Phillies 2024 Season Preview: 3B Alec Bohm

The next player in our Philadelphia Phillies 2024 Season Preview Series is third baseman Alec Bohm.

Previous season previews: José Alvarado, Andrew Bellatti

We'll start by examining Bohm's 2023 season and then evaluate projections for the 2024 season using the Steamer and ZiPS projection systems, which are on FanGraphs.

Alec Bohm 2023 stats and 2024 projections

2023 Stats: 145 G, 611 PA, 20 HR, 97 RBI, 4 SB, .274 AVG, .327 OBP, .437 SLG, .765 OPS, 1.1 fWAR

2024 Steamer: 143 G, 599 PA, 18 HR, 76 RBI, 4 SB, .277 AVG, .332 OBP, .436 SLG, .768 OPS, 2.1 fWAR

2024 ZiPS: 597 PA, 15 HR, 77 RBI, 3 SB, .271 AVG, .327 OBP, .410 SLG, .737 OPS, 1.4 fWAR

Alec Bohm 2024 season preview

Bohm, 27, is entering the 2024 season after a relatively productive 2023 campaign. He was tasked with playing first base for much of the early season after Darick Hall was injured early in April, but also played his typical third base. At the plate, the infielder had a career-high number of home runs and RBI.

Defensively, Bohm made some eye-popping plays in the field. However, he rated below league-average in defensive runs saved at both first base (-2) and third base (-10). While he was never projected to be a Gold Glove-caliber infielder, the Phillies would likely prefer to see improvements on the defensive side of his game.

One aspect that may help Bohm on both sides of the ball is that he should have a consistent defensive position to play in 2024. With Bryce Harper handling the main share of games at first base, the 2018 first-round pick will see most of his time at his traditional hot corner position.

Bohm projected to basically recreate 2023 season

According to the Steamer projections, Bohm is expected to have a 2024 season that replicates much of his 2023. The 27-year-old's batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage are all expected to be eerily similar to his production last season.

If the projections are accurate and Bohm does have another season similar to his past two, it would be safe to assume that the club knows what they have in their third baseman. That's not a bad thing either. Bohm has been a productive infielder, but just may not have that superstar potential with the bat for which some had hoped.

Steamer and ZiPS project that the third baseman will regress in his power numbers. His home run total is expected to decrease slightly; however, his run production is projected to drop by about 20 RBI. It's interesting to see the RBI total decrease by such a large margin. We can assume that Bohm will still hit in the bottom half of the lineup, which should give him opportunities to knock runs home.

Reasons for lower Bohm RBI totals

What could be contributing to both Steamer and ZiPS projecting such a large drop-off in RBI while other stats are all almost identical?

One potential reason for Steamer projecting Bohm to drive in fewer runs could be that it also projects a higher strikeout percentage in 2024. In 2023, the third baseman had a strikeout percentage of 15.4 percent — which was by far the lowest of his young career. Steamer is projecting that percentage to climb in 2024 to 17.7 percent, closer to Bohm's career average of 19.1 percent.

Another factor could be that the Phillies' third baseman hit .344 with runners in scoring position in 2023. That's a difficult number to sustain. Perhaps taking into account more strikeouts and a lower batting average with runners in scoring position, Steamer is predicting less RBI in the upcoming season.

Even if Bohm does take a step back in his power stat categories, the numbers he put up last year in terms of lowering his strikeout percentage and his ability to knock runs in with men on base were considerably higher than his career averages. If he comes back down a bit and still puts up 75 to 80 RBI and around 20 home runs, he can be a productive player in a deep Phillies lineup.

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