The Philadelphia Phillies have surged to baseball’s best record with a deep combination of starting pitching and power slugging.
But among all of the stars on the team, including Zack Wheeler, Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, one player is standing out as having the best start to the year so far: Kyle Schwarber.
In his fourth season with the Phillies, Schwarber is slashing .253/.396/.567 with 18 home runs so far, putting him on a career-best pace at age 32. But as Schwarber’s hot start continues, the Phillies will have a difficult decision to make.
The slugger has a chance to become a free agent at the end of the year and if he doesn’t agree to an in-season extension with the Phillies first, the team will have to compete with any number of contending clubs to re-sign him.
In a recent interview with “The Show” podcast, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski spoke out about how the team views a potential new contract.
“We would love to keep him as part of the organization for the long term, there’s no doubt,” Dombrowski said. “He’s putting up big numbers, and I’m sure there will be a lot of other clubs that are interested in him too. But we’d love to keep him part of the organization, and hope that it happens.”
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Given Schwarber’s season so far and the success the team has had since he joined, it might not be much of a surprise to hear that Dombrowski hopes to retain him moving forward. But he also seemed to acknowledge looming competition for his services, hinting that the Phillies boss is anticipating negotiations to hit free agency, as opposed to an extension that keeps Schwarber off the market.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic previously reported that the Phillies and Schwarber had launched negotiations on an extension that failed to advance. The team might now be planning to pick talks back up once the season is over.
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