The Phillies put their trust in Bryson Stott and the rookie has rewarded them (2024)

WASHINGTON — Months ago, before Paco Figueroa ever had a meaningful conversation with Bryson Stott, he pinched him. It was a Grapefruit League game. Stott was standing on first base. Figueroa, the first-base coach, had heard about Stott’s exceptional feel for the game. He wanted to test it with the pinch. “That’s a sign to take off,” Figueroa said. He did not say a word to Stott.

“He took off,” Figueroa said. “I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ I haven’t talked to this kid. His instincts were like that.”

Figueroa told the story to his boss at the time, Joe Girardi. The former manager — along with the rest of the coaching staff — had spent weeks studying Stott during a minor-league minicamp held in February while MLB’s owner-imposed lockout lingered. The coaches were intrigued. Preston Mattingly, the new director of player development, had an idea. He told Bobby Dickerson, the infield coach on the big-league staff, that he should have priority with Stott.

“He’s yours,” Mattingly told Dickerson. “I want you with him as much as you can.”

So, Dickerson spent hours on a side field with Stott. The goal was to gain an understanding — a trust that could be summoned later in the season when adversity emerged. This is the longest season of Stott’s life. He hit a wall a few weeks ago. But the Phillies have never wavered in their commitment to Stott. He is their shortstop. They released Didi Gregorius at the beginning of August to affirm that commitment. They are asking Stott to play one of the important positions on the field as a rookie in a pennant race.

It has not always been smooth. As the conditions deteriorated Sunday afternoon at Nationals Park, Stott bobbled a grounder in the bottom of the third inning. Zack Wheeler pitched around it. Then, in the top of the fourth, Stott took one of the biggest swings of the season. He cracked a hanging slider to the green wall in right field. Two runs scored. The Phillies won 8-1 in a rain-shortened game. A few hours later, the Phillies’ magic number to secure their first postseason berth in 11 years shrank to 1.

“Bobby just kept telling me, ‘Think about the good things I’ve done today and not the bad,'” Stott said. “To get that hit was huge.”

There are few people who know what Stott is experiencing as a rookie shortstop on a Phillies team with postseason aspirations. In 140 years of Phillies baseball, the team has qualified for the playoffs two times with a rookie shortstop. The first was Dave Bancroft in 1915. The other was a slender second-round draft pick from Spokane, Wash., named Kevin Stocker.

“I found out years later; I didn’t know this,” Stocker said last month. “(Manager) Jim Fregosi called in four or five of the guys the night before I came in. He sat them down and said, ‘Hey, you guys, here’s the deal. We’re calling Stocker up. Leave him alone.’ You know, don’t be doing a bunch of initiation stuff. He said, ‘Hey, we need him. Accept him.’”

Stocker, at 23 years old, was dropped into a room with huge personalities in July 1993, but he had spent time in spring training as a non-roster player. He knew everyone. He was somewhat comfortable. So Larry Bowa, the team’s third base coach, attached himself to Stocker.

“I was one of those guys that asked a ton of questions,” Stocker said. “I asked questions. I asked once, and I learned really fast. If I made a mistake and Bowa was on my ass, which was a lot, he didn’t have to do it twice. I really made it a point. I knew my position. I played it really well. I learned quickly.”

Kevin Stocker
Shortstop
Philadelphia Phillies (1993-1997)pic.twitter.com/vEQckfQur0

— Random Philly Athletes (@philly_athletes) May 20, 2021

Stocker was there for his glovework. But he hit .324/.409/.417 in 302 plate appearances in 1993. He wasn’t a top prospect like Stott was before his debut. Stocker, who worked as an analyst this season on some Phillies radio broadcasts, sees similarities in the situations though.

“As a player, you have to have a lot of faith in what they’re teaching you,” Stocker said. “That it’s going to work at that level and that speed. Some players fight it. … Larry was hard. He was hard on me because we were both shortstops. But I also knew that he was very successful. So absolutely, I would try to listen.”

Stott and Dickerson formed that bond in the spring and it crystallized during the season whenever Stott faced physical or mental challenges.

“Arguably, you could say he’s the leader on the infield,” Dickerson said of Stott, who turns 25 on Thursday. “He’s constantly engaged. We have other veteran guys. But he’s the shortstop and he has taken that position like I believe it should be played. … He doesn’t force the game. If he’s limited in something, he understands his limitations and makes the best out of what he has.”

