Phillies pitcher Michael Lorenzen (left), manager Rob Thomson and Aaron Nola (right) chat while both were standing in centerfield during batting practice before Game 7 of the baseball NL Championship Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
There’s no need for the Phillies to sign another reliever this offseason
Anyone else wouldn’t be an improvement
We’ve reached the point in the offseason, slow as it has been, where the mid-tier relievers are starting come off the board. Hard to say whether they were waiting for Josh Hader to come off the board since he was in a tier by himself, but of late, the deals have been trickling in a little more than before. While not all of these players were targets of the Phillies per se, they are relievers nonetheless. These are some of the names that have put their name on the dotted line since Hader went to Houston:
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- Robert Stephenson
- Aroldis Chapman
- Matt Moore
- David Robertson
- Adam Ottavino
- Hector Neris
Relievers are always in abundance when the offseason starts thanks to the proliferation of the one-year deal, so options are still out there if the team so chooses, but think about this.
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Matt Gelb, on the latest episode of Phillies Therapy with The Good Phight alum Paul Boye, brought up an interesting point when it comes to those who remain available. Of those names that are available still, where would they rank in the current makeup of the Phillies’ bullpen? The top four arms the team currently employs of Alvarado, Dominguez, Hoffman and Strahm (or Soto) are probably, if not likely, ahead of anyone else that can be signed for the team. We’ve recently heard that they’ve been sniffing around the likes of Jakob Junis and Phil Maton, but they’re likely all looking for a major league contract and guaranteed money at this point. Is that something the team should be looking at doing if they’re likely to be the fifth or sixth best option in the pecking order?
- We’ve written about the bullpen quite a bit lately and not a whole lot has changed outside of Kolby Allard being signed to either serve as rotation depth in the minor leagues or a pitcher to challenge Dylan Covey for the long-man job in said bullpen. If the team is considering one of the two names mentioned above, it probably is best to just go with what they have now and see where they are at in July.
