Morgan Bruce: The Phillies' Right-Handed Hitting Problem
How bad is it?
The Phillies have a right-handed hitting problem. This isn’t news to anyone who has watched this team over the last few years. And it hasn’t been addressed properly since Rhys Hoskins injured his ACL in the last few days of spring training in 2023, before he then left as a free agent in 2024.
Across his career, Hoskins has hit 2nd in the lineup more than anywhere else (this includes his time in Milwaukee and Cleveland since leaving Philadelphia), and while hitting 2nd he has a .798 OPS, which would be incredibly helpful to this Phillies team, which is seriously lacking right-handed offensive production.
This lack of production from the right side is seen clearly through the fact that the Phillies are slashing .201/.264/.330 for a .593 OPS against left-handed starters. Against left-handed pitching overall, the Phillies are slashing .217/.300/.376 for an OPS of .676, which, while better, is still not good enough for a team with aspirations to win the World Series.
One thing that possibly helps the Phillies front office (led by President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski) is a lack of offense across the league, especially from right-handed hitting outfielders, which is what the Phillies have been searching for since Hoskins’ injury. As of May 21st, 25 of the 30 MLB teams had a combined batting average below .250, which shows that there is a lack of consistent offensive output across the league.
On top of this, an article written by Mike Petriello for MLB.com in December 2025 outlined the fact that in 2025, there were 16 outfielders (defined here as players who had at least 50% of their playing time coming on the grass) who took 400 plate appearances, and did so with average-or-better hitting, i.e. a 100 OPS+ or better. A lot of this list is in very settled places, such as the Yankees Aaron Judge and the Mariners Julio Rodriguez, who are not going to leave their current team any time soon (either via free agency or via trade), which makes it even harder for the Phillies to fill that hole. For added context, Petriello goes on to add that “the last time there had been that few righty-hitting outfielders with average or better hitting in a full season was 1960, when there were only 15. But 1960 is a pretty notable year in baseball history, as it was the final season with just 16 teams before the Expansion Era began in 1961.” This fully shows the lack of right-handed offensive ability across MLB at the moment, and that it’s not just the Phillies who are struggling to fill this hole.
In 2025, they were able to briefly plug the hole at the trade deadline as they acquired Harrison Bader in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. In a career year for Bader, he had an OPS+ of 122 in his 50 games with the Phillies; however, it was clear across that this level of production was not sustainable as Bader in 2026 has regressed to an OPS+ of just 68 in the 25 games he’s played in San Francisco.
As the Phillies have been unable to find this production from the free agent market or via trade, the next place to look would be internally. However, the Phillies have really struggled to develop major league players in recent years. In the offseason, Phillies beat writer Matt Gelb highlighted that, since 2020, there have only been two Phillies-developed players who have been worth 1.0 bWAR. They are Johan Rojas in 2023, who had 2.4 WAR in only 59 games, and Bryson Stott in 2022, who had 1.2 WAR in 127 games. For context, there have been 146 players who, in their rookie season in MLB, have been worth 1.0 bWAR since 2020. The Phillies having just two of these 146 players really highlights the issues that the Phillies organisation has had in developing talent. The current prospect in the pipeline that is giving everyone some hope is Dante Nori, who, in the 2026 WBC with Italy, had a 1.185 OPS in the 6 games he played. However, in 2026 at AA Reading, Nori has an OPS of .698 in 40 games. While the development of prospects is not linear, the excitement around Nori has died down a bit after his amazing WBC performance.
On the current major league roster, there are four main right-handed hitters who are all underperforming. One is Trea Turner, who, off the back of a 5th-place finish in National League MVP voting, is struggling this year with a .628 OPS.
There’s Alec Bohm, who struggled with injuries in 2025, and was hoping that he’d be able to show the quality that he displayed in 2024 when he was an All Star. This is especially the case as he will hit the free agent market after the 2026 season. However, while dealing with some off-field issues, he only has an OPS of .625. There has been some recent improvement as he has a .760 OPS in his last 30 games and a 1.074 OPS in his last 15 games but this still leaves a lot of work to do for Bohm to be a productive hitter at the end of the season.
There’s also veteran catcher JT Realmuto, who, after being signed for a 3 year/$45m deal in the offseason with the main reasoning that he is able to manage and prepare the Phillies’ pitching staff to an elite level, has really struggled with the bat, mustering only a .592 OPS. This is also while only playing in 63% of games compared to the 82% of games he played in 2025, which leads to further questions about his ability to stay on the field for this most recent contract he has signed.
Finally, there’s the most recent of Dombrowski’s 1 year/$10m free agent signings, Adolis Garcia. Garcia is looking to recapture the form he showed in 2023 when he won ALCS MVP and hit 39 home runs as the Texas Rangers won the World Series. Since then, Garcia has had 2 down years with an OPS between .650 and .700 in both. So far in 2026, Garcia has an OPS of only .597; however, he has been a bit unlucky. He has a higher walk rate than either of the last 2 years and is currently in the 89th percentile for average exit velo, 87th percentile for hard hit rate and 81st percentile for launch angle sweet spot, all of which show that his process is there, but the results haven’t been there yet. On top of this, he has a .xBA of .233 and an xSLG of .364, both of which are better than his actual numbers.
In conclusion, the Phillies have a right-handed hitting issue, but they aren’t alone in this when you look across major league baseball. They have had some regression from players who have performed well in the past, father time hurting others, and some bad luck thrown in there as well. So while this is an issue that is hurting the Phillies’ chances at a World Series, there are many factors at play, and it isn’t a simple solution to fix the issue.