What Should the Phillies Expect From Bohm in 2023?

The city of Philadelphia was robbed.

Whenever a Philadelphia sports team has a championship parade, there's always a memorable — usually profanity-based — line to come out of the speeches.

For the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, it was Tug McGraw telling New York to, "Stick it! Cause we're number one!"

In 2008 it was Chase Utley calling the Phillies, "World F***ing Champions!"

After Super Bowl LII was Jason Kelce saying... well really there were too many swears to count.

If the 2022 Phillies had won the World Series, we all know what would have have stood out as The Line.

"I f***ing love this place," said Alec Bohm in an alternate reality where cycles close and storylines have happy endings. Unfortunately, for all of us living in this universe, the world isn't perfect, and Bohm never got to fulfill his destiny in 2022.

That shouldn't rule him out for 2023 though.

Despite his paltry 100 OPS+, 2022 was a success for Bohm. Most importantly, he proved he could stick at the Big League level after his career was in jeopardy following a dismal 2021 season which saw him demoted in August.

The Phillies have their third baseman of the future, but just how valuable is he?

By rWAR, it's not pretty. His 0.8 total matched the 44-game total Bohm posted in  2022 when he had an OPS of .881. Offensively he was a solid player, and he got a boost by sticking at a valuable position in third base, but DRS was loath to compliment his defense.

Across a 162-game sample size, Bohm is worth -20 DRS for his career, and 2022 was no different. But DRS is flawed, especially over a sample size of less than two full seasons since the primary metric in its construction is range factor, a sum of the total plays made by an individual.

DRS is determined by comparing how many plays a player makes against league average, it's as simple as that.

But OAA ranks Bohm slightly more favorably. Because it uses Statcast data as a resource, OAA is better at determining defense over a small sample size, and over his career, Bohm has averaged -4 OAA a season.

UZR rates him even more favorably, worth -0.2 in 2022.

Bohm's true defensive value probably falls somewhere in between those metrics, so don't be dissuaded by his unsightly DRS totals.

Defense, of course, is not what Bohm is under contract for, and as a hitter, he has shown real signs of improvement.

After Bryce Harper's injury on June 25, Bohm slashed .299/.333/.439 with nine home runs. Not only did he begin to hit as he did as a rookie, but he also began to find some much needed power, mashing nine home runs over his final 83 games, including one in the World Series.

That back-end batting average was far closer to what Baseball Savant projects his year-end total should have been, .290, placing him 98th percentile overall in MLB.

Much of his year-to-year improvement over 2021, in which Bohm batted just .247, is due to his ability to hit fastballs. In 2021, he batted just .190 on the heater, in 2022 he did more damage against the fastball than any other pitch, hitting .295. Bohm went from -13 runs on the 2021 season against fastballs, to +10 in 2022.

Even with those full-season improvements, Bohm was still barely a league average hitter. There's more to him than just that, but if the eye-test says anything, it's that Bohm was improving as a defender as the year went on, as well as improving on offense.

His lack of power and below-average fielding will prevent Bohm from ever being the star the Phillies had hoped they had when they drafted him third overall in 2018, but Bohm should be a better player in 2023.

If he continues to improve according to his analytics, and the Phillies get second-half Bohm instead of first-half Bohm, player, team and city, could find that their 'love' is mutual.