For the second straight season, the Phillies gained the NL East and earned a bye to the NLDS, solely to lose in 4 video games. The Phils once more face some massive selections about retaining or changing members of their core, and the bigger-picture query may be if this core group wants a bigger shakeup to get the crew excessive.
Assured Contracts
Possibility Selections
2026 monetary commitments (assuming Alvarado’s possibility is exercised):$177.34MMTotal future commitments (assuming Alvarado’s possibility is exercised): $642.54M
Arbitration-Eligible Gamers (service time in parentheses; projected salaries courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)
Free Brokers
Coming off a 56-homer season, Kyle Schwarber is understandably seeking to money in, and will intention for a five-year free agent deal that will cowl his age 33-37 seasons. That might be a hefty dedication to a participant who’s mainly a DH-only bat at this level in his profession, although it’s attainable that in change for a long term, Schwarber and his reps at Excel may be keen to bend a bit on the contract’s common annual worth.
Speculating on the tenor of negotiations might be a moot level, nevertheless, since there’s a sense that the Phillies are useless set on bringing Schwarber again. There was public curiosity in a reunion from Schwarber himself, from president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, and (most significantly) from proprietor John Middleton. The Phils have been greater than keen to pay prime greenback to retain most of their prime abilities through the Middleton period, starting from Zack Wheeler’s extension to new contracts with Aaron Nola and J.T. Realmuto after first letting them take a look at free company.
Realmuto is again in the marketplace once more now that his five-year, $115.5MM deal is up. It was cash nicely spent, as Cal Raleigh is the one catcher in baseball to publish the next fWAR than Realmuto’s 17.8 quantity over the 2021-25 span. On the flip aspect, Realmuto’s manufacturing on the plate dropped in his age-34 season, as he hit .257/.315/.384 with 12 homers (for a 94 wRC+) over 550 plate appearances in 2025.
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