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| The Reds, Red Sox, and about six other teams, including the Phillies, are chasing after Schwarber. |
ORLANDO - If you’ve paid even half a minute of attention to the Phillies in recent winters, you know exactly how this script usually opens. This is the club that dreams big, spends big, and still somehow arrives at the offseason with a shopping list that looks like the receipt from a holiday Costco run. And here comes Dave Dombrowski again, rolling into the lobby at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, not for the weather, not for the palm trees, but for the annual December scramble that seems to follow his team everywhere.
Starting Sunday, with the real deal-making igniting from Monday through Wednesday, baseball’s traveling circus settles into central Florida. Executives. Agents. Scouts. Analytics people armed with laptops and four cups of coffee. Some years, the whole thing buzzes like a beehive. Some years, the room might as well have a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging over it. But if you listen to the early chatter this time around, you can hear something crackling in the air.
And right at the center of it? The two conversations that are defining the Phillies’ winter: the push to bring back Kyle Schwarber and the mission to keep J.T. Realmuto in red pinstripes. One controls the middle of the order. The other practically choreographs the pitching staff. You almost never see both hit free agency in the same offseason. And you never glide through it without a headache.
Schwarber, fresh off a season where he nearly snagged the NL MVP, is the name everyone keeps circling. ESPN’s Jeff Passan has already floated the idea that his decision could drop during the Meetings. That’s the kind of thing that turns an entire organization’s week upside down. Either the Phillies secure their signature source of left-handed thunder… or the search for Plan B begins before anyone checks out of the hotel.
And just behind that storyline is the Realmuto question, the one that comes with a tone. You know the tone. The “are they really going to let an elite catcher walk?” tone that scouts and executives can’t hide. Realmuto isn’t just a catcher. He’s infrastructure. He’s the guy who runs the game within the game. Replace him? You don’t replace players like that. You reinvent everything.
And then there’s the subplot that refuses to fade, no matter how many times someone shrugs it off: Nick Castellanos, and the trade that feels less like a rumor and more like a matter of timing. Wander through enough hotel hallways this week and you’ll hear the same refrain from different voices — it’s not if he’s moved, but when. Castellanos has been streaky enough to give hitting coaches nightmares and front offices indigestion. And with the Phillies needing room — financially, defensively, structurally — to pull off the Schwarber/Realmuto double act, the industry-wide expectation is that Castellanos is the domino waiting to fall. The only mystery: does the trade drop in Orlando, or sometime after everyone’s boarding their flights home?
But the outfield isn’t the only place where the Phillies could get creative. They’ve spent the early winter drawing up all kinds of ways to give the infield a makeover. The imagination runs wild: a pursuit of Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman… or the idea of Aidan Miller, their mega-talented hitting prospect, forcing his way into the picture sooner than anyone expected.
There’s just one minor complication.
There’s no space.
Bryce Harper is rooted at first. Bryson Stott settled at second. Trea Turner holds down short. Alec Bohm is housed at third. Four spots, four everyday players, all under control. No empty chairs in the infield version of musical chairs.
Which brings us to the name inching louder and louder into the conversation: Alec Bohm.
Bohm, now 29, spent last winter sidestepping trade chatter like a third baseman avoiding a rogue fungo. In the end, he stayed put, hit cleanup for much of 2025, and protected Harper well enough that pitchers stopped giving the MVP finalist anything to hit. No one in baseball saw fewer strikes in the zone than Harper last season. That only happens when pitchers fear the guy on deck.
But Bohm’s 2025 performance came with context. He missed 42 games. The rust showed. His .287/.331/.409 line was perfectly solid, but not the thump-filled version many still imagine when they see a 6-foot-5 corner infielder stride to the plate. And the truth is, the slugger version of Bohm exists mostly in our heads; he’s never hit 20 homers in a season, and he may never be that type of hitter.
Then there’s the math: he’s projected to earn around $10 million next year, he hits free agency in 2027, and he’s now a valuable, controllable, prime-age piece — exactly the kind of player who can headline a major trade.
That’s why his name keeps surfacing in conversations. Not because the Phillies are desperate to push him out the door. But because the only way to open an infield spot for an upgrade may be to move the one player whose value is high enough to make that possible.
It all leaves the Phillies perched on the edge of one of those weeks where everything feels just a little too combustible. Two cornerstone free agents. A trade everyone expects. An infield begging for a jolt. A fan base waiting for clarity. One deal can set off three more. And by the time the final suite lights go dark on Wednesday night, the Phillies could either look exactly like the team you remember… or nothing like it at all. That’s the Winter Meetings. That’s the Phillies. That’s why this one feels different.
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