When it comes to Kyle Schwarber batting leadoff for the Phillies, everyone has an opinion.
For some, it just doesn’t feel right. A power hitter like Schwarber should be batting third or fourth so that there are runners on base when he hits a home run.
Others aren’t bothered by it. He’s had tremendous success in that first spot in the batting order. He’s hit 33 leadoff home runs during the regular season over the last three years. Among the 13 hitters with at least 1,000 plate appearances in the leadoff spot over the last three years, his .924 OPS is 47 points higher than the second-best leadoff hitter Ronald Acuña Jr.
The Phillies are also short on reasonable alternatives. Bryce Harper racked up a few plate appearances as a leadoff hitter in 2019, but never looked comfortable in that spot. Bryson Stott has been the Phillies’ de facto leadoff hitter when Schwarber has been unavailable, but he frankly hasn’t been good enough to hit that high in the lineup.
And if Harper isn’t comfortable batting leadoff, having Schwarber hit first is a good way to lock in more plate appearances for one of their best hitters. It’s a big reason why Shohei Ohtani and Francisco Lindor bat leadoff for their respective teams.
But is having Schwarber hit leadoff a missed opportunity?
The Phillies score early with Schwarber batting at the top. They were tied for third with the Los Angeles Dodgers in runs scored in the first inning in 2024, but the team is sacrificing runs by guaranteeing at least one at-bat per game with the bases empty for Schwarber.
Through three seasons as the Phillies’ primary leadoff hitter, Schwarber has hit 131 home runs in the regular season. Only 45 have been hit with runners on.
Most sluggers around the league are not hitting just a third of their home runs with runners on. Only 12 of Schwarber’s 38 home runs (32%) this season came with runners on. Among the 23 batters who hit at least 30 home runs in 2024, only Bobby Witt Jr., who hit nine of his 32 home runs with runners on, has a lower percentage of total home runs hit with runners on.
It’s not as if Schwarber’s splits with men on versus bases empty are drastic. In fact, over the last two seasons, Schwarber has had a better OPS with both men on base and runners in scoring position than with the bases empty.
Kyle Schwarber OPS by Bases Occupied
| Bases Empty | Men On | RISP | |
| 2022 | .832 | .817 | .842 |
| 2023 | .810 | .826 | .921 |
| 2024 | .837 | .878 | .881 |
Perhaps the biggest positive of having Schwarber hit leadoff is that he is at the plate more often. Schwarber led the Phillies in total plate appearances with 692, beating out 162-gamer Nick Castellanos by 33 plate appearances.
But Schwarber wasn’t the team leader when it comes to plate appearances with both runners on and runners in scoring position.
Plate appearances with runners in scoring position tend to be more randomly distributed. Alec Bohm and Castellanos were tied in total plate appearances with runners on scoring position with 172, but Brandon Marsh, who primarily batted in the sixth, seventh and eighth spots, saw the greatest percentage of his plate appearances come with runners in scoring position.
Schwarber finished second behind Bohm and Castellanos with 154 total plate appearances with RISP.
| 2024 Total PA with RISP | 2024 PA with RISP as % of total PA | |
| Bohm | 172 | 28% |
| Castellanos | 172 | 26% |
| Schwarber | 154 | 22% |
| Harper | 148 | 23% |
| Marsh | 145 | 30% |
| Stott | 127 | 22% |
| Turner | 110 | 20% |
| Realmuto | 107 | 26% |
But the distribution of plate appearances with runners on is a lot more drastic. Once again, Bohm led the team with 295 plate appearances with runners on. But four Phillies hitters, Bohm, Castellanos, Harper and Stott, all had more plate appearances with runners on than Schwarber in 2024. Only a third of Schwarber’s plate appearances came with runners on.
| 2024 PA with Men On | 2024 PA with Men On as % of Total PA | |
| Bohm | 295 | 49% |
| Castellanos | 289 | 44% |
| Harper | 281 | 45% |
| Stott | 249 | 44% |
| Schwarber | 230 | 33% |
| Turner | 221 | 41% |
| Marsh | 221 | 46% |
| Realmuto | 193 | 47% |
Every Phillies regular in the lineup saw at least 40% of their plate appearance come with at least one runner on — except for Schwarber. Turner, who finished the season with 153 fewer plate appearances than Schwarber, only trailed him by nine plate appearances with runners on. Stott, who trailed Schwarber by 121 plate appearances, had 19 more plate appearances than Schwarber with runners on.
For context, the gap was less egregious in 2023 and even worse in 2022. Schwarber led the team with 720 total plate appearances in 2023, but only Bohm and Castellanos leaped him total plate appearances with runners on. Schwarber finished second behind Rhys Hoskins in total plate appearances with 669 (Hoskins had 672), but Bohm, Hoskins, Realmuto and Castellanos all finished with more plate appearances with runners on.
