Phillies’ Biggest Regret May be Not Upgrading Third Base in Offseason
It has been an excellent start to the season for the Philadelphia Phillies, who find themselves batting for first place with the New York Mets in the National League East.
The Phillies have been able to play some excellent baseball of late with the lineup, bullpen, and starting rotation all performing well.
However, they will be facing some adversity coming up with Aaron Nola recently being placed on the injured list and Jose Alvarado being suspended for 80 games.
While Nola has struggled and could likely use the reset, the loss of Alvarado in the bullpen will be a significant one.
Furthermore, even though the lineup has done well, they still have a looming concern at third base that was never addressed.
Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report recently wrote that the biggest regret for the Phillies this winter was that they didnât upgrade at third base, with the team very much hoping to be a World Series contender.
âThey could have pursued a trade for a third baseman, but decided to just run it back again with a guy who hit .170 in September and even worse in October, and they have to be regretting it,” he wrote.
To begin the 2024 campaign, Alec Bohm was finally able to breakout for Philadelphia, making his first All-Star team. As a former top pick of the Phillies, this was a long time coming and the franchise was happy to see him finally taking a significant step forward.
However, while he was great in the first half of the season, it was a completely different story in the second half.
In September of last year, he slashed .170 /.204/.298, and those struggles carried over into October.
To begin this campaign, Bohm has once again started slow, but has shown some positive signs of late. However, with a -0.5 WAR in May, heâs still got a lot of work to do and hasnât helped Philadelphia all that much.
Overall, he has slashed .260/.302/.361 with three home runs and 16 RBI this season. In the slugging department, Bohm has been a non-factor for the most part with a slugging percentage under .400.
In the talented lineup for the Phillies, he has consistently been toward the bottom, which is fair given the lack of production for the most part.
As a team that is built to win this campaign, itâs surprising that they didnât do anything to upgrade or at least provide another viable option at third base. With Bohm being extremely inconsistent, it would behoove the team to seek upgrades at the trade deadline.
