Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Trea Turner and Alec Bohm gather around the mound during the 2024 season. (Grace Del Pizzo/Phillies Nation) Barring health, we know the names that will be featured in the Phillies' Opening Day lineup on March 27 against the Washington Nationals in D.C. Manager Rob Thomson will have the pleasure of deciding who will hit in what order. All we get to do is freak out and disagree. Judging by some comments coming out of the manager's office in Clearwater, Thomson is leaning towards making changes. Trea Turner is likely to replace Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot, with Bryce Harper batting behind him as the No. 2 hitter. He could stack the lefties and hit Schwarber third, or drop him to the cleanup spot and have Bohm hit third. The rest of the lineup questions are somewhat intriguing. Could J.T. Realmuto hit as low as eighth? Who is a better fit for the No. 9 spot: Bryson Stott or Brandon Marsh? Here is Phillies Nation's projected Opening Day lineup, along with one big question for each hitter heading into the 2025 season. No. 1 Trea Turner, SS -- Will his contact abilities shine in the leadoff spot? There's an at-bat from Trea Turner from his first week as a Phillie in 2023 that I still think about. Facing Michael King at Yankee Stadium, the Phillies had two on and two out. With two strikes, Turner, the team's leadoff hitter at the time, went the other way on a fastball well off the plate for a base hit and an RBI single. It technically counted as a chase, but if you have a hitter with Turner's contact abilities, that is exactly what you are looking for. Turner has hit 15 balls off the plate the opposite way for a base hit over the last two years, the same amount as Bohm. Three of them came in the first two series of the 2023 season. Turner has tremendous power, but even he forgets just how good of a contact hitter he is. It's exciting to think about the Phillies getting that version of Turner out of the leadoff spot. He just needs to make it happen. No. 2 Bryce Harper, 1B -- Could nagging injuries become a bigger issue? Somehow, Harper avoided a lengthy injured list stint last year. A hamstring injury that looked worse than it actually was cost him about 10 days during the summer, but he also dealt with wrist and elbow issues. Back stiffness also sidelined him for a couple of spring training games last year. Knock on wood, but one of the better developments of camp so far is that Harper looks healthy. For Phillies fans, you just hope that nagging injuries are not a serious part of the conversation surrounding his season. There is greater risk as he begins to age. But even when his body is hurting, Harper still manages to produce like a superstar. A sign of being a really good player is when your biggest concern is what will happen if he gets hurt. In every year since the 2021 season, Harper has posted an OPS+ of 145 or greater. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are the only other players to accomplish this in that same span (min. 400 plate appearances per season). No. 3 Alec Bohm, 3B -- Is he the right guy to hit between Harper and Schwarber? One day at the end of April last year, a reporter asked Thomson if Bohm's hot streak to begin the season was an indication of something greater. "Possibly," he said. "Or he could just be hot right now. Who knows." It was fun for a few weeks to believe that Bohm's stock was risking dramatically, but he spent the rest of the season coming back down to earth. His OPS after an insanely hot March/April was .713. He finished off the year with one of the worst slumps of his career that culminated in a Game 2 benching in the NLDS. A left hand injury was a big contributing factor, but regardless, the Phillies need more from Bohm if he is going to hit behind Harper and ahead of Schwarber. How can Bohm best protect the two big lefty bats in the lineup? He needs to be more selective early, and use his contact abilities later in the at-bat to drive in runs. Bohm in 2024 made 28 outs on pitches outside the strike zone within the first two pitches of an at-bat. Nick Castellanos, who is more aggressive but has more swing-and-miss than Bohm, is the only teammate who came close to matching him with 22. No. 4 Kyle Schwarber, DH -- Could an early-season slump trigger another lineup change? Schwarber conquered lefties last season. Can he buck another trend and get off to a slightly better start? Since the beginning of the 2022 season, Schwarber has a .736 OPS in March/April and May. It's not terrible, but it's not up to his standard. If he begins the season in a slump, fans will be begging for Thomson to put him back in the leadoff spot. But really, this is all part of the Kyle Schwarber Experience. There is no