monday afternoon on WIP (not the regular guys) kept arguing that Dombrowski should be fired, as is analysis of HRper’s comments. I had to listen to something else on my ride home, he was so ridiculous.Im not a defender of Dombrowski by any means, but he really had no specifics of what Dombrowski should have done. Or how the salary “cap” works in baseball. Most sports talk hosts are fixated on buying championships.
I agree we haven't really replaced Rhys, but of course Harper and Schwarber meant there was no position for him

I posited earlier that I think Schwarber and Harper need to be split up and was told it wasn’t hurting Schwarber as he hit lefties. But it did cause Harper to face mostly left-handed relievers in later innngs. It made it s easry t switch to a leftie after Turner and I got sick o seeing it every damn game. Do we have statistics about a Bryce versus leftie relievers?

[andyb]

Ironically, when the Phillies have a plus power hitter, the team (through announcers), fans, and media moan about the large number of Ks and swear nobody (or team) with that many Ks can be good.

That is just not true though. Our plus power hitter believes that situational aggressiveness early in the count enhances his power. Harper had an 1169 OPS on the first pitch in 2025. 1122 career. Our hitting coach generally agrees with this philosophy.

We are not talking about Michael Bourn. We have not had that hitting mentality as an organization in decades. It is a valid question as to whether having protection in the lineup will get a hitter like Harper more good pitches to hit. That is also a very different question as to whether he should expand the zone more often when he does not have protection. Harper may be wrong to do so in those situations because his walk is still helpful even when he is followed by a very average hitter. I don't know whether expanding the zone occasionally is a good idea with a bad hitter on deck is a good idea. It might be. It might not be.

Better to get a good number 4 hitter. We can all agree on that. I really don't care who are organizational hitting coaches were 20 years ago. It is a different world today.

[allentown]

I really don't care who are organizational hitting coaches were 20 years ago. It is a different world today.

Is it really? Did they do a plus job developing Bohm? What success stories can they really point to. The proof will come when we see multiple, young, home-grown, above average MLB hitters produced. Where are the future hitting stars in our lower minors? I keep reading how we have a lot of strength in the lower minors, but the strength of the farm is upper level guys Miller, Painter, and Crawford. We have very promising recent signings, such as Renteria, but they have barely been touched by our development staff. These aren't the first recent guys to get good reviews, whom the development staff haven't progressed at a commendable rate.

[andyb]

You are just not making sense. You claim the team has a philosophy similar to the ones that failed Kelly Dugan and traded Michael Bourn. That is just not true and really a waste of time discussing.

This is a very analytical organization now. There can be no debate about that. They were just wrong on Bohm's power potential though. That is probably more a scouting mistake than a developmental one.

We do have a relatively thin minor league system. Part of that is drafting poorly or late. Part is bad international signings. Part is losing international allocations. Part is trading prospects.

But to say we are an organization that would not prize someone like Michael Bourn is just wrong. Look at our 22-year-old starting CF this year.

[Philsmania]

We also drafted and produced Marlon Byrd though he took five years and three organizations to figure things out at the ML level.

Interestingly, Byrd and Bourn were teammates on the 2010 National League All-Star team.

[allentown]

You are just not making sense. You claim the team has a philosophy similar to the ones that failed Kelly Dugan and traded Michael Bourn. That is just not true and really a waste of time discussing.

You said you don't care what are hitting philosophy was 20 years ago. Well, we have had a lot of reorganizations and proclaimed turnarounds by optimists such as yourself during that time. We had a lot of years with good draft position and large international allocation, or total freedom to spend as much as we wanted, during those 20 years. Where are the position player success of the scouting and development staff over that time? We have Bohm and we have Stott. Stott is a plus defender and a nice player, but he has trended down since his first year as essentially a full-time starter and that was his only year with an above average OPS+. What have our hitting staff done for him? I like Bohm as well, but he is generally viewed as a failure by fans and this board. He doesn't seem to have quite lived up to his hitting potential. Again, have our hitting instructors helped him? He was viewed as the best hitter in his draft class. I'll be thrilled to be able to say 'the corner has been turned' when there is objective evidence that the corner has been turned.