Buddy Kennedy’s interesting spring continues amid Phillies bench battle

Even before the Phillies’ first full-squad workout this spring, it was intuitive that Weston Wilson would open camp as the favorite for the Phillies’ final bench spot. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski suggested as much before position players reported.

The moment Wilson went down with an injury that’ll sideline him for the first couple weeks of the regular season, the race blew wide open. But if anyone was in pole position at the outset of the new-look battle, it was Buddy Kennedy.

The job will probably go to a right-handed hitter. That would be a tough shake for Kody Clemens, who’s slashed .370/.393/.704 so far in camp, but it’s hard to dispute that a righty bat has more utility to the Phillies than a lefty one, given the way the roster is constructed. They could simply choose the best bat available and figure it out from there, but Clemens may have more value in a trade than he would on the Opening Day roster.

It’ll also probably go to someone who can play the outfield. That would help Óscar Mercado’s case, but he’s 3-for-16 this spring and hasn’t had a big-league plate appearance since 2023. And, given that Johan Rojas will likely be on the roster, the bat is probably a bigger factor than the glove, as long as they can hold their own in the outfield for an inning or two at a time.

So, back to Kennedy. It’s not as if he’s been on fire at the dish in camp; he’s 4-for-20. But Kennedy on Tuesday launched his third homer of the spring, tied (with Alec Bohm and Gabriel Rincones Jr.) for the team lead.

It’s not exactly in line with Kennedy’s offensive profile — he’s hit two homers in 149 MLB plate appearances — and it’s not as if three homers in February/March should have the Phillies thinking he’s a trustworthy power threat off the bench.

But the 2025 Phillies will take right-handed pop wherever they can get it. That was one of the reasons Wilson seemed like the leading candidate to break camp with the team, before his injury. If Kennedy — who did hit 13 homers in 106 Triple-A games last year, which isn’t nothing — can offer any upside at all in the power department, it should be a consideration.

It’s worth mentioning that the signing of Christian Arroyo has changed the calculus a bit, and if it’s true that the job will ultimately go to a righty, he’s played his way into consideration, too. He’s hit .348 with a 1.032 OPS, which includes a pair of big flies. Do with it what you will, but Baseball Reference’s springtime “Opponent Quality” metric is also a bit higher on the level of pitching faced by Arroyo than by Kennedy.

So, again, just over two weeks from Opening Day, we’re still a long way from finality as far as the final bench spot goes. It’s possible that it winds up going to someone currently employed by another organization. It’s possible it goes to Clemens.

Once Wilson went down, we expected not to know much about that battle at this point in the spring. The hint of power potential, though, is something we didn’t necessarily predict. Maybe it’s nothing at all and we’re grasping at spring training straws. Perhaps, though, it’s something to file away.