Red Pinstripes: What are the Phillies doing with the rotation?
It feels like one step forward, two steps back in the Philadelphia pitching staff
Good afternoon,
Welcome back to Red Pinstripes. I was traveling last week and couldn’t get a newsletter out Wednesday or Friday and, wow, did I miss a lot. We had blockbuster trades across baseball, a team failed to sign its top draft pick, and the Phillies continue to be an absolute disaster of an organization.
And that’s where I’ll place my focus today. Wednesday’s newsletter will stay focused on MLB as I try to catch up on all that has happened over the last week.
But before I get to any of that, we need to send prayers and good wishes toward Daniel Brito, the Phillies’ minor leaguer who suffered a medical emergency during a game in Rochester Saturday and remains in the hospital. It sounds really scary. Let’s all hope he gets better.
The Phillies’ pitching is an organizational disaster
The Phillies’ big move of the trade deadline was sending Spencer Howard and two other prospects to the Texas Rangers for starter Kyle Gibson and reliever Ian Kennedy, who will take over as the Phillies closer (more on that later). They also got Hans Crouse, a pitching prospect who has regressed but the Phillies hope can regain his stuff with an organizational switch.
The Phillies needed to make a move like this. Their fourth and fifth starters have been disappointing and Zach Eflin’s knee injury has heightened the need for another dependable starter. And that’s what Gibson is. He’s having his best year, but he’s mostly a solid 6-inning starter. And he’s under contract for next year, too.
This year, Kennedy has a 2.86 ERA. He’s mostly a groundball pitcher, which might be a little tough with the Phillies’ underwhelming infield defense (more on that Friday). This has easily been the best season of his career. Last year with the Rangers, Gibson had a 5.35 ERA. He has a career 4.41 ERA. The best-case scenario has him doing exactly what he did Sunday for the Phillies: 6+ innings giving up 2-3 runs.
Kennedy is another arm to help stabilize the bullpen, which has far too many unreliable relievers, including ex-starters Vince Velasquez and Matt Moore. He was closing for the Rangers and he’ll move into that role for the Phillies. He’ll also help keep Archie Bradley, Hector Neris, and Jose Alvarado in their roles and not force them into the ninth.
The disappointing thing is that they traded Spencer Howard at his lowest value to make this trade happen. The Phillies jerked Howard around for more than a year. He was a starter, then a reliever, then a starter, then he was supposed to stay in Triple-A to build up his arm strength, then he was called up to the Phillies in an emergency, then he was traded to the Rangers. With all of that, the Phillies just about killed any trade value Howard might have had and the best they could get for him was a solid but unremarkable starter and lower-tier closer.
Even worse, it looks like the Phillies are about to do it all over again with Ranger Suarez. Suarez hasn’t started since the 2019 season, but he’ll be moved from the closer role into the starting rotation, starting with tonight’s game in Washington.
Suarez had slowly worked his way up in the bullpen pecking order until all of a sudden he was the team’s most reliable reliever and then the closer. He was really good at it too. His stuff played a lot better out of the bullpen and he seemed to really take to the role.
So, naturally, Suarez is moving into the rotation tonight. Who knows how this will work out?
Here’s another rotation problem: Chase Anderson has rejoined the staff and he’s been just as bad as Velasquez and Moore. It’s hard to win with one pitcher like that in the rotation. It’s even harder when there are three (plus the now released David Hale and Brandon Kintzler) pitching in important situations.
Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on here. Maybe the most troubling part is the process by which the Phillies have made these decisions with their young pitchers. It seems like the front office is giving Joe Girardi a lot of leeway to decide the roles of pitchers, including who goes into the rotation and who pitches out of the bullpen. That’s stupid. The front office has the responsibility to limit the win-now tendencies of the manager. Girardi’s contract is based on him winning games now. Whether that’s good for Ranger Suarez and Spencer Howard and their career outlook is an entirely separate matter, a matter that should be managed by the front office.
There’s a final, unavoidable issue with the pitching this season. Players’ personal choices have hurt the team. Aaron Nola had to miss a start because he refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Now Bailey Falter has contracted the disease too and won’t be able to become a starter this season. Matt Gelb of The Athletic reported that Falter was in line to become a starter before his diagnosis. Now, the disease has sapped too much of his energy for Falter to start this season. He’d be a lot better of an option in the rotation than Chase Anderson.
And as much as that’s on the players (and it is completely on the players for not getting vaccinated), the front office has responsibility here, too. This is a team that has had outbreaks at the major and minor league levels this season. At some point, we have to conclude that the front office just wasn’t serious about getting players vaccinated. And if you’re not serious about preventing disease outbreaks in your organization, how serious can you be about winning?
It’s Nats time again, but this time they’re much worse
While the Phillies made some mid-level but necessary deals at the deadline, the Nationals held a massive fire sale. They traded away Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, Jon Lester, Josh Harrison, Brad Hand, and Yan Gomes. That’s a lot of good players. They’re all in on the rebuild now. They’re also much more of a beatable team. The Phillies have four chances in D.C. to do just that this weekend.
Unfortunately, the Phillies didn’t demonstrate much of an interest in beating beatable teams over the weekend. They lost two of three to the moribund Pirates, although the lopsided 15-4 win Sunday was encouraging. They also managed to get worse. Vince Velasquez and Andrew McCutchen were placed on the injured list before tonight’s game. Rhys Hoskins is still out with an injury of his own. If health is suddenly an issue for the Phillies, that does not help their chances of catching the Mets.
Probable starters
Monday, 7:05 PM
Ranger Suarez at Josiah Gray
Tuesday, 7:05 PM
Zack Wheeler at Patrick Corbin
Wednesday, 7:05 PM
Chase Anderson at Paolo Espino
Thursday, 4:05 PM
Aaron Nola at Joe Ross