PHILADELPHIA – Phillies manager Rob Thomson’s 2025 Opening Day lineup looked like this:
1. Trea Turner
2. Bryce Harper
3. Alec Bohm
4. Kyle Schwarber
Thirteen games into the season, Thomson made a significant change. He hit Harper third and Schwarber fourth, the first time he had hit the slugging left-handers back-to-back. Schwarber protected Harper, until Harper went on the injured list on June 7. When he returned on June 30, however, Harper hit behind Schwarber the rest of the season.
Thomson said earlier this month at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., that he might adjust the lineup again in 2026, indicating he’s considering hitting Schwarber behind Harper once more. Or not.
“I've got some ideas,” Thomson said, “but I haven't talked to the players yet. I don't want to talk much more about that. Yeah, I've thought long and hard about it.”
Regardless, it means either Harper or Schwarber won’t have a big bopper hitting behind them. So, what can the Phillies do to protect the other, if they don’t acquire another big bat in free agency or via trade?
Bohm could help, if he isn’t traded and bounces back from a pedestrian 2025. Bohm, 29, batted .287 with 11 home runs, 59 RBIs and a .740 OPS in 2025. It was his lowest slugging percentage (.409) and OPS since 2022. But he also missed time because of a fractured rib and inflammation in his left shoulder.
The Phillies think if Bohm is healthy, he can return to his form from 2024, when he made the NL All-Star team.
“I think Bohm’s going to have a much better year offensively,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said at the Winter Meetings. “He was hurt last year for a time period. What did he do? Drove in close to 100 runs the two years before that? I think he’s much closer to that type of hitter than he was last year. All of a sudden you put him – that same guy – he’s hitting somewhere, fourth or fifth in your lineup … I think that’s a pretty good addition in itself.”
Bohm batted .280 with 15 home runs, 97 RBIs, a .780 OPS and a 114 OPS+ in ’24. His OPS and OPS+ were career highs for a 162-game season. Bohm is not a slugger like Harper or Schwarber. He hit a career-high 20 homers in 2023. But he had 97 RBIs in consecutive seasons from 2023-24.
He isn’t the prototypical cleanup hitter, but he has produced.
“I really have always preferred having a good hitting club that’s a doubles-oriented team,” Dombrowski said. “And usually a doubles-oriented team – and that doesn’t fit everybody, it’s just a generality – it usually means you have a better approach, you use the whole field, and it means you score a bunch of runs like that.”
If it sounds like Bohm, it is.
The Phillies think it’s just a matter of him being healthy again in 2026.