The Phillies announced that righty Jared Hughes has been claimed off waivers from the Reds. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Phils placed right-hander Edubray Ramos on the 60-day injured list.
In claiming Hughes, Philadelphia absorbs the roughly $531K still owed to the right-hander for the remainder of the season. Hughes is in the last guaranteed season of a two-year, $4.5MM contract, though the Phillies have a club option on his services (for $3MM with a $250K buyout) for the 2020 season. For the present, Hughes is a relatively low-cost pickup for a Phillies team that has sorely needed some help for its injury-riddled bullpen, though Hughes hasn’t been in the best of form in recent weeks.
After an outstanding debut year in Cincinnati that saw him post a 1.94 ERA over 78 2/3 innings, Hughes came back to earth in 2019, posting a 4.10 ERA, 6.3 K/9, and 1.79 K/BB rate over 48 1/3 frames. The extreme ground-ball pitcher has continued to keep the ball out of the air, as evidenced by a 60.7% grounder rate, but he has suffered when batters have gotten some arc — Hughes has a 20% homer/fly ball rate, far above his 12.3% career average.
Despite the extra homers, however, Hughes only really started to run into some struggles recently. He had a 2.88 ERA as late as July 24 before enduring a nightmarish inning against the Rockies on July 26 that saw him allow six runs. That began a stretch of six outings that saw Hughes post a 10.57 ERA over 7 2/3 innings of work, with as many walks (five) as strikeouts, and not a single home run allowed to account for that damage. Hughes also served a three-game suspension for his role in the already-infamous brawl between the Reds and Pirates on July 30.
The Reds have been one of the league’s more active teams since the trade deadline, particularly on the pitching front. Cincinnati claimed Kevin Gausman off waivers from the Braves, signed veterans Brad Boxberger, Junichi Tazawa and Tim Collins to minor league contracts, and parted ways with Hughes and David Hernandez. Since it seemed Hughes was no longer in the club’s plans for 2020, the Reds save a bit of cash by letting him go to the Phillies now rather than paying a buyout at season’s end.
Wait when did the Reds place him in waivers? Wait why did the reds place him in waivers? Hes no all star but he is a fine piece…
The Reds front office needs to be cleared out! Get rid of all the Willians and Bells! Dick Williams must go after the lopsided trade for Bauer!
The Reds front office has done an amazing job since the end of last year. The Bauer deal was a great deal that you make any chance you get. Any time you can acquire a TOR pitcher you do it. Puig was gone in 2 months and you probably overrate prospects. Trammel couldn’t hit AA pitching this year. He may never pan out to be the player you think he’s going to be.
Not to mention, with Puig enjoying his time in Cincy (and the fans liking him) who’s to say Puig doesn’t work out a return to the reds this offseason?
They have traded Gray, Downs and Trammell for Bauer, Wood and Farmer. Farcry from a great job.
Bauer and Wood are part of their rotation which is the best rotation they’ve had in a long time. You’re way too worried about prospects.
What exactly have Gray, Downs, and Trammell done compared to the other three?
Yeah, to suggest they’ve done a great job is reactive at best. The Dodgers got two good prospects for a season of Puig and Wood. A season where they didn’t do a whole hell of a lot for Cincy. Gray is a fast riser and I’d certainly be bummed about missing him. And Alex Wood hasn’t been a member of the best rotation of anything. He’s made 4 largely mediocre starts.
The sonny Gray trade and extension was a homerun. I’d have to say that.
Lmao what have Gray, Downs, and Trammell done? That’s a fantastic argument to give for non ML ready prospects.
Wood has pitched like 3 games this year and is a free agent. Dodgers got so much more value than what they gave back and “too worried about prospects have nothing to do with it.
Don’t forget the great deal they made with the Dodgers. The players they picked up (Kemp, Puig, Woods, Farmer) are probably going to get them to the World Series.
We’ll miss Homer Bailey and his contract.
That trade was not about who they picked up. It was about what they got rid of (Homer’s contract)
They took Kemp’s money back. It was about acquiring Wood and Puig……
They traded 2 very good prospects just to shed some salary and pick up Dodger spare parts. Awful deal
Actually the reds got $7 million from the dodgers too. Which is about $500,000 shy of Kemp’s contract. espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25589407/los-angeles-dodge…
You forgot about the other 14.5
spotrac.com/mlb/new-york-mets/matt-kemp-469/cash-e…
And considering Puig and Wood’s added money they actually added payroll. Took 14.5 on Kemp, Puig 10, Wood 10.
Bailey was owed 23 + 5MM buyout.
