Bryson Stott Needs a Breakout Year, Badly

You want it. The Phillies want it. He needs it. And frankly, if it’s not happening now, it may never.

Bryson Stott is entering his fifth season with the Phillies, and if he supplies another flat year in the red pinstripes, it’ll mark the beginning of the end. Stott has been an above-average second baseman since coming onto the scene in 2022. He provided a quality-contact bat to a Phillies team that embraced a “chicks dig the long-ball” mentality. His stellar glove took over a premium position at shortstop mid-season, and gave him a solid floor to build on.

Since his rookie year, his glove has improved, despite being moved to second base with the acquisition of Trea Turner. But his bat hasn’t.

Here are Stott’s splits in his four seasons:

2022: .234 BA / .295 OBP / 358 SLG
2023: .280 BA / .329 OBP / .419 SLG
2024: .245 BA / .315 OBP / .356 SLG
2025: .257 BA / .328 OBP / .391 SLG

His best season, by any means, was 2023.

Stott’s an interesting case to encapsulate. Hitters like him are rare to find these days; guys who appear in a pitcher’s report as a headache for working counts, fouling off pitches, and putting balls in play, no matter the location. Their advanced numbers, such as barrel rate, hard hit rate, and exit velocity, never wow the average sabermetrician; it’s other old-school skills that seem to succeed.

His ability to work quality at-bats is apparent in his numbers — 4.4 pitches seen per at-bat last season. And, his ball-in-play frequency is credited to his in-zone contact percentage (87.4%) and out-of-zone contact percentage (74.6%), which induces flares and weakly hit balls — a prominent at-bat result for him.

Despite his ability to put balls in play, which any Little League coach tells you “makes good things happen,” there’s a clear pitching plan for him that has caused stagnation at the plate: get ahead and throw strikes.

Why?

Because, as all hitters do, Stott’s number regresses behind in the count; however, as most hitters don’t, Stott lets himself get behind in the count.

In his quality at-bats, Stott swung at 13.4% of first pitches — the third lowest in the league among qualified hitters — despite well over half of them being strikes. Of those 4.4 pitches per at-bat, 52.8% of them were in the zone — for comparison, Bryce Harper saw ten percent fewer pitches in the zone.

Any baseball nut that has read a Bill James book could tell you pitchers take the easy advantage of getting ahead in the count, 0-1 — there’s almost no risk in backdooring a breaking ball. From there, Stott’s numbers dip. They predictably dip further with the next strike, and even if he evens the count, some numbers keep dropping.

Stott’s approach needs to change. This isn’t high school ball, where you take the first pitch of each at-bat, just to “see one go by.” He’s being exploited for what’s considered his best asset, working counts.

Part of this exploitation is his fault.

A lot has changed in his swing and stance, yet not his approach. Stott has adopted a more modern look, with a shorter stance preceding a bigger leg kick, a longer and faster swing, and a more “ideal” bat path, per BaseballSavant. His approach of fouling away pitches, working counts, letting the baseball get deep in his swing, and staying short doesn’t coincide with the modern swing.

These changes don’t have to be the problem; he can change his approach to fit the swing, but one of them has to give, because they’re both being leveraged.

Aside from the mind-numbing Saber Metrics, Stott is due for a mentality change in his game. Since the end of his rookie year, the Phillies have had high expectations. The young core, formerly known as the day care, was supposed to blossom to supplement the veteran presence they acquired through free agency.

Somehow, it has managed to stick around despite its plateau.

Fellow “youth,” Alec Bohm, is almost certainly entering his last season as a Phillie, and Stott’s final arbitration will take place at the end of the season. There’s never been a better time for Stott to prove himself a worthy candidate for an extension.

If he posts another standstill season, it may be the beginning of the end. The Phillies, frankly, could focus on developing players following this window of opportunity, which closes rather soon, and holding on to a stagnant infielder like Stott takes away playing time for a younger candidate.

As for the present, the Phillies are in desperate need of in-house improvement. The team didn’t take an obvious step forward in the offseason, as they have in previous winters, so a leap at the plate for a player like Stott could go a long way for this regressing ball club.

2026 is going to be a defining year for this team; the championship window is open enough to “just let some air in,” but it’s closing soon. Bryson Stott, among others, needs to be the one to push it back open, and it starts in Spring Training.

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