Kyle Schwarber re-signing with Phillies: Slugger headed back on record five-year, $150 million contract
Schwarber hit a National League-leading 56 home runs in 2025
The Philadelphia Phillies are signing the top power hitter on the free-agent market. Slugger Kyle Schwarber and the Phillies have agreed to a five-year, $150 million free agent contract, CBS Sports has confirmed. That $30 million AAV is a record for a DH. The club has not yet announced the signing.
Schwarber, who turns 33 in early March, is coming off a career year with the Phillies in which he hit an NL-leading 56 home runs and drew 102 unintentional walks. Along the way, he put up an OPS+ of 150 and came in second place in the National League MVP race behind Shohei Ohtani. Coming into the offseason, CBS Sports ranked Schwarber as the No. 5 available free agent in the 2025-26 class. Here's part of our write-up:
All Schwarber does is hit. The catch is, well, all Schwarber does is hit. He has negative defensive and positional value, and the obvious comparisons to David Ortiz miss a key consideration: Ortiz didn't have extreme swing-and-miss tendencies. It's reasonable to wonder if Schwarber will age as gracefully as Ortiz did. Those questions may impact the term (Ortiz himself maxed out at four years around this part of his career), but there's no doubting Schwarber's ability to make an immediate impact. He has both the high-end bat speed and elite plate discipline to regularly perform 30% or better than the league-average hitter. Those traits ought to hold for at least a few more years, making him one of the top free agents in this class.
For his career, Schwarber has a WAR of 19.9 across parts of 11 MLB seasons. He's a three-time All-Star and he'll enter the 2026 season with 340 career home runs to his credit.
Here are three other things to know about the deal.
1. Agreement made sense for both parties
This was always the most logical conclusion for both parties.
Philadelphia's front office wasn't going to find a better pure hitter available on a five-year term. Yes, in theory, the Phillies could've chased after Kyle Tucker instead, but he would've required a much bigger commitment. Other potential alternatives, like free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman, would've required a larger reshaping of the roster than the Phillies may feel comfortable with at this point.
Schwarber, meanwhile, wasn't as clean of a fit for some of the other teams pursuing him. The Mets, for instance, would've had to contend with employing him and Juan Soto for the next five years. Besides, Schwarber seems to enjoy being part of the Phillies, to the extent that both sides had publicly expressed their desire to continue this relationship.
An agreement may have taken until the Winter Meetings to reach, but now Schwarber can rest easy knowing that his ultimate goal -- bringing a World Series title to Philadelphia -- remains in play.
2. Phillies have other business to attend to
With Schwarber taken care of, the Phillies can now turn their attention elsewhere. That means, among other items on their to-do list, figuring out whether or not a reunion is in the cards with free-agent backstop J.T. Realmuto.
Realmuto, 35 come March, is the top available backstop despite age-related decline. His 91 OPS+ last season represented his worst mark of his career. Nonetheless, the market lacks a compelling alternative, suggesting the Phillies will maintain their interest in bringing him back. (Conversely, the Phillies do not appear to have interest in retaining lefty Ranger Suárez.)
Elsewhere on the roster, the Phillies are known to be shopping veteran outfielder Nick Castellanos. He's fresh off a career-worst season, during which he openly criticized manager Rob Thomson.
3. Hitter market should start moving
The idea that Schwarber's signing will serve as the first domino in a series of moves has grown into an accepted theory.
There's some logic to it: he was a popular target for both the game's highest rollers, including the Phillies, Mets, and Red Sox, and more reserved spenders, like the Pirates and Reds. With Schwarber spoken for, those other teams can move on to their respective backup plans -- be it in the form of other free agents or through trades.
Whether or not that's an instant development that leads to a more eventful second half of the Winter Meetings is to be seen. At minimum, teams now have one fewer excuse to blame their inactivity on.
