Spring training stats never matter. Unless, of course, they support your narrative.
Each spring, nearly every MLB team has a player, or more, make a supposed breakthrough. We’ve all seen it, and Philadelphia Phillies fans in particular might be numb to it. After all, consecutive spring surges from Max Kepler, Whit Merrifield and Jake Cave are enough to dampen the spirits of even the hardiest fans.
What, then, does that mean for the emergence of Bryson Stott in 2026, the man now sporting a 2.150 OPS?
The former first-round pick has higher hopes attached to him than any of the latter trio, but nevertheless, Stott has never quite lived up to the hype. Though he’s been an excellent defender and an even better baserunner, evaluators who once pegged him to hit .300 have thus far been proven wrong.
Through six games in the 2026 spring campaign, Stott has already mashed two home runs, walked five times, and struck out only once, all while sporting a Bondsian OPS. While nobody expects the 28-year-old Las Vegan to be Barry Bonds in the regular season, Stott’s performance has raised both eyebrows and expectations.
So let us dive into the past and examine if the Phillies’ previous spring sensations hold any clues for Stott’s future.
Perhaps Max Kepler's PEDs were only working during spring training. Though his 2025 in general was lackluster, especially the middle of the season, Kepler did post a .753 OPS in April on a reasonable BABIP of .288.
Alec Bohm, on the other hand, had a truly disastrous start last year. On April 13, he had a .331 OPS, 9 for 61. By the end of the month, Bohm had raised his batting average and OPS to .221 and .526, respectively, but his torrid spring may have harmed his start to the season more than aided it.
The brightest spot of Whit Merrifield’s ignominious time with Philadelphia didn’t even come in Philadelphia. The three-time all-star played his final season in 2024; it was clear he had run out of gas. The 3-for-28 start to the regular season certainly didn’t help either. As bad as Merrifield’s tenure with the Phillies was, one of his three home runs came off a position player, too. Yikes.
While Kody Clemens didn’t live up to his 1.066 spring training OPS, he did have a blisteringly hot start to the season, finishing May with a .908 OPS before lower back spasms sidelined him for a full month. Clemens didn’t finish the season strong, but he carried his hot streak through from Clearwater to Philadelphia.
‘Twas a dark time in Phillies baseball when hopes rested on Jake Cave to keep up his 1.327 OPS through the regular season. He slumped as soon as camp broke, going 11-for-59 to start the season and finishing April with a .619 OPS, only one point below his season-end mark.
Unfortunately for the Phillies, Darick Hall left even more to be desired after a hot start in spring training. Hall actually hit cleanup in the first two games of the season before tearing the UCL in his thumb. He didn’t come back to the big leagues until July 2 and was entirely ineffective, finishing the season 1-for-17.
The Phillies' big stars shone in spring training 2022. Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto both knocked the cover off the ball in Clearwater. Harper mashed eight home runs in just 37 plate appearances. Though he cooled off a bit as the regular season began, he still had a .985 OPS when a Blake Snell fastball broke his thumb in June.
Realmuto also started cold but authored the best season of his career at the plate with a 130 OPS+, taking home a Silver Slugger award and finishing eighth in MVP voting.
Harper appears on this list again in 2021, his best regular season in Philadelphia. That year, the then-28-year-old blasted out of the gate to start the regular season, finishing April with a .321 batting average and 1.063 OPS. Despite his best efforts and a 1.044 season OPS, the Phillies missed the playoffs for the 10th consecutive campaign.
Harper’s spring breakout partner in Bohm did not maintain his hot streak. After finishing runner-up in 2020 Rookie of the Year voting, hopes for the former third pick in the draft were dizzingly high. Bohm did not live up to the hype, slashing .207/.245/.304 in April before he was demoted later in the summer. He finished the year with a paltry .647 OPS.
J.T. Realmuto’s demolition of spring pitching was on display in 2019 as a new Phillie. Though his 1.097 spring OPS didn’t carry over to the beginning of the regular season, the Oklahoma-born catcher found his groove late in the summer and finished the season with an .820 OPS.
Oddly enough, the second-best spring training Phillie to break camp with the team that year was Realmuto’s backstop counterpart, Andrew Knapp. Never known for his hitting, Knapp faltered out of the gate in April and finished with a rather pedestrian .642 OPS.
The year of the Scott Kingery breakout was not to be. The 24-year-old second baseman was asked to switch from his natural position of second base and move to shortstop for Cesar Hernandez. Despite that torrid spring, Kingery never really got going in the major leagues. He had a .660 OPS by the end of April, and that would only continue to fall by the end of the year. He did, however, slash .280/.315/.540 through his first 13 games, so maybe that spring hot streak did carry over.
Hoskins followed up his fiery spring training with an April that was nearly as hot. In fact, through his first 25 games, his OPS was actually higher, at 1.098, than his spring training OPS of 1.076. The rest of the year was notably cooler for Hoskins as he learned to play left field while Carlos Santana manned first, but it’s fair to call his 2018 spring training a sign of things to come.
Now we’re getting into real Phillies sicko territory. Brock Stassi’s spring training earned him an Opening Day roster spot, but not much else. 2017 was his only year in the majors, and he entered only four games all season with a batting average above the Mendoza line.
When he was healthy, Aaron Altherr was arguably the centerpiece of the rebuild-era Phillies lineups. 2017 was his best season, finishing the campaign with an .856 OPS and opening the season strong, too. That spring training breakout continued late into May, when Altherr’s OPS by May 14 was still 1.197.
There was a moment when Cameron Rupp was going to be the Phillies’ catcher of the future. That sentiment was never stronger than after spring 2016. Though Rupp had a mediocre start out of the gate, his .750 OPS on the year is very respectable for a catcher.
Like Rupp, the hype was never higher on Maikel Franco than it was heading into the 2016 season. But the sophomore slump hit Franco nearly as hard as it hit Bohm. After a strong April, a month in which Franco slashed .267/.320/.467, he cooled down and finished the year batting just .255 with a .733 OPS, not ideal for a bat-first third baseman.
It was nearly impossible to find one breakout candidate from spring training 2015, let alone two. That February, the Phillies actually lost an exhibition game to Division II University of Tampa. I swear that’s real; look it up. Nevertheless, Rule 5 pick Odubel Herrera still had a relatively strong showing in Clearwater to go along with a regular-season campaign that should’ve earned him Rookie of the Year votes.
The next best spring training performances by players with more than 35 ABs were from Brian Bogusevic (.944 OPS) and Cord Phelps (.870 OPS). Neither made the Opening Day roster, and no one else who did had a figure above .708.
As of March 6, Bryson Stott is slashing .700/.750/1.400 for an OPS of 2.150. Those figures are more than unsustainable; they're impossible to maintain. For context, Barry Bonds had only a .609 OBP and .812 SLG in 2004. Stott will regress before the spring is over; it’s just a question of how much.
After examining the best spring performances by Phillies players over the last decade, there is almost no correlation between a hot spring and a hot season.
Each dot on the chart above corresponds to one of the aforementioned springs, plotted against its regular-season OPS. An R² score of .023 means there is only a 2.3% correlation between spring and regular season stats. The fact that this number is even positive is surprising, given that it includes data from seasons authored by Kepler, Merrifield, and Cave.
So, can anything be said for Stott’s spring so far?
Perhaps if he continues to make hard contact as the regular season approaches, Phillies fans can pin their leadoff hopes on the veteran entering his fifth MLB season. But for now, let’s just enjoy what appears to be a fun statistical anomaly and see how long Stott can masquerade as the greatest hitter in baseball history.
