Feb 25, 2025; Port Charlotte, Florida, USA; Philadelphia Phillies infielder Otto Kemp (82) hits a RBI double against the Tampa Bay Rays during the fourth inning at Charlotte Sports Park. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
PITTSBURGH - At 11:30 p.m. on Friday evening, Otto Kemp was relaxing in his hotel room in Charlotte, N.C. with his wife Lilly and their golden retriever Bo.
His Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the best team in the International League, had just finished a rare clunker. They had gotten throttled 14-2 by the Charlotte Knights.
It was just one of those games. Kemp, who has been on an absolute tear for Lehigh Valley this season, went 0-for-3 with a walk in the game.
He was trying to put the game out of mind with some quality down time, when all of the sudden, there was a knock on the door.
He opened it and standing there were IronPigs manager Anthony Contreras, bench coach Chris "Tank" Adamson and hitting coach Adam Lind.
Something was up.
"You don't get a knock on the door with three coaches standing there for no reason," Kemp said.
Did he invite them in?
"I did," he said. "My dog was the first one to great them all."
Once the coaches got past the pleasantries of an excited golden retriever, they got down to business - With Bryce Harper going on the I.L., Kemp was being called up to the Phillies.
Otto Kemp is getting called up to the Phillies.
Triple-A: 264 PA, .317/.417/.602, 19 2B, 14 HR, 11 SB, 9.1% BB, 25% K, 91.2 mph AVG EV, 45.6% HH, 13.9% BRL
Below-average contact (78% Zone, 65% Overall) with plus power.#RingTheBellpic.twitter.com/4pVJeKtQ8I
"It caught me by surprise," Kemp said. "I just try to live in the moment and be where I am on a given day. So, I wasn't giving a ton of thought about when it was going to be and just kind of let it happen. It always comes when you don't expect it. So, I was trying to keep it on the down low and just shove it off whenever my brain wanted to go there."
it's easy to see why his brain would go there. In 58 games at Lehigh Valley, Kemp is hitting .313 and has an OPS of 1.010. He has 14 homers, 19 doubles and 55 RBIs.
It's been an amazing journey for Kemp, who went undrafted out of both high school and college.
He signed with the Phillies as an undrafted free agent out of Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego in 2022.
He will become the first undrafted hitter to debut with the organization since Jeff Grotewold in 1992.
“Going undrafted, it was kind of just a stab to the heart, honestly," Kemp said when a crush of Phillies media made their way to Allentown to see the Triple A debut of Andrew Painter last month. "I didn’t really know what pro ball looked like after that. I didn’t have anybody that I really knew that went to pro ball, so I didn’t know what that road was going to look like. The beauty of it is life can take you a lot of different ways that you don’t necessarily think or dream of. It’s been a cool process to see.
“You look back three or four years ago, my name didn’t get called, and to see where we’re at, that’s the beauty of dreaming. If you do everything you can one day at a time, you’re going to be in a good position.”
Kemp said he celebrated with his wife briefly before he called his parents, who live in Southern California to tell them the news.
"It was unbelievable," Kemp said. "That's the call you dream of. I was trying to keep it cool and keep it surprising, but when I'm calling them at one o'clock in the morning they kind of know something's going on."
Thirty minutes after the call, they called him back. They had booked a last minute, red eye flight to Pittsburgh. His parents and his brother will see him make his major league debut.
And so will Lilly.
Soon after the call from his parents, Otto and Lilly packed up their hotel room, and headed for Pittsburgh.
Lilly and Bo got in the car at 5:30 a.m. Saturday and started driving. Otto caught an early morning flight and arrived at PNC Park just before Noon.
Lilly was dropping Bo off at a friend's house in Pittsburgh and then was going to join the rest of Kemp's family in the stands to take in his debut.
Kemp was slated to bat seventh and play third base on Saturday.
Otto Kemp is absolutely pounding Rochester. His first inning solo homer makes him 10 for 20 in the series with 13 RBIs.
He’s now 17 for 37 against lefties this year with an OPS over 1.400 pic.twitter.com/c2IVXWgVhN
And this likely isn't just a one off, or filling in for Harper while his out for a week or so. And not just a play against lefties only type of thing. The Phillies plan to play Kemp, and play him a bunch - although it remains to be seen if he's in the lineup Sunday after a whirlwind first day and having to square off against Paul Skenes.
But they plan on moving him all over the diamond.
'We're going to get him some work at first and get him some more work in the outfield," manager Rob Thomson said. "But for today, I just want him to play in a place that he's most comfortable and then we'll move forward."
