Newest Phillies rumor is that Bryson Stott could take Alec Bohm’s spot at third base on Opening Day
All winter long, Philadelphia Phillies fans have wondered if Bryson Stott would rise to Dave Dombrowski’s challenge and steal the big-league shortstop spot from Didi Gregorius.
He’s doing well so far; ahead of Sunday’s game, he had four hits, three walks, and only three strikeouts in 13 plate appearances over his first five spring training games. He then added to it with a two-run homer against the Toronto Blue Jays, his first bomb of the year. By game’s end, he’d added two more walks to his impressive display of plate discipline this spring.
So, it’s not a matter of if he’ll debut this year, but when. And now, the latest report from Clearwater, FL is that Gregorius isn’t the one who should be worried.
According to manager Joe Girardi, the Phillies are “going to look at” Stott as a third-base option for Opening Day. Stott, a natural shortstop, has only spent a small amount of his professional career at second and third, but the Phillies are clearly nervous enough about their infield to try anything.
It’s a change in message from just days ago when Girardi said that Bohm had a “leg up on everyone” to play third. It was surprising at the time, given Bohm’s 19 career errors at third; he had the third-most of any third baseman last year.
Girardi, when asked if he sees 3B as open competition: "Yeah. We're hoping that Alec runs w/ it. He has a leg up on everyone but this is a performance business. I see him making improvements, we're happy with what we see in his work, but it's something that's not etched in stone"
— Alex Coffey (@byalexcoffey) March 24, 2022
The situation is a big show of confidence in Stott, and a harsh indicator of where Bohm is at, both offensively and defensively. Over his first six games of spring play, Bohm had just two hits in 18 plate appearances. Worse, he looks totally unconfident in himself.
Last year, Stott rose rapidly through the Phillies’ system while Bohm, who had been NL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2020, was displaying one of the worst sophomore slumps in recent MLB history. Girardi eventually benched him for Ronald Torreyes for a long stretch, and Bohm spent time in Triple-A.
With Stott being able to play third base and hit, there may be no place on the roster for Bohm, leading many to speculate that the Phillies might try to trade the latter. But hidden among the chaos that has been the last few years of baseball – pandemic-shortened 2020, a pandemic season in 2021, 99-day lockout and schedule delay this winter and still pandemic – is the fact that Bohm has only played 159 career regular-season games. That’s a pretty small sample size to rule someone out entirely.
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