The Phillies announced they’ve declined their $4.5MM club option on right-hander David Phelps. He’ll receive a $250K buyout and hit free agency. The Phillies also declined their $7MM option on fellow reliever Héctor Neris, although he remains on the roster as an arbitration-eligible player. Philadelphia also confirmed the previously-reported declination of David Robertson’s club option.
Additionally, utilityman Phil Gosselin, right-handers Heath Hembree and Blake Parker and southpaw Adam Morgan have all cleared outright waivers and elected free agency. Right-hander Johan Quezada, meanwhile, was claimed off waivers from the Marlins.
Phelps came over from the Brewers in a midseason swap for three low-level prospects. The hope was that he’d help salvage a bullpen that had been the club’s weak point. Unfortunately, he was tattooed for eleven runs in 7.2 innings down the stretch. Phelps’ overall strikeout and walk numbers were stellar, but massive home run problems led to a 6.53 ERA.
Neris is projected for a salary between $4.8MM and $6.4MM in arbitration if tendered. That made declining the option an easy call, and it’s possible Neris ultimately winds up non-tendered.
All “options” are off the table so to speak.
should re-sigh Phelps. id expect him to bounce back.
It’s funny because you could argue the Brewers trading Phelps gave them a playoff berth. Phillies missed it by 1 game and Phelps blew quite a few. That being said, Phillies didn’t deserve a playoff spot this year. I’m just pointing out as an ironic observation.
Good. Cleaning out the trash.
At this point just report when a team DOES pickup someone’s option.
Why?
This is a blast. More good players hitting the market hourly. Hate to break this to you, but this is pretty much what MLBTR is about.
Man, though. *Another* free agent reliever. I’m hoping the Yanks add at least one (hopefully two!) middle relief arms to strengthen the bridge from start to endgame. This looks like a great market to do that.
The Yanks picking up Brittons option is a good sign for your Yankees approach this winter. If they will pick up 15m for a reliever you can bet they’ll have little problems adding some of these bullpen arms on the cheap.
I mean, I would think so, right?
@lordd99 & I were discussing this on a different thread. If the Yankees were indeed serious about getting under 210 they wouldn’t have committed that much to Britton.
That just doesn’t bear up to scrutiny.
I’d love to see the Yanks claim Hand and sign a guy like O’Day. Those two combined will probably cost less than Britton.
I think the best approach the Yankees can take this year is to sign multiple second tier guys as opposed to one big signing.
The extra $14M for Britton had no impact on Britton’s 2021 salary towards the CBT; that $14M was for 2022. Sure, he could have voided his $13M for 2021 and tested free agency but with the uncertainty of this year’s market, I doubt that Britton would have risked doing so. If Brad Hand can’t get picked up for $10M, I don’t see a team signing Britton to 2/$24 or 3/$36 deal this offseason. With that said, it was classy of NY to pick up that option. They take of the guys who play well for them. You’d better hope DJL is next, but with CBT concerns, he may be a causality this offseason.
I think that comment was tongue in cheek sarcasm “At this point just report when a team DOES pickup someone’s option.”
What is it about Philly that turns good pitchers into garbage overnight? Phelps was borderline dominant with MIL in the first half of 2020. Philly trades for him and he completely blows up with a 12.00+ ERA. Workman & Hembree struggled somewhat with Boston but both had more than a handful of good outings with the Red Sox. They both move to Philly at the trade deadline and completely implode. Was it the pitching coach? Was it the little league park the Phillies played in? It was like watching a Shakespeare tragedy every time Giradi went to the bullpen for help.
It’s not the park. I thought the same thing, but a lot of the pen had bad away numbers as well. It was just a disaster.
It seemed like it got to the point down the stretch when Girardi called the bullpen he probably said, “Get them up.” Jim Gott says, “Who exactly?” In exasperation Girardi responds, “Does it even matter at this point?”
Now that would be a great conversation to have recorded!
For a lot of teams, losing six pitchers from your bullpen would hurt a little. Maybe not in this case.