Another national reporter has added fuel to the fire in regards to Alec Bohm trade rumors.
On the latest episode of the "Baseball Tonight" podcast, ESPN's Buster Olney said the following in regards to Bohm's availability.
"What I'm hearing from other teams is 'Yeah, he's gonna be traded.' Like he's out there a bunch. And they say the Phillies have been around long enough to know that they could squash that if they wanted to. They could go out, they could whisper to the reporters 'Yeah, Bohm's not really available.' They're not doing that. So the assumption with other teams [is] that Bohm is gonna be traded."
Full Audio (plus some information on Garrett Crochet) pic.twitter.com/3VYUj38QoR
This, of course, comes on the heels of Olney's ESPN colleague Jeff Passan reporting earlier this week that Bohm "finds himself on the trade block." Passan isn't just someone who throws stuff against the wall, and neither is Olney. So that gives you the sense that these trade rumors are legitimate.
Now, just because the Phillies gauge what the market for a player would be doesn't necessarily mean that they're definitely going to trade said player. It appeared last offseason that the Phillies briefly dipped their toes in the waters of seeing what was out there for Nick Castellanos. On Nov. 9, 2023, MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported that the Phillies were "open to the idea of trading Castellanos." The next day, "a Phillies source" told Olney that the Phillies had "no intention of trading him," adding that the organization believed that Castellanos was "an important part of the team and [they] value his production." So was Feinsand's report just incorrect? That's pretty unlikely. The reality is that the Phillies probably checked to see what was out there for Castellanos, quickly realized they weren't going to find a trade and scrambled to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Olney's point in this case is there's been ample time now for the Phillies to leak that Bohm trade rumors have no basis in reality. They haven't done that. That could very well mean that president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski will ultimately move Bohm this offseason, which would represent a pretty notable shakeup in the lineup considering that Bohm was an All-Star in 2024 and has driven in 97 runs in consecutive years.
You could also speculate that the Phillies believe that either A) Bohm is going to be traded or B) he needs something of a wake-up call, which being mentioned so substantively in trade rumors might give him if a deal doesn't end up materializing. Former MLB catcher A.J. Pierzynski alluded to Bohm potentially needing to mature more as a person earlier this week on "Foul Territory:"
"He needs to take the next step as a maturing adult."@AJPierzynski12 said he's heard from people around the Phillies that Alec Bohm wasn't just benched in the playoffs due to poor performance. pic.twitter.com/kiZGwGmRHD
