Those annoying dinging sounds that you hear are the push alerts from John Middleton’s online banking apps. Two more transactions have gone through. Taijuan Walker, Matt Strahm ... welcome to the club, and stay tuned.
It’s been a whirlwind few days. The Phillies have added a superstar shortstop, a sturdy but uncertain No. 4 starter, and a potential late-innings reliever. They’ve done all this for a combined $53 million in 2022 payroll space. That doesn’t matter to a lot of people, but economics often don’t until you feel their effects firsthand. Really, price is the only way to evaluate a deal. The only world where it does not matter is one where the Phillies can spend infinite dollars and will end up with their top choice at every position. Granted, they might be closer to that than we think. But let’s look for some context anyway.
The Walker move is obviously the big one between the two pitchers. Heading into the offseason, the Phillies knew that they had the need and the ability to spend significant money on one starter. They also knew that the top of the market was not going to be a wise investment. Given the construction of their current roster and payroll, the Phillies’ best approach was to look for a guy who would consistently keep them in position to win games in which they scored four-plus runs. A typical middle-rotation guy.
They had a number of options, all of whom figured to be available for more than the $10 million that Kyle Gibson got from the Baltimore Orioles, with Walker’s four years and $72 million probably the top of that scale. Among them was Jameson Taillon, who went to the Chicago Cubs for four years and $68 million on Tuesday. The cream of the crop was Mets righty Chris Bassitt, but signing him would have required the Phillies to surrender a draft pick in addition to the one they will part with for signing Trea Turner. And there’s a decent chance that Bassitt’s contract ends up eclipsing Walker’s by a fair margin.
The question isn’t whether Walker is worth $18 million per season. It’s whether he was the best way for the Phillies to upgrade their pitching staff for $18 million. We can all agree that he is better than Gibson. Question is, how much better?
Consider:
— In 2021-22, Walker had 23 starts of six-plus innings and three or fewer earned runs. Gibson had 34. In 2022 alone, Walker had 13, while Gibson had 15.
— Both had nine starts of seven-plus innings and one or fewer runs in 2021-22, and both had five in 2022 alone.
Of course, the big issue with Gibson was the number of times he walked off the mound having left the Phillies with little hope. In 2022, he allowed five-plus runs in nine starts, six-plus in six. He failed to make it through five innings in nine starts.
Walker was far more dependable, holding an opponent under five runs in all but two of his 29 starts. Of the five times he left a game before the end of the fifth inning, only two were because of performance. Twice, he exited with injuries. Once, was a pre-playoff tune-up.
All told, that’s perfectly adequate production for the No. 4 spot in the rotation. And if you could guarantee that the Phillies would get that production for 32 starts per season, then $18 million a year would not sound like a drastic overpay.
The big unknown is how well Walker’s game will translate to Citizens Bank Park. In five career starts there, he has a 5.25 ERA while allowing six home runs in 24 innings. That’s a small sample size, and Walker’s ground-ball rate was much improved and above major league average in 2022. In 2021, he had a 3.46 ERA in the friendly confines of Citi Field and a 5.82 ERA everywhere else. That disparity disappeared in 2022.
A lot of the available pitchers had similar concerns. Taillon’s profile, track record and results are even closer to Gibson’s than Walker’s. Simply put, the Phillies probably weren’t going to get a difference-maker without a far greater outlay of resources or assumption of risk.
Walker also brings some upside. Last season, his splitter emerged as one of the tougher pitches to hit in the league. It’s a pitch he only began throwing in 2020 and only started relying heavily upon last year. At 30 years old, coming off the first back-to-back seasons of 150-plus innings in his career, there is some reason to hope that Walker might be entering the most productive stage of his career.
The emergence of the splitter is also something to consider. According to FanGraphs’ formula, Walker’s splitter was the third most effective in the game among pitchers with at least 30 innings, and it ranked among the top 20 most effective offspeed pitches. The Phillies probably aren’t paying Walker $18 million a year with the thought that he will eventually end up at the back end of their bullpen, but the presence of that kind of pitch at least offers some value and offsets some risk with the potential that Walker could transition to such a role in the playoffs or later in his career.
All things considered, the Phillies have as much reason to feel good about their short- and long-term chances with Walker as they would have with any pitcher available at his price point or lower. This is very much a trust-us move from team president Dave Dombrowski and his scouting department. They clearly liked him, given how much more they valued him than Gibson or Zach Eflin, who agreed to a three-year, $40 million deal with the Rays. If they are right, then it could very well be the sort of move that stabilizes this pitching staff.
The second level of wait-and-see involves what the Phillies do next. With $53 million in free-agent salary commitments thus far this offseason, the Phillies’ current projected payroll sits somewhere in the neighborhood of $237.5 million. That’s $4.5 million above the luxury-tax threshold and roughly $4.5 million below where they finished last season.
By my projection, they have four open roster spots: one for a fifth starter, three for a sixth, seventh and eighth reliever. Already under contract are nine regulars plus Bryce Harper’s replacement, four bench players, four starters, five relievers. One of the open roster spots can be projected to go to Bailey Falter or some other in-house pitcher who would slide out of the rotation and into the second open roster spot in the bullpen as a backup to top prospect Andrew Painter if and when he arrives. That leaves one slot that, in my opinion, clearly needs to be filled from outside of the organization.
Simply put, the Phillies shouldn’t feel good about this offseason unless they add one more reliever who has the potential to contribute in high-leverage situations. Right now, the top four options are Seranthony Domínguez, José Alvarado, Strahm, and Connor Brogdon, with Andrew Bellatti profiling more as a middle-innings type.
Strahm himself is an intriguing arm. Up until the last couple of weeks of the season, he was one of the better relievers in the majors, with a 2.95 ERA, 47 strikeouts, and 12 walks in 39⅔ innings for Boston. He allowed just three home runs in that stretch despite a meager 0.54 ground-ball rate. Strahm was excellent in high-leverage situations, striking out 23 of his 76 batters with only five walks and two home runs. He stranded 73% of the runners he inherited. To put that in perspective, the Phillies stranded 68% as a team. Last year, Brad Hand was coming off a season in which eight of 16 inherited runners scored. Strahm is also much better against righties.
That said, it’s a position that is impossible to predict year-to-year. The Mets’ Adam Ottavino is a guy I’ve had circled who might be available in the same price range as Strahm. The Phillies could add that type of arm and still leave themselves short of where they finished last season, spending-wise.
Middleton is certainly acting as if that will not be an issue.