They added 6 million dollars in payroll total for Puig and Wood and gave up Downs and Gray to do so. It was a steep price for two rentals. Especially considering Homer Bailey’s AAV for luxury tax purposes was more advantageous to the Dodgers than Kemp’s.
The Dodgers sent cash to the Reds to make up the difference. Downs and Gray were mid-level prospects. Heck I’d have done that just to get rid of Homer straight up. Having Puig – and I’ll add Farmer – was icing on the cake.
Without the August deadline, soon to be FA’s and guys with buyouts on their options are going to be placed on waivers more. We’ve already seen Gausman, Galvis, and now Hughes go, and there will for sure be more names.
Will be the 31st different pitcher for the Phillies this season. Record is 40 I think.
Are you implying there is dysfunction in Negadelphia??
When it comes to the Philly bullpen they are more injury plagued then anything.
phILadelphia?
chasing the Yankees on the injury leaderboard!
No. 41 had to be Edwin Jackson.
wow, yes please!
Indeed. To pitch in a place like Great American Ballpark and keep the ball on the ground says something. Phillies needs that.
What park you pitch in has no effect on whether or not you keep the ball on the ground.
Sure does. Ever heard of the “Coors Field Effect?”
Allow me to explain since it’s obvious you have no clue:
Parks such as Great American Ballpark and Citizen’s Bank Park are smaller and considered “Bandboxes” compared to most parks. Flyball pitchers do not like these parks because routine flyballs in most parks have the potential to turn into HR’s in “bandboxes”. Teams that play in parks like this tend to favor pitchers with high ground ball rates to avoid the longball. This isn’t the case cavernous parks like Petco, Oakland Coliseum, Kauffman, etc.
You’ll notice also that some flyball pitchers will even alter the way they pitch in these small parks.
Ever notice that little graphic on the bottom of the screen that says how many parks a particular HR would have been a HR? That’s why.
I’m here all week if you require any additional information.
I’m sure you will be here a lot longer than a week because there is no way you are going to improve your station in life with that attitude. I’m not even going to waste my time arguing with you about this because you don’t deserve the privilege.
Have a nice life.
Woods Rider-Hiflew is correct.
The reason Coors Field has so many home runs is because of the altitude and the thinner air.
The reason that Citizens Bank Park has more home runs is because it is smaller,a bandbox as you say.
It is especially important to have groundball pitchers pitch in those parks because almost any well hit fly ball has a chance to be a home run.
Neither of these conditions affects whether a groundball pitcher can throw pitches to induce ground balls.
His response is in reply to the condescending nature of your reply to his reply.
To borrow from Paul Newman (Butch and Sundance), “Who ARE these guys?”
This guy here is dead!
The Phillies need warm bodies in their bullpen at this point with all the injuries. He may be a good pick up.
i like this move a lot. great track record and cheap. $3 million option next year is nice as well.
Agreed!
There has to be a cause for all these balls leaving the yard. Many people around baseball are talking about how tightly wound and hard baseballs seem to feel. Baseball execs turning more and more to hard throwing strikeout pitchers could be a factor but that’s been the emphasis for some time now. Just seems like I’ve read about a lot of guys with the same story. Similar stat lines except for ones involving homers like the home run to fly ball percentage mentioned above. On one hand I don’t care because it’s a level playing field for all but sucks for some guys it might really affect.
Yet another decent pitcher and good guy left over from the Pirates’ modern glory era of 3 years. Hope he has great success for the Phils
I always thought that Hughes was a fairly good back of the bullpen guy.He has been gone from the Pirates for several years but I thought that they should have kept him.He does not throw real hard so he did not fit their model pitcher.
They really could have used him this year.
He is the type of pitcher that NH ignores too much.He won’t win you games but he keeps you in them.
Far cry from the three clowns that they have now.
Agree completely. It’s really difficult to see exactly what the plan is for the Pirates FO. Trade, release vets one year. Trade away promising prospects the next. Re-stock with guys who make you wonder who is making assessments regarding MLB talent and abilities. Like taking a long road trip without a map. They seem to be making it up as they go along
Jared is a really good guy on the downhill side of his career. He topped out last season and has been getting steadily worse this season. Maybe a change of scenery will do him good. Best of of luck to him.
Agree with you 100%
If you didn’t live here, it wouldn’t make sense how much **** the Pirates got for cutting Juan Nicasio a few years ago.
It was stupid in real time, but that uproar is comical in hindsight given that it’s now standard operating procedure in MLB.
Nicasio was good. These guys aren’t very good.
really appreciate Hughes and his performance here in Cincy.. Good luck in Philly big guy you’ll be missed!!!