The Philadelphia Phillies were busy on Monday at the Major League Baseball Winter Meetings, inking All-Star closer Jordan Romano to a one-year show-me deal. However, one of the more interesting tidbits to come out of Monday's action had nothing to do with the 31-year-old right-hander. Instead, a shockingly minor but important piece of information about second baseman Bryson Stott slipped out.
After Romano passed his physical, finalizing the signing, Phillies president of baseball operations spoke to the media in the team's suite. As MLB.com's Todd Zolecki reported, Dombrowski spoke about the Phillies' plans and what they're still looking for at the Winter Meetings and the remainder of the offseason.
After discussing the new-look bullpen, the topic of the offense came up. Dombrowski sounded confident that his team would repeat as a top-five offense again in 2025. According to Zolecki, Dombrowski's reasons included, "continued production from Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and others, plus improvement from J.T. Realmuto and Bryson Stott, who battled an elbow issue last season that might have hindered his swing, as reasons for optimism."
That last line is the one that surely raised eyebrows all around the room and likely around Philadelphia. Bryson Stott had a problem with his elbow? Apparently so.
Mystery injury explains so much about Bryson Stott’s struggles at the plate in 2024
As Jim Salisbury of PHLY reported, Stott played with a sore elbow for most of the season (subscription required), which affected his ability to drive the ball.
After putting up a breakout season in 2023, many thought the now 27-year-old Stott would play at least comparably in 2024. It didn't work out that way. Stott took a step back and struggled to find any kind of consistency at the plate, slashing .245/.315/.356 — a far cry from his .280/.329/.419 line a year earlier.
He still stole a team-leading 32 bases. He still struck out way less than the league average. He even improved his walk rate. But he just wasn't the same hitter.
There's not one thing that jumps out at you that screams injury. Stott's approach at the plate didn't change much. His flyball rate went up slightly, which can be attributed to his increased tendency to hit infield popups — 8.4 percent of his batted balls, compared to 4.4 percent in 2023. That's probably the biggest indicator that his swing was off.
Stott's hard-hit rate did drop from 35.2 percent to 30.8 percent, as did his average exit velocity, which sat a single mile per hour lower this year at 87.1 mph. All this to say, it's not surprising that he was a little off this past season, but also not surprising that nobody outside of the clubhouse noticed or questioned an injury.
There's nothing to be done at this point, the season's long over. At least now we can have some confidence that the Phillies' 2019 first-round draft pick will bounce back in 2025 and prove that his big 2023 season wasn't a fluke.