Phillies All-Star emerges as ‘the one candidate’ for offseason trade

The Philadelphia Phillies have some work to do this winter.

After surging to the second-most wins of any Major League Baseball team during the regular season, they have been bounced from the playoffs by the rival New York Mets. They ended their year with one of the worst postseason batting averages and the single worst ERA of any playoff team.

Now they are left to retool the roster in hopes of making a deeper run next year, as franchise stars like Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler get older.

Beyond negotiating with their own pending free agents and searching the market for others, the front office might consider swinging a trade. In that case, ESPN’s David Schoenfield identified a single potential candidate.

“If the Phillies want to make a trade, the one candidate would be third baseman Alec Bohm,” he wrote. “He’s coming off a career-high 3.0 WAR season after totaling 0.9 WAR in 2022 and 0.4 in 2023. While his defense at third was much improved, his RBI total (97) overstates his offensive value.”

At 28 years old, Bohm is coming off of the best season of his career and was an important part of the roster for much of the regular season. He enjoyed a .280/.332/.448 slash line, made his first All-Star team and participated in the Home Run Derby.

But a season-end slump carried over into the playoffs and he slashed just .077/.143/.077 in the series with the Mets.

The Phillies might find the most value in swapping Bohm to shore up another need on the roster. He has two more years of arbitration eligibility and plays a premier defensive position, so they should be able to find a fair number of suitors in such a case.

But it might be more likely that the Phillies focus on bringing back much of the same roster and giving it another go in 2025. Two of the most impactful pending free agents are relievers Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estévez.

“Last offseason, the one big move the Phillies made was re-signing Aaron Nola to a seven-year, $172 million contract as a free agent,” Schoenfield added. “It could be a similar offseason, when the only significant moves are re-signing the two relievers.”

More MLB: Phillies predicted to part ways with first-time All-Star after playoff blow up