April 16: Robertson has been diagnosed with a Grade 1 flexor strain, manager Gabe Kapler said following tonight’s game (Twitter link via the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Breen). He’ll be shut down from throwing for the next couple of days before being reevaluated.
April 15: The Phillies announced Monday that they’ve placed right-hander David Robertson on the 10-day injured list due to soreness in his right elbow. Fellow righty Drew Anderson was recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley in his place. Robertson tells reporters that he’s had some on-and-off forearm discomfort and is set to receive an MRI tomorrow, though he’s not overly concerned about the issue at the moment (Twitter link via Philly.com’s Scott Lauber).
Robertson, 34, signed a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $23MM this winter and has struggled through a slow start to the season. The veteran righty allowed runs in each of his first three appearances with his new club and, overall, has yielded a total of four runs on eight hits and six walks with six strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings of relief. Robertson has thrown just 58 percent of his pitches for strikes in that small sample of innings — a departure from recent seasons when his overall strike rate has sat at 63 percent or better.
Notably, this is the first trip time in his career that Robertson has ever missed time due to an arm injury. He spent about two weeks on the shelf due to a groin strain in 2014 and missed a bit more than three weeks due to an oblique injury in 2012, but he came to the Phillies with a pristine track record in terms of arm health.
With Robertson sidelined for the time being, Anderson will get a look for a third consecutive season. The 25-year-old hasn’t found much success in the big leagues yet but also hasn’t had much of an opportunity; in 15 Major League frames, he’s surrendered 13 runs on 23 hits with a more impressive 13-to-3 K/BB ratio. Anderson has spent the vast majority of his career as a starter and owns a 3.90 ERA with 7.3 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 in 115 1/3 innings (21 starts) at the Triple-A level.
please move Pivetta to the bullpen. After the spring Anderson had he deserves a look in the rotation.
Why? Game one, yeah, that wasn’t good. Game two, he looked really good for a guy pitching in the absolute pouring rain, 3 runs on 2 HRs in 5IP. In his last game against the Nationals, yeah he had a bad 1st inning, but then he looked really good until some bad defense kept the inning alive, and then he did what every other pitcher has done and gave up an Anthony Rendon hit. With a guy of his potential, why would you not give him at the very least a few more starts?
Pivetta has yet to show he’s even an average SP, and as much as he has “stuff,” that doesnt mean he’ll ever actuallybe a quality pitcher.
His career FIP is over a full point lower than his ERA. The Phillies had teams calling in the offseason trying to trade for him. We’ll probably never agree on the matter, but I think it would be an awful decision to not see if he can pull it all together this year.
weve been doing the “waiting to see if he can put it all together” thing with the back 3/5 of our rotation for years now. eventually you have to move on. Contenders need contending players.
I could not agree more with a comment.
I’m not a Phils fan but I see them as a win now team. Things change when you add the kind of talent they have. The rebuild time is closed and it’s all about who gives you the best shot to win. I’m a Cardinals fan and I can tell you from watching them over the years they’ve had a lot of success having guys start out in the bullpen before eventually landing a spot in the rotation. Our number one for years Wainwright was our closer for a World Series winning team. A very good one at that. You don’t have to give up on a guy just put him in a spot he can be more successful while he figures it out. If he doesn’t he stays there those guys can be pivotal too if he adjusts well. But the mind set has to change. You don’t have wiggle room for reclamation projects or young guys who need to take big steps learning on the fly. Those are for rebuilding teams. No good team should be carrying more than one or two of those guys on the forty man and none should be counted on as key contributors.
Why are people so protective of Pivetta? There’s this weird thing right now where all of the metrics people want to try and make excuses for him when his numbers are and were trash, the eye test leaves more to be desired, and even his metrics aren’t great!
He will never be a successful starting pitcher until he learns a change up. He should absolutely be moved to the bullpen or AAA. He rarely ever finishes 5 innings. There’s two guys in AAA who are better options for his spot in the rotation (Eickhoff and De Los Santos).
10 K/9 last year with a 3.80 FIP. He was a 2.8 fWAR player/2.3 bWAR last year. He currently has a .447 BABIP this year. Am I too high on him? Maybe. Do people attack him way too much? Absolutely.
