The Philadelphia Phillies introduced new free-agent signing Trea Turner to the media during a press conference on Thursday and team president Dave Dombrowski joined Jon Marks & Ike Reese immediately afterwards to discuss the signing.
During the press conference Trea Turner said Kyle Schwarber already called him to discuss the Phillies' new lineup and who will be the leadoff hitter, as Schwarber is coming off of a season where he hit a career-high 46 home runs as the team's leadoff hitter.
Dombrowski says Schwarber is "not married to the leadoff spot."
"Usually in these cases I leave that up to our manager to handle it and Rob Thomson's case, of course we talked about it internally," Dombrowski said when asked about which player will leadoff. "And I usually leave that up to them. It's not—I mean, Kyle Schwarber will hit wherever we would like him to hit and of course he'll have feedback into that and Rob will figure it out with those guys. But he'll hit in other places, he's not married to the leadoff spot. He did a very good job for us last year in many regards.
"So the question will come do you have somebody like him hit leadoff that's in a position where—and I think his on-base percentage will actually be better this year. Hopefully he doesn't strike out, he struck out a little bit more than he normally would last year, despite as good a season he had—versus the speed aspect of having somebody like Trea on top. And it also may make a difference of left, right hitting in your lineup, how you balance that out...it'll be probably better to ask Rob because he'll be the one that makes that final decision."
Whichever way you slice it, the Phillies are going to have a powerful lineup with the addition of Turner to go along with Schwarber, Bryce Harper (when healthy), J.T. Realmuto, Nick Castellanos, and Rhys Hoskins.
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