A day after the Phillies lost the sixth game of the World Series, Alec Bohm escaped. “I packed up my car and just drove,” he said. He does not mind the trek from Philadelphia to Clearwater, Fla., where he lives in the offseason. He does the trip in two eight-hour increments.
“I start cruising and then all of it hits me,” Bohm said earlier this spring. “It’s just you and your thoughts in there. I started thinking. ‘Wow. That was a fun year. That was the most fun I’ve had playing baseball in my life.’”
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He digested his entire season. Benched in April after a three-error game to starting at third base in the World Series. Riddled with self-doubt in the spring to a summer of confidence-building moments. The most public failures morphed into a diving catch against Nolan Arenado in a postseason game.
At some point along the 1,000-mile journey, he knew it.
“I’m, like, addicted to the playoffs,” Bohm said.
But there was something else. He made it to the other side. He was the third pick in the 2018 MLB amateur draft for a reason, and he was demoted to Triple A late in the 2021 season for a reason. He turns 27 in August. He’s seen a lot. He was not guaranteed a roster spot last spring — the Phillies, according to multiple major-league sources, had floated Bohm in trade talks.
So much has changed. He spent hours in the cage last spring. It felt like work. He looked lost. Everyone, by now, knows about how Bohm transformed himself during the 2022 season. The benefits have carried into 2023. Bohm feels it when he steps into the covered batting cages adjacent to the clubhouse at BayCare Ballpark.
“If I go in there and I suck one day, we find out pretty quickly what I’m not doing right,” Bohm said. “We fix it. And we have fun fixing it. I don’t feel like I’m grinding in the cage anymore. I enjoy going in the cage. I have fun in the cage.”
That must be a relief.
“I mean, it’s freeing,” Bohm said. “I remember going to the cage and hitting was fun. Through college and coming up in the minor leagues, I had fun going into the cage. Hanging out, hitting, whatever. Then you get to a point where you’re struggling, and now you’re trying to make adjustments and fix your swing. The cage becomes work. It’s not fun.”
He credited Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long and infield coach Bobby Dickerson for pushing him. They credit Bohm for being a willing listener. He separated his defensive shortcomings from his failures at the plate and, with a clearer mind, he improved both.
“I enjoy hitting again,” Bohm said. “It’s fun.”
The focus this spring is on the muscle Bohm added. He’s gained about 10 pounds, and it is noticeable. The club’s strength and conditioning team armed Bohm with an offseason plan. He worked out at the team’s complex in Clearwater. “It takes effort to get that done,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. Bohm is excited about the added strength, but there is something more prominent on his mind this spring.
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“Home runs are thrown,” Long says to Bohm. He says it to him often — often enough that it is stuck in Bohm’s head. It is not a thought that originated with Long. It’s a phrase hitters have repeated over and over. And, still …
“It’s hard to think about it that way,” Bohm said.
Maybe it unlocked something. There was legitimate improvement in 2022, but Bohm finished with a 100 OPS+ in 631 plate appearances. He was league average. It was not a breakout season. It was proof Bohm could swim.
Long has teased Bohm this spring about his walk rate from a season ago. It was 4.9 percent — 123rd among 130 qualified hitters. The power and walks are connected, and now Bohm is synthesizing Long’s ideas into his own words.
“How many times do I go up there,” Bohm said, “and not even give them a chance to make a mistake?”
This is the next step. There are holes to fix — always — but Bohm is not broken like he was last spring.
“It’s building on what we’ve had going,” Bohm said. “That’s the kind of stuff that we’ve been talking about. Hitting what I want to hit. Not going up there and swinging at a ball on the corner first pitch because I can reach it. And I might get a hit. I’ve gotten hits on them. But there’s a lot of times when I go up there 0-0 and I get myself out hitting the pitcher’s pitch. Maybe it’s got a little bit of late cut. It cuts off the plate. Now I’m 1-0. Things like that. So I think controlling the zone better is the idea.”
It’s not as if Bohm wants to walk more. A few more walks would be nice. It is just his way of thinking about power. Before, the Phillies’ hitting instruction was focused on improving Bohm’s pull-side power. His all-fields approach suffered as a result. He was always thinking about pulling the ball.
That mindset did not work for him.
“If I just let them throw me more mistakes, I think that takes care of itself,” Bohm said. “Instead of going up there saying, ‘All right, I’m going to lift the ball more. I’m going to try to hit for more power. I’m going to try to hit home runs.’”
Bohm swung at the first pitch 39 percent of the time last season. That rate ranked in the top 20 among qualified hitters. He slugged .481 when he put the first pitch in play — well below the league average of .560. When he offered at the first pitch, it was out of the strike zone a quarter of the time.
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He can be pickier, and that might generate more power. Bohm hit five home runs against fastballs during the 2022 season. He’s hit three fastballs over the wall this spring. Grapefruit League stats come with all of the caveats. Bohm, in his three previous springs, hit two homers in 105 at-bats. He mashed three in his first 17 at-bats this spring. The added strength matters. So does the refined mentality at the plate. Those combined?
“We’re where we want to be now,” Bohm said. “Let’s just keep growing this.”
He raised his batting average against fastballs by 102 points and his slugging percentage by 143 points from 2021 to 2022. “I look back at that,” Bohm said, “and I’m like, ‘What the f— was I doing?’” His swing was busted. There is still room to grow. His .410 slugging percentage against fastballs last season sat below the league average (.426).
As Bohm drove home to Florida last November, he reflected on how he became a product of a better environment. He found the support he never knew he needed in Long and Dickerson. He was part of a roster that found itself in the summer, then flourished in the fall. “It’s a group that didn’t give a s— about personal success,” Bohm said. That stuck with him because it led to more personal successes.
His included.
“I feel you play the game with that intention and I think the game rewards you somewhere along the line,” Bohm said. “Maybe not right away. When you line out three times in a row, but you keep playing the game the right way, I think it all evens out. That’s the thing I think that really registered last year.”
(Top photo: David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