Part of that uptick in 2023 can be attributed to the Phillies’ eight- and nine-hole hitters combining for the sixth-best on-base percentage in baseball in 2023 at .314. That number dropped to .290 in 2024.
If the Phillies do indeed move Schwarber out of the leadoff spot, they will be sacrificing total plate appearances for Schwarber in favor of more plate appearances with runners on. Is that a trade-off worth making?
It could really go either way. Thomson would be justified in keeping Schwarber where he is because it is very valuable to have a hitter of Schwarber’s caliber getting the most plate appearances over the course of a season.
But in an era where runs are harder to score than ever, the Phillies are not making the most out of Schwarber’s home runs. If I were to guess, Schwarber, if healthy, is going to hit more home runs with runners on base in 2025 regardless of where he hits because Johan Rojas and his low on-base percentage will likely play in fewer games. That’s not enough for me to keep Schwarber in the leadoff spot.
If I were Thomson, I would try out a different lineup.
There is no perfect solution here, but the new leadoff hitter should be Turner. Unless Realmuto turns into his 2022 self in his walk year, Turner is their best right-handed on-base threat. You don’t want Harper dealing with the same lack of opportunities with men on base, so those at-bats are best suited for Turner. In 2024, Turner had an .830 OPS with men on, a .791 OPS with bases empty and a .652 OPS with runners in scoring position.
He hasn’t been a regular leadoff hitter since 2019, when he accumulated 550 plate appearances out of the No. 1 spot during the regular season with the World Series-champion Washington Nationals.
Harper will bat second and Schwarber will slot into the No. 3 spot. Yes, it’s strange to stack the two lefties back-to-back, but not spreading out the two lefties isn’t that big of a deal. Teams are going to bring in a lefty reliever to face Harper and Schwarber no matter what, and both Schwarber and Harper were two of the best left-handed hitters in the sport against lefties in 2024.
If anything, the Phillies should be more concerned with splitting up the right-handed hitters in the middle of the lineup since the Phillies are worse without the platoon advantage in the Bohm and Castellanos part of order than at the top with Harper and Schwarber.
A counter to that is to just hit Bohm third and move Schwarber to cleanup. Hitting Schwarber cleanup is the line I draw when it comes to sacrificing too many plate appearances.
To get a sense of just how much it adds up over the course of a season, here’s a list of total Phillies plate appearances for each spot in the lineup in 2024. It seems very intuitive, but the lower a batter hits in the lineup, the fewer plate appearances he will have over 162 games.
| Total PA | PA per game | |
| 1st | 759 | 4.69 |
| 2nd | 742 | 4.58 |
| 3rd | 717 | 4.43 |
| 4th | 705 | 4.35 |
| 5th | 689 | 4.25 |
| 6th | 665 | 4.10 |
| 7th | 645 | 3.98 |
| 8th | 629 | 3.88 |
| 9th | 619 | 3.82 |
Batting Schwarber behind Harper also helps ease another huge issue with the Phillies batting order. Harper saw the highest percentage (56.7%) of pitches outside of the strike zone among all hitters who saw at least 2,000 pitches in 2024. It was even worse in 2023, when 59.5% of the pitches he saw were out of the strike zone. That number was three percentage points higher than any other hitter in baseball (min. 1000 pitches seen).
That’s a very good indication that Harper is not being properly protected. Hitting Schwarber behind him will force opposing pitchers to come back into the zone against Harper. Schwarber will likely see a reduction in pitches seen in the strike zone, but it’s a compromise worth making if you’re the Phillies.
With all that in mind, here’s is my proposed new Phillies lineup against right-handed and left-handed starters.
Righties
- Trea Turner, SS
- Bryce Harper, 1B
- Kyle Schwarber, DH
- Alec Bohm, 3B
- Brandon Marsh, CF
- Nick Castellanos, RF
- Max Kepler, LF
- J.T. Realmuto, C
- Bryson Stott, 2B
Lefties
- Trea Turner, SS
- Bryce Harper, 1B
- Kyle Schwarber, DH
- Alec Bohm, 3B
- Nick Castellanos, RF
- J.T. Realmuto, C
- Edmundo Sosa, 2B
- Max Kepler/Brandon Marsh, LF
- Johan Rojas, CF
We can discuss how the Phillies should begin next season with a platoon at second base, but that’s for another time.
It’s easy for an outsider like me to look at the numbers and come to a conclusion on what Thomson should and shouldn’t do with the lineup. It’s much harder for Thomson to actually make the change, get his players on board and take the public criticism if changing the lineup backfires. The Phillies could play it safe and keep the same lineup order with Schwarber at the top. If the Phillies struggle to hit this year, Thomson will feel the heat regardless, but the noise will be a lot louder if the struggles come after he radically changes the batting order.
Thomson will likely consult with Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long and the front office, get a feel for what his players are thinking and do a deep dive of his own. In my opinion, there is enough evidence here to at least think about making a big change.
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