The only realistic option for the Phillies is to find a team that is looking to shed a similarly overpriced contract. Even then, Dave Dombrowski may have to further incentivize an interested party.
How about signing Alonso, moving Bryce Harper to the outfield, and keeping Bohm around? There are lots of reasons it won’t happen. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t.
Projecting Bader’s fair market value is easier said than done. He had a career-best .796 OPS in 2025, but a hamstring injury plagued him in the playoffs, much like his career.
Dave Dombrowski didn’t offer many direct answers in his year-end news conference on Thursday, but there were a handful of draw-your-own-conclusions moments.
John Middleton could have done the easy thing and deluded himself into thinking that a different manager might have had the Phillies back in the NLCS. He didn’t, and that’s a good thing.
This was a series decided by a handful of moments which could have easily broken in a different direction. The Phillies lost too many of those. Kerkering’s was simply the last.
“When the game is going good, it’s wind at our back, but when the game is not going good, it’s wind in our face,” Castellanos said of Phillies fans at the Bank.
The first two games of this series have gone about as poorly as Thomson and Dombrowski could have feared. There will be a lot to unpack once the season is over. It sure looks like it will be soon.