{"id":109133,"date":"2025-11-04T21:25:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T02:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=109133"},"modified":"2025-11-04T21:25:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T02:25:46","slug":"phillies-harrison-bader-declines-mutual-option-enters-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/11\/04\/phillies-harrison-bader-declines-mutual-option-enters-free-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Outfielder Declines Mutual Option, Enters Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baderha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Harrison Bader<\/a> has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/fantasy\/baseball\/news\/harrison-bader-declines-mutual-option\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">declined his side of the mutual option<\/a> on his contract, the team announced on Tuesday. The mutual option was for $10 million. Bader is coming off a career year, so it makes complete sense that he would opt out. According to Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, the Phillies <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/09\/15\/phillies-should-outfielder-bader\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">would like to re-sign<\/a> Bader. This season, the 31-year-old outfielder had a .277\/.347\/.449 line with career highs of 17 home runs and 54 RBI in 146 games. Bader recorded a career best 122 wRC+ along with a career best .359 BABIP this season. The Phillies acquired him from the Minnesota Twins at the trade deadline, after he played 96 games with Minnesota.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_105660\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105660\" style=\"width: 713px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-105660\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"713\" height=\"475\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/USATSI_26779076_168400885_lowres.jpg 1912w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 713px) 100vw, 713px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105660\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aug 4, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader (2) reacts after hitting a 3-run home run during the sixth inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Harrison Bader Rejects Mutual Option with Phillies<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">OF Harrison Bader declined his portion of his mutual option for 2026 and will become a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Phillies\/status\/1985863928896004189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 5, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With the Phillies this season, Bader had a .305\/.361\/.463 line with five home runs and 16 RBI in 50 games. He also recorded a 129 wRC+ and a .415 BABIP after the trade. Bader did see his strikeout rate increase from 26.4% with the Twins to 28.4% with the Phillies. Additionally, he saw his walk rate decrease from 8.8% with the Twins to 6.2% with the Phillies. Bader exclusively played center field for the Phillies, whereas with the Twins, he primarily played left field with appearances in center field and right field. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/mlb\/player\/market-value\/_\/id\/17759\/harrison-bader\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spotrac projects<\/a> that Bader will receive a 2-year, $2o million contract.<\/p>\n<h3>Impact on Offseason Plans<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=crawfo000jus&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Crawford<\/a> is <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/10\/27\/phillies-outfield-prospect-justin-crawford-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">widely expected<\/a> to be on the Phillies&#8217; 2026 Opening Day roster. Crawford has experience playing both left field and center field. Bader potentially leaving in free agency creates an opening for Crawford to be the Phillies&#8217; everyday center fielder in 2026. The Phillies also have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schwaky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Schwarber<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/realmjt01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">J.T. Realmuto<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suarera01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> as free agents. It will be virtually impossible to keep all of them, given payroll considerations. Keeping Schwarber and Realmuto is the Phillies&#8217; top priority in free agency. The center field market lacks quality options, which makes it hard to let Bader walk.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader has declined his side of the mutual option on his contract, the team announced on Tuesday. The mutual option was for $10 million. Bader is coming off a career year, so it makes complete sense that he would opt out. According to Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, the Phillies would like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":107161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1071,35],"tags":[1253,469,5799,516,3009],"class_list":["post-109133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","category-news","tag-harrison-bader","tag-j-t-realmuto","tag-justin-crawford","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-ranger-suarez"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109139,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133\/revisions\/109139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}