A lot has gone right for the Philadelphia Phillies early into the 2025 season. Much of what started off well for the club last season that helped keep their lead in the division has repeated itself in 2025. The Phillies currently hold the sixth-best team OPS in MLB at .771 and that includes facing the Dodgers, whom they took two of three games from and the Braves, whom they lost their first series to late Thursday night in Atlanta.
The club now sits at 8-4, tied for first in the NL East with the New York Mets. There were expectations to repeat as division winners in 2025. At least leading the division is a good start. The baseball season isn't without its disappointments and for the Phillies, luckily, there are only a few. Of the few, one who does severely stick out is third baseman Alec Bohm.
It's not time for Phillies fans to panic about Alec Bohm, yet
Two weeks of play isn't a stamp on how the rest of a regular season will play out, but it may be a growing concern for Bohm. Since he started off Opening Day with a go-ahead two-run double, he has seemingly flat lined at the plate. Since Opening Day, he's 0-for-his-last-13 with runners in scoring position and has looked non-competitive in the batter's box ever since.
It's not time to worry yet, but it will continue to be something to monitor as the season wears on. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is currently .200, indicating some bad luck. From 2021-24, he carried a .310 BABIP when he put the ball in play.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson also knows Bohm has been the victim of some bad luck, per MLB.com's Todd Zolecki.
“As long as he’s putting good at-bats together and hitting the ball hard, he’s going to be fine,” Thomson said after Thursday's game, per Zolecki. “He’s hit into a lot of tough luck, too, along the way. But he’s really played well defensively.”
Again, it's early, and he surely will turn it around at some point, but to what extent is the unknown right now. In 2024, Bohm made the NL All-Star team and was the starter at third base. He finished that year with a .280 batting average with 15 home runs, 97 RBIs and a respectable .780 OPS.
Bohm's underlying metrics are still good, but Phillies need to protect the lineup
So far this season, according to Statcast, he ranks in the 82nd percentile in average exit velocity (92.5 mph), the 94th percentile in squared-up rate (36.6 percent), and the 92nd percentile in whiff rate (14.8 percent). At 10 percent, his barrel rate is even better so far this year than in 2024 when it was in the 39th percentile at 6.8 percent.
There's still confidence with Bohm, it's just time until the raw numbers reflect that. He's currently hitting .160, with no home runs, three RBIs and a .356 OPS in 11 games.
Something to note is also the body language that plagued him in the second-half of last year. Some of that has reared its ugly head once again. In the series finale loss to the Braves, in which he was dropped to seventh in the batting order, he went 0-for-5.
He may very well turn it around tomorrow and regain his All-Star play, but an adjustment needs to be made to protect the top of the lineup and potentially Bohm from getting into his own head too much. Perhaps consistently swapping him and outfielder Nick Castellanos and his current .810 OPS for the time being is best moving forward. Even as luck would have it, Castellanos would go 0-for-5 with five strikeouts hitting in the cleanup spot on Thursday, being just the 12th Phillies' player to ever strike out five times in a game.
Bohm's issues could be truly stemming from the pressure of the offseason and his desire to prove his worth to the club. Talks of trade rumors and his maturity have filled Phillies fans' ears for months (subscription required), per Matt Gelb of The Athletic. Fans were just hoping that it would motivate Bohm and, given his new attitude this spring, he seemed due to prove people wrong.