Alec Bohm's stubbornness could get him traded

Alec Bohm is probably the best Philadelphia Phillie in recent years to face the amount of criticism he has faced. 

Of course, players like Johan Rojas, Brandon Marsh, Taijuan Walker, etc., have faced a lot of criticism, but those guys have struggled heavily at times. Bohm hasn’t. He came into the league as an awful defender and has improved tremendously. Over the past three seasons, he’s hit .278 with a .752 OPS and has averaged 16 HR and 89 RBI. He’s no Mike Schmidt, but Bohm has been a fixture in the middle of the Phillies order over the past three years and has given them solid production. Yet, he’s under constant criticism. And I’ve always thought it was baseless. Until now.

The Phillies of the early 2020s will go down in baseball history as an interesting experiment in assembling a team of home run hitters and seeing how far you can go. We found out a lineup that is dominated by power hitters who strike out a lot will not end in a championship. This season, the Phillies haven’t restructured their lineup, but they have reconsidered their approach.

They’ve begun showing restraint at the plate. After being among the worst teams in the league in chase rate the past three seasons, the Phillies have completely changed their strategy; stop swinging at pitches outside of the zone, see more pitches, strikeout less, play more small ball. That’s what the Phillies have done early on this season and it’s worked.

via Philly Voice

Just this past weekend they took two of three from the Los Angeles Dodgers - who entered the weekend undefeated - and they only needed one home run to do it. Everyone has adopted the new strategy, even the players who have had a bad habit at swinging at bad pitches - Nick Castellanos, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber. All of them. Except one.

Alec Bohm, for some reason, has not gotten on the plate discipline train. And like many other Phillies fans, my patience is wearing thin with him. In Saturday’s 3-1 loss, across four at-bats, Bohm saw just five pitches. Everyone else on the team is working the count, making pitchers dig deeper in their bag to get a tough out. Not Bohm. He must believe the team’s philosophy doesn’t apply to him. There has to be a miscommunication. There is just no way he thinks it is acceptable to completely disregard the team’s strategy at the plate. Is it a matter of thinking he’s just too good for it? I can’t tell. But it’s not working. Bohm is just 8-40 this year with only one extra base hit. He has six strikeouts, which would probably be higher if he wasn’t making outs on the first pitch of every at bat.

Tuesday night he represented the tying run and made the final out of the game, stranding Bryce Harper on second base when he popped out. He, of course, slammed his bat, like a young child. We all remember that kid from our little league team who used to throw his equipment around when things didn’t go his way. He’d come back to the dugout and throw his helmet or his bat and everyone would stand around uncomfortably because they knew last time he did this and someone stepped in he yelled at them. But, it’s alright, he’s only 12 years old. He’ll learn, he’ll grow up.

Alec Bohm is 28 years old.

It’s time to grow up, Alec. The constant bat/helmet slamming when you hit into a double play is tiring. It’s not a good look. The fans get just as frustrated with you as you are with yourself. And when the fans constantly see you in a bad mood, it puts them in a bad mood.

So, Alec Bohm has two things to improve on: see more pitches and stop acting like a little kid. If he refuses to fix either of those, the team would probably be better off without him.