What the Last 4 Spring Trainings With This Phillies Team Have Taught Us

For every example of a player's strong or weak spring training carrying over into the regular season, there are several more that prove irrelevant.

Pitchers do things like work specifically on fastball command or tinker with new pitches in the exhibition games. Hitters are finding their timing. Some have seen live pitching throughout the offseason in the form of winter leagues, others are coming in with fresher eyes.

The lack of correlation between performance in spring training and the regular season — or often even the beginning of the regular season — can be displayed over decades, but let's use the Phillies core that has been together the last four years as an example:

2025 hitters

• The Phillies' two most productive hitters last spring were Max Kepler (15-for-40 with 3 HR and more walks than strikeouts) and Alec Bohm (.370 BA).

Kepler then struggled through a .216/.300/.391 regular season, while Bohm began the year 9-for-60 (.150).

• Meanwhile, Kyle Schwarber hit .184 last spring in 49 at-bats with two homers ahead of a 56-home run, 132-RBI season.

• Trea Turner went 7-for-39 (.179) with one extra-base hit then won a batting title.

2025 pitchers

• On the pitching side of things, Jesus Luzardo pitched to a 9.49 ERA in the 2025 Grapefruit League then struck out 11 in his Phillies regular-season debut and ended April with a 1.73 ERA.

• Aaron Nola's 1.84 ERA last spring was little indication of what was to come. He had a 6.65 ERA in mid-April and a 6.01 for the season.

• Jordan Romano pitched 8⅔ scoreless innings in the spring, then blew a save on Opening Day and allowed 13 earned runs in his first nine appearances, failing to find consistency all year.

2024 hitters

• Whit Merrifield batted .405 in spring training, then the player known as "Two-Hit Whit" had only three multi-hit games in his first 30 starts. He never received enough playing time to get going but also wasn't productive enough while on the field, and was released in July.

• Schwarber went 5-for-32 (.156) with no home runs and 20 strikeouts before raising his regular-season batting average by 51 points from the prior year to .248 (with 38 bombs). His springs in particular have meant nothing in recent years.

• Bryce Harper struggled just as much as Schwarber two springs ago, 5-for-28 (.179) without a homer and 11 strikeouts. He then hit .230/.345/.460 in April with the majority of that production coming in two games, so in a way, there was some carryover. But about 95% of hitters would take a .345 OBP and .460 SLG.

• Nick Castellanos' 5-for-42 (.119) spring did carry over. He entered the final day of April hitting .173.

2024 pitchers

• Zack Wheeler and Ranger Suarez were dominant in the spring, then dominant in the regular season.

• Taijuan Walker struggled in Florida and in Philadelphia. Gregory Soto's rough, baserunner-filled spring was also a sign of what was to come. This was the season they shipped him to Baltimore at the trade deadline.

2023 hitters

• Jake Cave could do no wrong, hitting .462 with 10 extra-base hits and 14 RBI in 18 games. He had a handful of good nights at the plate during the regular season but hit .212 in 203 plate appearances as a reserve.

• Turner hit .478 while also belting five home runs in the World Baseball Classic but didn't homer until his 84th plate appearance of the season.

2023 pitchers

• It was Wheeler's worst spring with a 9.28 ERA and also his worst regular season as a Phillie, but to put his excellence in perspective, he finished sixth in Cy Young voting.

• Craig Kimbrel had a lockdown spring with one run and 13 strikeouts in eight inning then was bombed in his first four outings.

• Andrew Bellatti went 8⅔ scoreless in the Grapefruit League but wasn't able to replicate his success from the prior regular season, going up and down to Triple A Lehigh Valley a few times. He hasn't pitched in the majors since.

2022 hitters

• Harper's spring was eye-popping with eight home runs and a .400 batting average. He then started the regular season 4-for-29 before kicking into his usual gear.

• Mickey Moniak hit .378 with six home runs to make the Opening Day roster but suffered a fractured hand in the Phillies' final spring game. His roster spot instead went to Simón Muzziotti. Who knows how things would have developed for Moniak if not for that injury. This was the summer the Phillies acquired Brandon Marsh from the Angels the same day they traded Moniak to the Angels in a separate deal for Noah Syndergaard.

2022 pitchers

• Jeurys Familia struck out 12 and allowed one run over six innings ahead of a disastrous season in which he posted a 6.09 ERA and was designated for assignment after the trade deadline.

• Aaron Nola, meanwhile, was taken deep six times in 14⅓ innings for a 5.65 spring ERA, then went 205 innings with a 3.25 ERA in the regular season, finishing fourth in Cy Young voting. (Man, would that version of Nola come in handy in 2026...)

Those are the glaring recent Phillies examples among many other normal springs the last four years. Something to remember if Bryan De La Cruz pops seven homers before Opening Day or Cristopher Sanchez gets touched up a few times.

Spring training is about hitters finding timing and pitchers working their arms into shape for a full-season's worth of appearances. More than anything else, it's about staying healthy.