The 2025 season is here. These four Phillies topics are worth watching all year.

WASHINGTON — It’s finally here.

Five months after the Phillies got booted out of the playoffs almost as soon as they arrived and six weeks after they reconvened for spring training, a new season is upon us. Opening day was Thursday. Citizens Bank Park opens for business Monday, weather permitting. And away we go.

Don’t you wish you could fast-forward to October?

» READ MORE: 2025 season preview: In Year 7 of the Bryce Harper era, the Phillies have one last chance to get it right with this core

Not to be presumptuous because the National League is a bear — the NL East, in particular — but, really, October is all that matters. The Phillies were assembled for one goal: to win the World Series that has eluded them in the Bryce Harper era. And if that seems like an exceedingly high bar, consider this: Ownership is making a club-record investment — approximately $308.9 million, so far, calculated against the highest luxury threshold ($301 million) — for the express purpose of following the Eagles up Broad Street.

So, yeah, why don’t we all hop in our time machines and set a course for … wait, what?

OK, so there’s a six-month regular season to wade through first. October isn’t assured. The Phillies won more playoff games (20) than any team over the last three years, but must requalify as one of the six best teams in a field that includes the dynamo Dodgers, formidable Braves, Mets, Diamondbacks, and Padres, and a wide-open NL Central.

In that case, let’s dive into the season with a few Phillies topics to watch.

Spring training tends to drag. But it wasn’t long enough, apparently, for the Phillies to settle their leadoff debate. For now, at least, Rob Thomson is hinting he will do what he once rejected: use one leadoff hitter against righty starters (Kyle Schwarber) and another against lefties (Trea Turner).

But does the order even matter?

“I ask the same questions myself,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “I have other people that ask me the same question. You’d be surprised how insignificant it is. Really. It’s amazing to me. People that are very, very intelligent, that do this from an analytical perspective, [say] it’s surprising how insignificant it is.”

» READ MORE: How important is batting order? As the Phillies experiment with their lineup, let’s look at the numbers.

Indeed, longtime statistical analyst Tom Tango devoted a chapter of his 2006 volume, The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, to batting order construction and found that, well, let’s have him explain it.

“If you swap, let’s say, the No. 2 and No. 3 hitter, any reasonable swap like that, you’re going to get two or three runs [per season],” Tango said by phone last month. “That’s basically what we’re talking about. A couple of runs here, a couple of runs there, that’s really what the impact is.”

So, while the leadoff issue is good sports-talk radio fodder, it’s secondary to the real question about the batting order: Are the Phillies susceptible to being shut down by left-handed pitching?

The Phillies faced 58 lefty starters last season, more than any team in baseball — and that was before they signed lefty-hitting Max Kepler as the everyday left fielder. They also seem committed to giving center fielder Brandon Marsh a chance to face lefties more often.

Thomson likes to alternate righties and lefties, but on most days, three of the bottom four or five hitters in the order — Kepler, Bryson Stott, and Marsh — will bat from the left side.

Kepler stood up well to lefties over the last two seasons with the Twins (.261 average, .737 OPS), but not as much in 2021-22 (.197/.589). Stott handled them in 2022 and ‘23 (.274/.738) but not last year (.223/.595). Marsh hasn’t ever hit lefties (.216/.582 in 386 career plate appearances).

» READ MORE: The Bryce Harper conversation: Why he’s open to an outfield return, his love of Pilates, playing past 40, and more

“You get spaced-out at-bats against the best-of-the-best left-handers in this game, the odds are stacked against you pretty heavily,” Marsh said. “Not saying it’s impossible. But it’s very, very difficult. There are numbers that show the more consistent work you get against, say, left-on-left, the numbers tend to rise. Looking forward to that this year.”

Kepler, Stott, and Marsh don’t all have to master lefties. But if all of them struggle, it will leave the overall lineup vulnerable, especially because there aren’t many righty-hitting alternatives beyond Edmundo Sosa and Johan Rojas. Even triple-A outfield prospects Justin Crawford and Gabriel Rincones Jr. bat from the left side.

Surely, then, teams will keep lining up their lefties to face the Phillies.

“Yeah,” Thomson said, “we’re gonna see a lot of [them].”

