Will Bryson Stott and Orion Kerkering be part of the next Phillies core? Their 2025 seasons will be telling.

Let’s be clear: In the short term, there’s one way for the Phillies to keep up with the Dodgers’ colossus and halt their own two-year postseason backslide.

“Superstars,” as Bryce Harper likes to say, “got to show up.”

It rang true in July, when Harper took stock of the roster after the trade deadline. And it’s the keynote again now, less than three weeks before pitchers and catchers report for spring training.

» READ MORE: Dave Dombrowski’s ambitious goal for the Phillies: Balance winning it all with sustained success for years

Because while the sport is buzzing (and in some cases, griping) over a Dodgers offseason flex — additions: Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Michael Conforto, and Hyeseong Kim; re-signings: Teoscar Hernández and Blake Treinen; extensions: Tommy Edman — that ratcheted the world champs’ luxury-tax payroll to $370.8 million, according to Fangraphs, the Phillies rank second at $307.5 million, $182 million of which is allocated for seven players.

Dissect it any way you want, then. For a third year in a row, the Phillies’ fortunes will rest squarely with Harper, Trea Turner, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos, a core that can go star-for-star with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Will Smith, and Tyler Glasnow in L.A.

But the Phillies aspire to be the East Coast Dodgers in another way. They want to contend for the World Series in perpetuity, which means being a drafting/development machine in addition to a financial powerhouse.

Dave Dombrowski didn’t get an opportunity to see through that mission in Detroit or Boston. In both cities, he built contending teams with high payrolls that made the playoffs year after year — and in the case of the Red Sox, won it all in 2018. But he also got fired when the organizations decided to step back and take a longer-term vision.

With the Phillies, Dombrowski has put together rosters that won 82, 87, 90, and 95 games. The 2022 team rode a magic Red October carpet to the World Series; last year’s club won the Phillies’ first NL East crown since 2011.

Through it all, the cast has been headlined by all the same big stars.

» READ MORE: Phillies storylines to watch in 2025: Transforming Trea Turner, welcoming back Alec Bohm, and more

Dombrowski rejects the idea of a “window” to win the World Series. But he does concede that there’s an expiration date for the core of every roster. The Phillies have one season left with this group before Realmuto and Schwarber are eligible for free agency; Castellanos is free after 2026, Wheeler after 2027.

It’s imperative, then, if the Phillies are going to achieve Dodgers-like sustainability atop the National League to bring supporting actors into more prominent roles. The Dodgers did it with Smith and Max Muncy and eventually hope to continue with Sasaki, Kim, and others.

In that case, it’s a pivotal time for some Phillies who have been, let’s say, “core-adjacent” over these last few playoff runs. Let’s examine two players — one hitter, one pitcher — whose performance in 2025 will determine if they’re part of the next Phillies core.

As a rookie in 2022, Stott started at shortstop for 13 of the Phillies’ 17 postseason games. He slid over to second base in 2023 and was a Gold Glove finalist while batting over .300 through mid-August.

The arrow was pointing up.

Then came last season. Stott’s defense remained stellar, but his batting average plummeted to .245 and his OPS fell to .671 from .747 in 2023. The 27-year-old often appeared uncertain at the plate, as though he was stuck in between two approaches.

» READ MORE: J.T. Realmuto or … who? The Phillies will face a complex decision with their star catcher.

But there might have been another reason for Stott’s downturn.

“He had a sore elbow for a lengthy period last year,” Dombrowski said last month. “It was nothing major, per se, but enough that it bothered him a lot from an extension perspective.”

Dombrowski said Stott tweaked his right elbow on a swing and played through the soreness for most of the season. Manager Rob Thomson recounted times when Stott hyperextended his elbow on swings and misses and suggested it limited his ability to drive the ball. Thomson also noted that Stott altered his swing, creating a loop where it had been flat.

Whatever the case, Stott hit only 30.8% of balls at 95 mph or harder, a drop from 35.2% in 2023 and 36.8% in 2022. His average exit velocity dipped, too, from 88.1 mph in 2022-23 to 87 mph last season.

“In his mind, possibly he’s attacking the ball the right way, and all of a sudden [the elbow injury] comes into his mind, he kind of decelerates, the barrel gets under his hands,” Thomson said. “All of a sudden, you’re flipping balls to left field, which you saw a lot of, instead of driving the ball to left-center.

“We think that he’s going to have a much better year. He’s healthy, and he’s working right now at getting flatter and getting back to seeing the baseball and working counts and using the entire field.”

But a sore elbow doesn’t explain Stott’s indecisive plate approach.

» READ MORE: The Phillies have to get creative to improve. That includes their hitters’ approach. Is that realistic?

Stott led the majors in two-strike hits in 2023. Last year, the Phillies thought he would benefit from swinging at more strikes early in the count, citing his 2023 postseason grand slam against Marlins lefty Andrew Nardi on a first-pitch fastball. But opponents attacked him differently, starting out with breaking balls and striking him out later on what Stott called “surprise-me heaters.”

It caused Stott to rethink, even second-guess, his plan.

This year, the message is to get back to using the field and hitting line drives. Last season, he hit more fly balls, perhaps trying to increase his power.

“Bryson Stott should be an on-base type of guy,” Dombrowski said. “We’re not looking [for him] to hit 20 home runs. He’s a guy that can work the count, he has a good eye. We want to make sure he really settles into that. That’s the type of guy we want to be.”

Kerkering’s signature pitch, now and probably for the rest of his career, is a sweeping slider that spins and drops and misses bats. It’s such a nasty weapon that the 23-year-old righty throws it more than half the time.

But in thinking about how he can get better, he’s focused on his sinker.

Specifically, Kerkering cited a game last May against the Mets in which he threw back-to-back sinkers inside to get ahead of righty-hitting Starling Marte, then uncorked a slider down and away to set up the sinker for a strikeout.

» READ MORE: The Phillies’ reliever numbers don’t add up now, but that’s part of Dave Dombrowski’s bullpen-building calculation

“It just opens up the window of being able to help my slider a little bit more,” Kerkering said this week at Citizens Bank Park. “If I’m able to locate a two-seam in, then it gives me the whole window on the outside half. Just want to be able to get guys out more consistently with it and just trust it a little bit more.”

That’s how Kerkering will get better.

The Phillies are counting on it, especially after losing Jeff Hoffman and likely Carlos Estévez in free agency. After handling Kerkering with kid gloves at times last season, they expect to turn him loose with Matt Strahm, Jose Alvarado, and newcomer Jordan Romano as Thomson’s best eighth- and ninth-inning options.

Kerkering has the highest upside, especially if the sinker becomes a trusted alternative to the slider. Last season, there was a 29%-to-15% split between his four-seamer and sinker, which he described as “an experiment.” He said he’s aiming for a more equal distribution of the fastballs this year.

“Maybe play off [the sinker] between lefties and righties a little bit more,” Kerkering said. “Locate to the right and left side of the plate a little bit better with it. Just keep growing off of it.”

Thomson prefers not to designate a closer, but Kerkering has the stuff for the job. The Phillies will find out if he has the stomach for the late innings, too. He recalled learning from a 10th-inning blown save last June in Baltimore, an experience that he called “a good learning step.”

» READ MORE: Orion Kerkering welcomes a bigger role in the Phillies' bullpen: ‘No pressure at all’

If Kerkering can handle added responsibility, it could help the Phillies avoid having to trade for another reliever at the deadline.

“No pressure at all,” he said. “They’re more important situations, the eighth and ninth innings, so I think it’ll be super fun, a fun task to handle it.”