Q&A: Kyle Schwarber on a possible extension and whether this Phillies core has an expiration date

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Feb 21, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CLEARWATER, Fla. — After spring training opened in 2022, the Phillies signed Kyle Schwarber to a four-year, $79 million contract. A quick check of the MLB home-run leaderboard since then:

— 157 — Aaron Judge

— 132 — Shohei Ohtani

— 131 — Schwarber

Nice company, isn’t it?

Schwarber, entering the final year of his contract, joined “Phillies Extra,” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s weekly baseball show. Here is an excerpt from our conversation, which has been edited for brevity.

— Scott Lauber: The core of this team has been intact now for three going on four years. That’s an eternity in pro sports in 2025. But there are some contracts that will come up at the end of this season, including yours. Not that you guys are talking about it all the time or anything, but is there an underlying feeling that it could be the last dance for this core group?

— Schwarber: Yeah, I mean, that’s the nature of the game, right? Everyone just can’t stick around. It’s just the way that the game is, the way that teams view a future, the way that teams view prospects that are coming up, roster construction, whatever it is, right? It’s just the nature of the game. And we would love to all finish our careers together, but who would want to come out and watch a bunch of 40-year-old dudes play baseball?

I think the biggest thing is just to really embrace it. I feel like over these last three years we’ve generally become friends, family, whatever it is. We’ve been around each other for so long that everyone knows the ins and outs. Everyone knows who everyone is, what gets them to tick. Obviously there’s going to be new faces every year, but for the majority of the group, it’s a lot of the same guys.

So, for us we’re going to enjoy the year. We got to find a way, like we’ve always been saying, to try to put ourselves in a position to be that last team standing at the end of the year and holding up a trophy. If that’s winning the division, if that’s making the playoffs and then playing our brand of baseball and at the right time of the year.

— Lauber: You said the other day that you’d be interested in talking about an extension if that was something the Phillies wanted to discuss. With the potential that you’ll be a free agent next winter, how much did you pay attention this winter and look at hitters who might be looked at as comparable to you — whether it’s Teoscar Hernández or Pete Alonso — to see where they ended up in the market as a gauge for where you could end up a year from now?

— Schwarber: Good question. I feel like I live on a daily basis. I feel like it’s just trying to get through the day and go from there. But I’ve said this plenty of times that this is where I felt like I’ve truly got to be myself and be the player I’m able to be. I feel like there’s still a better version in the tank.

Obviously, I’m going to keep trying to make adjustments on a yearly basis. Hopefully, those adjustments keep getting me better and better and better and kind of flipping the script where with age comes a decline. I want it to be the opposite way. At some point it’s the inevitability of age, and the way that the game just keeps getting better and better and better. But I still feel like I have a lot to give to winning.

And what the team is going to be about for the foreseeable future is winning. And when you’re winning … that’s all you can ask for as a player. You walk into a club and you walk into spring training and you walk into the season and you walk in through the doors of the clubhouse, you walk in happy, right? You know that there’s a chance to come win. You’re just not coming there to put up numbers and get to free agency. You’re trying to win a championship. I’ve always said this: The best way to get paid is to win. That’s what I’ve been about my whole career. I’m just going to continue to be that way.

Whatever happens, happens. If I get to work out here and something gets done [with a contract extension], that’s awesome. I want to. I would love that to happen. If it doesn’t, I’m going to pour my heart and soul into this team just like I do every year and see what happens.

But I’m not looking too far ahead to that right now. I’m not looking for the what-if-it-doesn’t-happen. I’m looking into the 2025 season and trying to figure out how the heck we’re going to get to that end.