The Phillies announced that they have claimed Ken Roberts off waivers from the Rockies. Immediately after the claim, the left-hander was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
Roberts, 27, was designated for assignment by Colorado late last week. The hurler made his Major League debut for the Rox in 2015, appearing in nine games and totaling 9 1/3 innings with a 5.79 ERA and a five-to-two K/BB ratio. A longtime farmhand of the Rockies, Roberts was selected in the 25th round of the 2010 draft and posted strong minor league numbers until reaching Triple-A for the first time this season.
However, while Roberts has an unsightly 5.12 ERA in Triple-A this year, he’s posted an outstanding 28-to-4 K/BB ratio in 31 2/3 innings there. He’s surrendered a surprising and uncharacteristic 14.2 hits per nine innings in a very hitter-friendly Albuquerque environment due to a freakishly high .443 BABIP. While poor luck and a hitter-friendly environment probably aren’t solely to blame for his Triple-A struggles, there seems to be good reason to expect that Roberts would not continue to allow hits at such an alarming rate.
Now that Roberts has been claimed, there are six remaining players in DFA limbo, according to MLBTR’s DFA Tracker.
As a Phillies fan, I always loved how the Blue Jays and Alex Anthopoulos utilized the waiver wire. The Phillies, in the tenure of Ruben Amaro, have never really excelled at it. Through last season, the Phillies scarcely made waiver claims and when they did, every player claimed (with the exceptions of David Herndon and Chris Coste) were just lost on waivers a few weeks later (See Nelson Figueroa) or wound up doing nothing for the team (See Mauricio Robles). They were also not very good at deciding which players on their roster could clear waivers. While mulling through the mlb.com transaction archives, I saw that most players who they DFA’d were claimed and I would argue that it still isn’t their strong suit (see Cesar Jimenez last week), however, I have seen an improvement over the youth and potential of the waiver claims that they have brought in since McPhail came in, with Dalier Hinojosa and Ken Roberts.
Roberts put up tremendous numbers before this season and I think he can develop into a nice relief piece for the Phillies. Kudos
Roberts should have had a good year last year. He’s a 27 year old pitching in AA ball. 57 base runners in 31 innings at AAA is brutal. He’s allowed 16 base runners in 9 innings for Colorado. Not a guy that will succeed at CBP. He’s probably just a roster filler but you surely should be able to have better/younger player in your system
Will Harris was DFA’d after a similar 12 inning stint in the Rockies pen, and 137 innings of 150ERA+ later they probably would like him back.
he’s had consistently decent numbers through his minor league career- they are just trying to have 2 lefties for the pen next year plus a couple more options in AAA behind that- right now Arajuo should have 1 spot and Roberts can compete with Loewen for the other, with Windle probably in the pen for good as an option that can be in AAA next year.
As if the Phillies don’t have enough mediocrity already !
Were you expecting to get Zack Greinke or Clayton Kershaw on the waiver wire? If these players were better than mediocre, they wouldn’t be on waivers to begin with. That being said, Roberts has some potential to be a decent reliever for the Phillies. He didn’t work out for the Rockies because he doesn’t walk enough batters. They don’t know what to do with a pitcher like that.
Phillies trying to stockpile all of the relief pitchers named Ken?