The Phillies have designated southpaw Joely Rodriguez for assignment, CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury reports (Twitter link).
Originally acquired from the Pirates in the Antonio Bastardo trade, Rodriguez made his big league debut last season and pitched 27 innings out of the Phillies’ bullpen this year, posting a 6.33 ERA and barely more strikeouts (18) than walks (15). The lefty also allowed four homers in his brief time on the hill this season.
Ranked by Baseball America as the 23rd-best prospect in Philadelphia’s system prior to the season, Rodriguez is the curious combination of a hard-thrower who doesn’t generate many strikeouts. The 2017 Baseball Prospect Handbook describes Rodriguez as the owner of a 94-96 mph fastball that “can touch 98 with sink to help him get grounders.” These groundball tendencies have been on display even in his brief big league tenure, as Rodriguez has a 58.5% grounder rate over his 36 career innings. Over 647 1/3 frames in the minors, Rodriguez has a 4.24 ERA, 1.91 K/BB rate and just a 5.6 K/9.
Adam Morgan is the only left-handed remaining in the Phillies’ bullpen, so Triple-A southpaws Cesar Ramos and Hoby Milner stand out as the most obvious candidates to be called up as Rodriguez’s replacement on the 25-man roster. Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets that the new player will likely not be on the 40-man roster (Ramos and Milner both fit this bill) and the Phillies won’t name the new player until Thursday.
Finally!!
Could Adam Morgan be next?
Morgan is now the only lefty we have!
Call up Venditte!
He’s worse than this guy is.
0.97 WHIP at AAA plus the novelty element is worse than Rodriguez?
Par Venditte killed Inigo Montoya’s father.
Venditte, Milner, or Fien will be called up tonight. Doesn’t seem like Therrien is being considered
Morgan has been awful his entire major league time, yet he gets to stay?
Worse is better.
Phillies own the first pick of next year’s draft.
If the Phillies don’t tank those games against the Padres I’m going to be struggling to not Go Postal.
As a Pirate fan, I’d be happy to give you back Bastardo.
We wouldn’t mind giving you Joely back. Franco’s glove has a hole in it and we can use another. Just send a glove for him and we got a deal