Alec Bohm’s place with the Phillies was in question two years ago. Now he’s starting in the All-Star Game.

ARLINGTON, Texas — In 59 MLB drafts, the Phillies have picked only four players higher than Alec Bohm. So, yes, they always expected he would develop into a good major leaguer.

But how good? What was his ceiling?

A few years ago, Bohm’s college coach ventured a guess.

“He reminds me a lot of Troy Glaus,” Todd Butler said. “A big, tall third baseman like him, that’s who I always thought he was. Some people were saying Kris Bryant, but I thought it was more like a Glaus type.”

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It took him a while, but darn if Bohm isn’t making Butler look prescient.

Bohm got drafted third overall out of Wichita State in 2018, like Glaus out of UCLA in 1997. Bohm is the third 6-foot-5 third baseman to start 100 games in a season; Glaus was the first with the Angels in 1999. Although Bohm has not yet flexed Glaus’ 40-homer power, he’s every bit the righty-swinging, middle-of-the-order RBI machine. (Coincidentally, Bohm and Glaus even share a birthday — Aug. 3 — 20 years apart.)

Oh, and now, at age 27, Bohm is an All-Star, just like Glaus.

“I‘m so proud of Alec Bohm,” Butler said by phone this week. “It’s a very tough thing to be a major-league baseball player, but I never wavered about him becoming one. To be honest, him making the All-Star Game is not a surprise to me.”

Even if his path resembled a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas, next door to where Bohm will take center stage Monday night in the Home Run Derby and Tuesday when he starts at third base for the National League.

All-Star rosters have been dotted over the years by third overall picks, from Paul Molitor and Robin Yount to third basemen Matt Williams, Glaus, Evan Longoria, and Manny Machado. The Phillies took Lonnie Smith and Mike Lieberthal in that spot, and they wound up as All-Stars. Bohm will be the 16th No. 3 overall to appear in the midsummer showcase.

But draft position doesn’t always equate to success. Busts happen. And two years ago, Bohm’s place with the Phillies was an open question.

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After a smashing debut in the short 2020 season, Bohm’s 2021 was a nightmare. As bad as things got at the plate and in the field, his body language — stomping around the batter’s box after a bad swing or called strike, chucking the ball into left field after flubbing a grounder in infield practice — was worse. He lost confidence. He got benched for undersized utilityman Ronald Torreyes, a favorite of then-manager Joe Girardi. Eventually, Bohm was demoted to triple A.

When Bohm struggled in spring training in 2022, the Phillies discussed trading him. And then came the low point, a three-error game in April at Citizens Bank Park during which he was booed, mock-cheered after a routine play, and infamously caught on camera saying, “I hate this [expletive] place.”

It was difficult to see a Phillies future for Bohm, even after he made a public apology to the fans.

“I definitely think back to the possibility that those could’ve been my last days over here,” Bohm said in a recent conversation. “That was obviously a possibility with the way everything was kind of shaking out. I don’t think about being other places, but I do think about what could have happened.”

From afar, Butler was sure about one thing: If the Phillies stuck with him, Bohm wouldn’t stop working to get better.

Butler, now an assistant coach at Oklahoma, was trying to prove a point to a player who was taking a break from training last fall. He texted Bohm, who used part of his $5.85 million signing bonus to buy a condo on Clearwater Beach because he wanted to live closer to the Phillies’ training facility in the offseason.

“How many days have you ever taken off from hitting?”

Bohm’s reply: “One.”

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“I’ve recruited some really good players in 30 years of coaching, and when I met with him a long time ago, his dad said, ‘He’ll be the hardest worker,’ ” Butler said. “I hear that a lot. But he was the hardest worker. A lot of kids talk it and never walk it. This guy has walked it his whole career.”

To wit: Bohm always focused on hitting, but entering his senior year, Butler told him to be more conscientious about his defense, especially his footwork and pre-pitch preparation. If Wichita State threw 150 pitches in a game, Butler said he expected Bohm to be ready for all 150.

“He took that to heart,” said Butler, who in turn advocated for Bohm to stay at third base when skeptical pro scouts and major-league officials, including Larry Bowa, weren’t sure he could.

It’s impossible to identify a singular turning point for Bohm in 2022. It helped that he got a standing ovation when he came to the plate the night after his viral incident. Teammates rallied around him, too, with Bryce Harper and others expressing their confidence.

Bohm also received a challenge in the form of tough love from infield coach Bobby Dickerson, who told him, “There have been some great rookie of the years that never did anything again. At some point, you’ve got to go out and you’ve got to perform. Because this is the ‘do’ level; this is not the ‘practice’ level.”

“Dickerson basically said, ‘Hey, maybe you’re not the guy,’ ” Butler said. “And [Bohm] brought up his level of intensity and work ethic to playing defense at third base.”

Bohm also benefited from the Phillies’ in-season managerial change in 2022. His playing time had become irregular under Girardi, whose confidence in him wavered. He was batting .263/.304/.360 with three homers in 194 plate appearances on the day that Girardi got fired.

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Rob Thomson took over and committed to playing Bohm every day. Not coincidentally, Bohm batted .287/.320/.414 with 10 homers in 437 plate appearances for the rest of the season.

“I felt he was the third baseman. I really did,” Thomson said. “I felt like this was the guy we needed to kind of hang our hat on and let him go. Over time it’s gotten better and better. I don’t know when it was that I thought he was an All-Star. But it’s really been great to watch him grow.”

Bohm is among baseball’s best hitters with runners in scoring position, amassing a .976 OPS (.319/.391/.585), 30 hits, and 55 RBIs entering the weekend. He’s adept at pulling the ball to left field and taking a two-strike pitch the other way to right. He has cut down his strikeout rate every year, from 26.6% in 2021 to 17.4% in 2022, 15.4% last year, and only 13.7% this year.

Entering play Sunday, Bohm was batting .292/.347/.476. He had only 11 homers, the fewest among the eight Derby competitors, but led the majors with 31 doubles and was tied for fourth with 70 RBIs.

“He can hit anything, anywhere — up, down; in, out,” Butler said. “To be honest, I think Alec Bohm is one of those guys that, if he wanted to hit 30 home runs, I really think he could. But he knows who he is. How many RBIs does he have right now? That alone shows that he’s a true hitter.”

Bohm has also taken over the Phillies’ cleanup spot, making him the primary protection for Harper, who has said he would teach his son to swing like Bohm.

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“He’s really coming into what he is as a player — and what we all knew he’d be,” Harper said. “He has such a good swing to all fields. He never looks rattled or overwhelmed with the at-bat. The older he gets, the better he gets — backside power, pull power, things like that. He’s a mini J-Dub to me.”

As in Jayson Werth, another tall, long-haired late bloomer who wore No. 28 for the Phillies a generation ago. It’s another flattering comparison for a player who is finally fulfilling his can’t-miss draft potential.

“It makes you think about all the time, all the games you played, the good ones, the bad ones,” Bohm said. “All that stuff. It kind of makes it all worth it.”