Bohm is the power hitter Phillies need
PHILADELPHIA >> There was the $300,000,000 spent on the missing leadoff hitter. There was the $10 million invested in a potential closer. There was a starting pitcher added, more help for the bullpen and Bryce Harper’s day on an operating table to recondition a useless elbow.
There was all of that during a short Phillies offseason, enough to hint that this time, unlike the last time, a season won’t end two games short of fulfillment.
There was also something else occurring from early November through early February, something quiet, something subtle — something that, if successful, will be as vital to the completion of John Middleton’s frenzied project to reacquire his 2008 trophy.
That would have been one of the Phillies’ best home-grown, game-togame, situation-to-situation natural contact hitters spending hours, days and weeks lifting heavy things.
With that low cost of a gym membership (only a buck down and $9.99 a month?), Alec Bohm added significant muscle. And with that, the Phillies likely will benefit from one more power hitter in a lineup capable of rampaging through the National League, a long-ball source that could be a vital bridge to safety until Harper returns from the
Tommy John ordeal sometime before the All-Star break.
That Bohm had been reluctant to dwell on his added strength in the offseason, even trying to minimize it by saying that he’d only added five pounds, is consistent with his professionalism. As natural a contact hitter as the Phillies had in 2022 — only Harper at .286 topped his .280 batting average among regulars — Bohm has never sought attention, positive or otherwise. All he has done since being robbed of a Rookie of the Year plaque after hitting .338 in the 2020 miniseason, is try not to have a plate ump scream, “Strike three,” into his right ear at a period in base
ball history where striking out has ceased to become taboo.
“It’s just the way I have always kind of played the game,” he has said. “Nobody likes getting out. Nobody likes striking out, I guess, so I’m not alone in that. I’ve never given into that. I don’t want to strike out.”
So his bat typically collides with baseballs, something that alone could be of greater value this season, when
junk defenses effectively will be outlawed. But at 6-foot-5 and nearly 225, it wouldn’t hurt if his bat would strike a hair more forcefully. And if Bohm could use his added bulk to go from hitting 13 home runs last season to 20-plus, the Phillies could have more than one AllStar candidate on the left side of their infield.
“All that doesn’t mean anything,” Bohm said recently, before springing to Clearwater. “To me, it’s about performance. There are all kinds of shapes and sizes in the league. You see that. For me, I just want to be available
every day. And that’s kind of the route that leads to that. So I feel better, I feel good and I feel strong. And I just want to be available every day.”
That is consistent with the way Bohm conducts his business. Through the first two-plus seasons of his career, his defense was weak and the fans noticed, heckling his every struggle to the point where he was caught mouthing out a distaste for Philadelphia on an intrusive TV close-up. But he owned the moment and, without any formal announcement, worked on his defense, improving
to the point where there was at least a balance between his clumsy and spectacular plays.
“He made so many strides, not only physically but emotionally over the course of the year,” Rob Thomson said. “I’ve never seen a guy grow in a year the way Alec did, especially at the big-league level. And now he’s put some really good weight on. He’s a little bit stronger. K-Long (hitting coach Kevin Long), who was out in Arizona working with him, says he is really swinging the bat. I am really looking forward to getting him into camp
and see where he is at.”
The Phillies are in camp, will open their Grapefruit League season Saturday against the Detroit Tigers, and with Trea Turner, Craig Kimbrel, Gregory Soto, Taijuan Walker and Matt Strahm are better than the thirdplace NL East team that last fall earned four of a possible five champagne baths.
“I knew the organization was going to do something,” Bohm said. “They’re bought in. This is a good team and somehow we’ve gotten better. I am excited to play alongside Trea. I’m excited to play alongside the rest of the players we picked up. I think we made a bunch of good additions, and from what I’ve heard, they are great people too. This group is going to continue to get closer and we’ll see what happens.”
The Phillies did what they needed to do to move closer to a world championship. Some initiatives won bottom-of-theTV-screen scrolls. Others made them stronger when no one was really watching.