Otto Kemp is having a tremendous season at Triple-A and the Phillies are taking notice . (Photo by … More
In Philly, it’s building — the clamoring for Otto Kemp. Phillies fans and local media are craving Kemp’s call-up after his obliteration of minor-league pitching to begin the 2025 season.
Check out that slash line at Triple-A Lehigh Valley: .344/.433/.703 in 150 plate appearances with 10 home runs and 35 RBI in 32 games. And on Monday Kemp was named International League Player of the Month for April. Kemp’s numbers have nabbed the eye of the big club, which ranks eighteenth in the majors in home runs and could use a thumper like Kemp (who rocks the Magnum P.I. stache circa 1984).
“He’s played really well and he can play all over the diamond,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said last weekend. “He’s got a lot of value, he really does.”
Here’s some of that value on display:
At 25, Kemp isn’t your typical stud prospect. In fact, his rise through the Phillies’ system is a bit of a shocker, considering he went unselected during the 2022 draft. And the Phils scooped him up as an undrafted free agent.
A big reason for Kemp’s lack of prospect buzz: bad luck. Injuries limited his options coming out of high school, and he ended up at Division II Point Loma Nazarene in California. Then he suffered a triple-dose of misfortune: a blood clot and a torn labrum and, combined with the COVID pandemic, he missed basically his first two years of college baseball.
So what did Kemp do? He manufactured his prospect hype the old-fashioned way by playing hard and improving each year, and then at the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League in 2024, he showed minor-league evaluators what they had been miscalculating all along when he bashed six home runs and slugged .733 in 63 plate appearances.
Kemp has ridden the AFL hype-train into the 2025 season, creating potentially a happy problem down in Philadelphia, which is seeking that one missing ingredient to lead the team to a World Series crown.
The problem — more like a question — is this: Where would Kemp fit on a roster that doesn’t have a clear opening for him?
“Really anywhere,” Thomson said of Kemp’s versatility. “Second base, third base, corner outfield, first base. He’s pretty solid everywhere.”
Yes, Kemp has played all over the infield, except for shortstop, and he’s logged minor-league innings in corner outfield spots. However, the guy in the organization who knows Kemp best — general manager Preston Mattingly — says third base is his primary position.
“I think he has the ability to play all over… But I think third base is his most natural spot,” Mattingly said.
The Phillies have an everyday third baseman in underperforming Alec Bohm. So the most obvious solution is to shop Bohm (maybe for a late-inning reliever) but trades are tricky to pull off, and Bohm’s value has never been lower after his lousy start (.228 average and zero home runs) to the ’25 season.
Another solution: Push Kemp into the already crowded outfield, where four guys (Brandon Marsh, Max Kepler, Weston Wilson and Johan Rojas) share time in left and centerfield.
Kemp’s position flexibility gives him a chance to become a super-sub, but it would be blasphemous for the Phillies to unload their current super-sub — uber-popular Edmundo Sosa — to make room for Kemp.
The most creative idea to create space for Kemp could be to shift Max Kepler from left field to center, and then swing Bryce Harper from first base to left field, and then move Bohm to first base, and then plug Kemp in at third. Uh, scratch that — just trading Bohm would be easier.
In the meantime, the Phillies hope Kemp just keeps bashing.