scientific explanation for it, but he almost always starts slow, then goes on a tear in June. It's part of his aura. It's why Wawa starts Hoagiefest a month early. So if the Phillies are really committed to Turner batting leadoff and Schwarber moving down, they should really give it until June to see if it really works. No. 5 Nick Castellanos, RF -- How many fastballs is he going to see? No other hitter in baseball saw a higher percentage of breaking pitches than Castellanos in 2024 (min. 1,500 pitches seen). He put up the best slugging percentage (.558) of his career against breaking stuff the previous season. That number dropped to .374 in 2024. He also happened to hit offspeed pitches really well (.519 SLG) in 2024 after slugging under .300 against the pitch in each of his previous two seasons with the Phillies. But you can always rely on Castellanos slugging fastballs. How exactly does he get opposing pitchers to throw him more heaters? Castellanos is a believer in lineup protection mattering. Maybe he can benefit the most from an improved bottom half of the Phillies order. The very easy answer is to lay off on the breaking pitches outside of the zone. He whiffed at 29% of breaking pitches out of the strike zone in 2024. To put that into perspective, Turner, another guy who can benefit from seeing more fastballs and laying off breaking pitches, swung and missed at 24% of breaking pitches out the zone. No. 6 Max Kepler, LF -- Are the hard-hit balls a sign of good things to come? There are no victory laps in March, but the early returns on Kepler are promising. He leads the team so far this spring in hard-hit balls in play (exit velocity of 95 mph or greater). It's a good sign for a player coming off hip and knee injuries that hindered his ability to make hard contact. The Phillies have not had a lot of success in adding position players at a marginal cost in the Dave Dombrowski era. They've gotten a combined 10.8 fWAR from two 2022 trade deadline acquisitions: Brandon Marsh and Edmundo Sosa. They are the only two position players acquired from outside the organization since 2021 who were not signed to multi-year deals that have accumulated at least one FanGraphs win above replacement. Kepler is a safe bet to be the third. No. 7 J.T. Realmuto, C -- Did we underrate his second half of 2024? It's strange. The narrative surrounding J.T. Realmuto's 2024 season was that he was worse after coming back from knee surgery. He was actually a bit better. Before surgery, Realmuto had a .720 OPS in 223 plate appearances. He came back and posted a .788 OPS in 190 plate appearances. He had a .922 OPS from Aug. 23 to the end of the regular season. A great season at the plate could radically change his value in free agency next offseason. Whether or not the Phillies are the team that pays up remains to be seen, but with so many questions surrounding the right-handed hitters in the lineup, a better-than-expected Realmuto season could be a pleasant surprise. No. 8 Brandon Marsh, CF -- Can he prove to the Phillies that he is an everyday player? The Phillies are finally saying enough is enough. Brandon Marsh is going to get an extended chance at proving he is an everyday outfielder. A big difference between Marsh and two other young left-handed hitting outfielders in the league from Georgia, the Braves' Michael Harris II and the Athletics' Lawrence Butler, is success against lefties. Harris has a career .744 OPS against lefties. Butler had an .838 OPS against lefties in his first full season. Both are signed to long-term extensions. Both were given the chance in year one to establish themselves as big league regulars and succeeded. Both Harris II and Butler are three years younger than Marsh, and probably have brighter futures. But it's not too late for the 27-year-old Marsh to change the narrative surrounding his career. No. 9 Bryson Stott, 2B -- Could he have his best season yet at the plate? Putting up career-best numbers at the plate in 2025 is a realistic goal for Stott. His best season in 2023 consisted of a .280 batting average and a 103 OPS+. He came out of the gate that season looking like a star, breaking "Puddin' Head" Jones' Phillies record for the longest hit streak to begin a year at 17. The Phillies are giving him a mulligan on last year due to the nerve issues that impacted his swing. It's very interesting to compare the patience the Phillies have with Marsh versus Stott. Both are prone to sitting against tougher lefties, but Stott has had 96 more plate appearances against lefties than Marsh since 2023. Stott has the edge over Marsh against lefties over the last two seasons (.671 OPS vs. 643 OPS). The difference isn't that drastic, but one player is fighting a narrative while the other is trusted to figure things out.