This is where we get too caught up in metrics instead of paying attention to what is actually happening on the field. I’ll never agree with anyone on FIP for the fact that it assumes hits allowed aren’t the pitchers fault which is asinine but there’s no need to go down that rabbit hole..
Pivetta made 32 starts last year, only 9 of them were quality. In 19 of those starts he pitched 5 innings or less.
His strikeout total will always deceive people into thinking he’s better than he is, as evident by how much they factor into his FIP (which is also just average).
Pivetta brings in the rotation. As DG32 stated above poor defense and rain conditions played a factor. We must also keep in mind it’s the beginning of the season. If we want to judge this quickly, then James Paxton, Chris Sale, Jacob Degrom, Noah Syndergaard should all be assessed the same way. Guy has a BABIP through the roof. Give him a couple starts and then we will see.
i dont care about 3 games, i care about 62. Pivetta’s never shown he can be even an okay pitcher, much less the #2/3 people think him to be. also, im pretty sure all the players you mentioned were much higher regarded after ~2 seasons, even with the overrating of Pivetta, Paxton’s injuries, and Sale being in the BP.
Pivetta would be useless in the pen. I agree he should not start though. Eickoff should replace him.
3yrs 33mil… for a guy that’s not a big time closer that once lost his job in Chicago and cost Sale a CYA.
This guy gets it
Lol gets what? Not knowing the correct contract details?
Team option wow way to crush the most insignificant details.
plus team opt yr, wow way to crush the most insignificant details.
How did he cost sale a cya?
I watched him blow game after game then Ventura took his job away.
Look at the cy young voting and the stats while he was in chicago. this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, even 5 more wins any of those seasons wouldn’t have won him the cy young
The further back you go the more wins meant… In addition to actually watching the games 😉
Robertson has been nothing short of great his last few years. He had a rocky start this year, but his last few appearances have been solid. This injury is a real shame, as Robertson was previously known for never really getting hurt.
As a middle reliever occasionally, always prone to meltdowns, not as good as CP
He isn’t being used as the Phillies CP.
That’s a shame. He has the experience. He’s been in blowouts, got two holds, lost a game and let runners on in every single appearance.
Kind of odd that Robertson has no saves this year. Wasn’t he the preseason favorite to close?
joint closer really. He was supposed to share duties with Seranthony, but a rought first 2/3 outings made Kapler a bit cautious its seemed. im sure hed have gotten one within the next week.
they only have 1 or 2 saves a team for the season.
K I M B R E L
Only if Robertson can be his agent.
heck, he might have been the best agent of the offseason given money/value ratio. (not saying his deal was bad for PHI, but he certianly didnt get shafted like many other FA.
Plus he didn’t have to pay any agent fees, so yeah he made out well considering he’s getting an MRI on his elbow within a month of the season starting.
Got an email from Phillies.com about a big announcement tomorrow(4/16) at 2pm with a bunch of Phillies brass, players and commish of league. MLB All Star game coming back to Philly 2021??
2026 – 250th anniversary of America, and Philly is also pushing for NBA and NHL ASG, Super Bowl host, and World Cup host that year.
Hopefully Robertson comes back soon and it’s nothing serious. He’s been a solid reliever for his entire career. I was hoping the Cubs would have signed him this past off season. He had a couple of good seasons with the White Sox and had opportunities to see him pitch.
Considering he’s getting an MRI on his elbow a couple weeks in the season, I’m shocked he’s not a Cub, with the way their Free agent signings have gone recently.
Can’t argue with that. But maybe Theo is finally running out of that back luck streak of brutal and costly free agent signings. Looks like one way to swing that around the other way is for ownership to take away Theo’s spending money.
Imagine if he was still on the Yankees. Hahahah
The issue with Pivetta in the rotation is he doesn’t have a change up. He’s never going to be able to get through a 3rd time through the order being a 2 pitch pitcher. He should be a multi inn. High leverage reliever. Also, if you look at last yr, the only game he hit 98 mph… was the game he came in in relief.
^This
Ton of money committed to him, Hunter, & Neshak
Neshak has been great. Hunter can’t get in the mound obviously. Hopefully this thing for Robertson isn’t a precursor to worse problems. Hunter’s deal is up after this year and Robertson’s is two years. So, those deals aren’t going to tie up the Phils’ budget very much.
Flexor strain, that’s what they usually say before a failed rehab and soon to be TJ surgery. Hope not.