When the Phillies fell in the 2023 NL Championship Series and last year in the divisional round, the narrative centered on an offense that went ice-cold.

Really, though, the bullpen was the cooler.

The Phillies blew out the Diamondbacks in the first two games of the NLCS, then blew seventh-inning leads in Games 3 and 4 in Arizona to change the tide of the series. And who knows how things would’ve turned out against the Mets if Jeff Hoffman or Matt Strahm held a 1-0 lead in the eighth inning of Game 1?

“It didn’t sit well for a while,” Strahm said. “It was just, (a) we ran into an absolute missile of a team, how hot they were, and (b) we were so good all year. It’s hard to be good for 162 [games] let alone even more. We didn’t finish how we wanted to, but, yeah, that’s just baseball.”

» READ MORE: Do Phillies hitters have to change their approach? Here’s Kevin Long’s plan for each.

Hoffman and Carlos Estévez, the Phillies’ highest-leverage late-inning relievers last season, left via free agency and were replaced by former All-Star closer Jordan Romano. He’s joined by holdovers Strahm, Orion Kerkering, and José Alvarado in Thomson’s closer-by-matchups club.

Is it enough?

Maybe Romano will stay healthy and lock down the ninth inning again, like he did for three years with the Blue Jays. Or maybe Kerkering will graduate to closing games. Take it for what it’s worth, but Alvarado dominated spring training, striking out 20 of 34 batters and throwing 100-mph sinkers.

And the Phillies’ bullpen also could benefit from a Zack Wheeler-led starting staff that works more innings than most rotations in baseball. Take it from Strahm: “Workload is real,” he said, “so any time Zack, [Aaron] Nola, Ranger [Suárez], [Cristopher Sánchez], any of them are able to lighten the load for us, it should help us in October. You’re not going to hear me complain about not throwing enough.”

But bullpens are also ever-changing. And because they’re so essential to October success, it’s a safe bet the Phillies will be in the market for relief help again at the trade deadline. Two names to file away: Ryan Helsley (Cardinals) and Pete Fairbanks (Rays). Others will emerge.

When the Phillies — the triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs, too, for that matter — hightailed it out of Florida on Monday, they left Andrew Painter behind.

Don’t worry. It was intentional.

Painter, who turns 22 in two weeks, ranks among the top pitching prospects in the sport, with Jackson Jobe (Tigers), Bubba Chandler (Pirates), and Noah Schultz (White Sox). And he’s healthy again after having Tommy John surgery in July 2023.

» READ MORE: As teams expect less of starting pitchers, the Phillies are counting on theirs to win a World Series

But because he missed two seasons, Painter’s innings will be capped. The Phillies don’t want him to reach that limit before the end of the season, so they put him on a slower progression in spring training.

Painter faced hitters in live batting practice before camp ended and will get into games in extended spring training within the next few weeks. The timetable for him to make his major league debut remains “July-ish,” as Dombrowski puts it. And when it happens, Phillies officials will tout it as the equivalent of a trade-deadline addition.

It may be even more impactful.

Crawford is now on the verge of the majors, too. The 21-year-old center fielder began the season in triple A after an impressive spring that included a short stint in major league camp. The Phillies could use more stability at a position where they’ve had seven opening-day starters in eight years (where have you gone, Odúbel Herrera?).

The Phillies roster isn’t old, per se. At least not by 2025 standards, when advances in sports science are allowing athletes to play longer.

But it’s definitely middle-aged.

J.T. Realmuto is 34; Nick Castellanos is 33; Schwarber and Harper are 32; Turner will be 32 in June. On the pitching side, Wheeler and Nola will turn 35 and 32, respectively, during the season.

» READ MORE: Do Phillies hitters have to change their approach? Here’s Kevin Long’s plan for each.

Since 2008, here’s the list of teams that had at least five players 32 and older make 400 or more plate appearances and qualified for the playoffs:

Not a large club. And the Phillies understand the reality.

“Certainly none of us are getting younger,” Realmuto said. “We know that time is a real thing, and Father Time is coming for all of us. We don’t have all the time in the world where we’re all 27 years old and we get to play together for another eight years.”

It’s an undercurrent that will exist all season.