That can be difficult for a rookie shortstop to grasp, especially in meaningful games. Stocker remembered the first time he had to tell Bowa that he could physically not do something the coach wanted. “To go search him out,” Stocker said, “and say, ‘Hey, I’m having trouble.’ That did take me a little bit of time.” But there was something to how the Phillies made Stocker feel.

“When I got called up and walked into that clubhouse, Bowa was putting his finger in my chest, right?” Stocker said. “‘Just catch the ball.’ This and that. They made it very clear, Jim and those guys: Look, you’re our guy at shortstop. Just go play. Don’t worry about hitting. Just go play. You’re going to play every day. So I knew, no matter what, I’m going to play every day.”

There are parallels to 2022. It is why Stocker, from afar, loved watching how the Phillies handled Stott in the summer.

“It’s paying off now because you get down towards playoff time and you have to have all that experience through the year,” Stocker said. “Now you hope that he’ll be able to take that into the playoff situation. That was absolutely huge for me, especially for a team in a big city like Philadelphia in the playoffs.”

This is all so foreign to most in the clubhouse, Stott included. He put the Brewers-Marlins game on his phone Sunday evening, set it on top of his suitcase, and provided updates to Brandon Marsh. Stott is on the precipice of playing postseason baseball as a rookie. His double-play partner, Jean Segura, has waited 11 seasons for this.

The moment is not lost on Stott.

“It’s fun,” he said. “Every pitch is tense. So, when stuff is going good, it’s real fun.”

His work at shortstop was crisp — almost immaculate — until a few weeks back. He’s made a few mistakes. The Phillies did not expect him to be perfect. If anything, Stott has exceeded expectations. He batted .123/.179/.151 in the first two months of the season, but there were long stretches this year when it was easy to forget Stott was a rookie.

“He does all those little things,” third baseman Alec Bohm said. “You see the game kind of slow down for him at times. You know, the way the year started for him, I don’t think a lot of people would be where he is right now. So that’s a credit to him.”

A few weeks ago, Wheeler raised his right hand and flattened it to describe Stott.

“He just stays here,” Wheeler said. “And that’s kind of what you see out of older guys who’ve been around for a while. I got taught that at a younger age, so I’ve always been like that. It kind of reminds me of me. He doesn’t get too high. Doesn’t get too low. When he comes in, yeah, he gets a little frustrated. But he never slams stuff. He never gets too down or just pouts about stuff. You see some guys doing that here and there throughout the years. Literally never seen that out of him.”

The Phillies are asking Stott to bat ninth most nights and make the plays at shortstop. Anything else, like the two-run double Sunday, is a bonus. But Stott has proven he is capable of finding the smallest advantage. An inning after his double, Stott scored from first base on a single to left.

What impressed Dickerson during their initial sessions was Stott’s composure.

“Immediately,” Dickerson said, “I remember talking to different bosses of mine and just saying, ‘Damn this kid is calm.’ He understands the nuts and bolts of it. He doesn’t let the game speed up. He doesn’t let the situation make him tight. He was born for this. You know?”

It’s one thing to be calm during a spring workout or on a Tuesday night in June. That steadiness will be tested. The Phillies envision Stott as a piece of their future, and whatever he learns this month will serve him well later. Can he feel the strain from the longest season of his life?

“I mean, no,” Stott said. “Obviously, I think my body knows it’s tired. But everyone’s probably tired. It’s no excuse. It’s a long season. You just have to get through it. That’s why you play 162, so you can get through those times. I’m sure people are tired in April and May as well. I feel good. My mind’s good. My body’s good.”

When Stott followed a mistake Sunday with one swing, he rewarded the Phillies for how they’ve nurtured him.

“It’s not too big for him,” Bohm said. “He’s very calm and relaxed on the field. Obviously, early on, there’s some of those moments where the game sped up on him. He learned from it. Now, it just seems like he’s right where he needs to be. He fits right in. He looks the part, right?”

(Top photo: Eric Hartline / USA Today)

Matt Gelb is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Philadelphia Phillies. He has covered the team since 2010 while at The Philadelphia Inquirer, including a yearlong pause from baseball as a reporter on the city desk. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Central Bucks High School West.