PHLADELPHIA — The Phillies offseason plan in 2024, stated or not, was to run it back for 2025.
The plan in 2025 is to resist so easy a categorization, if only because two NLDS eliminations in as many years is an unseemly thing to aspire to once again.
But change will come to the Phillies this offseason by the simple attrition of expiring contracts.
At the end-of-season media availability for President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Rob Thomson, the three pending free agents understandably monopolized a lot of attention.
Ranger Suarez, J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber all made their feelings known after the Game 4 loss to the Dodgers last week. On the two position players, Dombrowski and Thomson expressed their hopes of extending their stays in Philadelphia.
That left Suarez the odd man out in the discussion. The 30-year-old right-hander went 12-8 with a 3.20 ERA in a career-high 157.1 innings. He notched the only win of the postseason with five sterling innings in Game 3 at Dodger Stadium.
But in his first brush with free agency, Suarez seems likely to get an offer that the Phillies can’t match.
It should be life-changing money for the player from a franchise in greater need of Suarez as a top-of-the-rotation arm than the Phillies, content to slot him in third or fourth.
The Phillies have shelled out money and term to Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Cristopher Sanchez.
Both Wheeler and Nola will be under contract through their age-37 seasons. Sanchez is on a team-friendly deal through 2030.
Paying Suarez, whose fastball averaged 91.3 miles per hour this year but was effective nonetheless, would seem risky, especially with one of baseball’s best pitching prospects on the horizon in Andrew Painter.
Even if it wasn’t, they have the option to put that money toward Jesus Luzardo, who is two years younger, threw more innings and presents more of a power profile.
Schwarber led the National League with 56 homers and Major League Baseball with 132 RBIs. At age 32, he played 162 games at designated hitter and made adjustments against left-handed pitching that fundamentally change his value at a juncture when many hitters decline.
The Phillies are not playing it coy with Schwarber, but the numbers will have to match.
“We’d love to bring Kyle Schwarber back,” Dombrowski said. “It’s a priority for us. He knows it. But I also know he’s a free agent, so that’s what ends up happening when guys have free agency. You never know what happens. But it’s a real priority for us to try to bring him back.”
The cost/benefit analysis with Realmuto is more nuanced.
He turns 35 in March. His defensive position is more valuable. So it’s laudable that he caught at least 130 games for third time in four seasons, even if his OPS+ of 91 was below league average for the first time since his first full season in 2015.
By WAR, his overall value is less than half what it was in 2022, when he finished seventh in the NL MVP balloting.
That year, he batted .276 with 22 homers and 84 RBIs. He was down to .257 with 12 homers and 52 RBIs this year. His WAR, per Fangraphs, ranked 16th among primary catchers.
But … the fact that the Phillies had by far the most valuable starting pitching rotation in Major League Baseball is inextricable from the guy calling pitches behind the plate.
“I can’t put a dollar sign on it,” Thomson said. “… This guy, to me, is the most prepared guy I’ve ever been around, as a catcher. He will spend hours watching video, making up his own game plan, and then matching it up with Caleb (Cotham, Phillies pitching coach) and talking with the pitchers. He’s got a great feel for in-game adjustments, when to go to the mound, when to change the pitch, when to change location. I can’t put a number on it, but it’s significant. I mean, he’s just that good.”
Price in the regression that might come for the entire staff, and the case for Realmuto is more solid. So is the lack of an alternative, tempting as an Adley Rutschman reclamation project might seem, both within the organization and outside it.
“JT … is a really good player,” Dombrowski said. “He’s had a great career up to this point and continues to be a good player. One of his many strengths is handling a pitching staff. He does a great job. And so if you don’t have him, you have to try to replace that. There are very few guys that are quite as good as he is in that regard, but you have to do your best to try to replace that if he’s not back with us.”
Dombrowski all but admitted that Max Kepler’s days are done. The lefty struggled mightily through July then turned it on late to finish third on the team in homers with 18, behind Schwarber and Bryce Harper.
On a one-year, $10 million deal, Kepler hit .216 with 18 homers and 52 RBIs, but the lefty was always an ill fit for a left-heavy outfield. If the offseason priority is to create space for 2022 first-round pick Justin Crawford to start regularly, that would add another lefty to the corner outfield mix.
That leaves Harrison Bader, a trade deadline acquisition whose groin injury in Game 1 of the NLDS became a potent postseason what if. Acquired from Minnesota on July 31, Bader hit .258 with the Twins, then .305 with an .824 OPS with the Phillies. He has a $10 million mutual option that he’ll almost certainly opt out of to test the market.
Bader isn’t a .300 hitter for a season. His batting average on balls in play for the Phillies was .415, a full 100 points over his career mark. He’s a career .247/.313/.401 slash line.
Structural changes to increase his power — he hit a career-high 17 home runs in 2025 — and his high defensive value at a premium position like center field make him a high-floor proposition. But it would have to be at the right price.
“I think he’s made some adjustments prior to this year, and that’s what gave him a little bit better offense here,” Thomson said. “So I’m just banking on the fact that he continues to maintain or even get better because that’s what he did this year.”