Phillies Skipper Has Made Things Easy on His Players by Doing This One Thing

One of the worst-kept secrets across Major League Baseball this spring was that Kyle Schwarber would no longer be the leadoff hitter for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2025.

While he thrived in that role by hitting a record-setting number of homers to start a game, having him up top also created some holes throughout the rest of the lineup.

Rob Thomson stated that he was going to play around with batting orders throughout spring training, and that was certainly the case based on the amount of tinkering he did.

But since the regular season has gotten underway, he has largely stopped.

In fact, according to Matt Gelb of The Athletic (subscription required), the Phillies had used the fewest number of lineup combinations (20) entering play on Monday by a large margin.

A lot of the reasoning for that has been taken out of his hands.

Thomson's philosophy when it comes to setting his batting order is to alternate left and right-handed hitters, making it harder for opposing managers to deploy beneficial matchup-based bullpen decisions later in games.

With Bryson Stott now in the No. 1 spot after Trea Turner began the year in that role, the decision on who to pencil in behind Stott has been straight forward.

After the lefty Stott is the righty Turner. Bryce Harper is in third spot and Kyle Schwarber -- albeit another lefty -- is behind their superstar to create protection. Nick Castellanos gets back to the alternation in the five hole with Max Kepler and J.T. Realmuto after that. Then comes Alec Bohm and either John Rojas or Brandon Marsh depending on the day.

This has simplified things for the players.

They largely know where they are going to hit on a daily basis, and that has created some consistency after the team had a rough stretch following their hot start to 2025.

Six out of the nine regular starters have OPS+ figures above the league average of 100. Edmundo Sosa and Weston Wilson, who either pinch-hit or play based on matchups, both also have OPS+ numbers above the league average.

Because of that, it should be no surprise that Philadelphia has scored the 11th-most runs in Major League Baseball this season, and that's with Harper still trying to find his way.

Things should only improve the more games they play this campaign, and that is in large part due to the lack of tinkering Thomson has done with the lineup.

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