Reports emerged back in December that the Phillies had interest in re-signing free agent reliever Jeff Hoffman, before Hoffman eventually landed with the Blue Jays on a three-year, $33MM contract in early January. Phils president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski confirmed the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Scott Lauber and other reporters this week that the club indeed had interest in a reunion with the All-Star, and “very aggressively” made an offer seemingly in range of Toronto’s offer early in the season.
“I can’t tell you that the number he ended up signing for was substantially different than the one that we ended up offering him,” Dombrowski said. “But he wasn’t prepared to take that at that time. [Hoffman’s agents] just thought they were going to get much more.”
Hoffman technically did land more in two other offers — a three-year, $40MM agreement with the Orioles, and then a five-year deal with the Braves in the $45MM-48MM range that would’ve brought the righty more in overall value, if not average annual value. However, Baltimore and Atlanta both walked away from those deals due to misgivings over Hoffman’s medicals. The Braves’ issue wasn’t made public, but the Orioles had a concern over Hoffman’s right shoulder. Notably, the O’s weren’t troubled enough to abandon their pursuit of Hoffman entirely, and made a new offer after taking their $40MM offer off the table.
The Athletic’s Matt Gelb paints a different picture of Philadelphia’s talks with Hoffman, as sources tell Gelb that the Phillies told agents that they were looking for relievers who would sign for one-year contracts. This would naturally run entirely counter to Dombrowski’s claim of an offer in the three-year, $33MM range, and Gelb isn’t sure if the Phillies presented Hoffman with a formal offer whatsoever. While the team did keep checking in Hoffman in the first month of the offseason, Gelb and Lauber writes that the Phillies stopped pursuing Hoffman once Jordan Romano signed in early December.
Romano, indeed, signed a one-year deal, worth $8.5MM. It was essentially an unofficial swap of relievers between the Phillies and Jays, though while Hoffman had a strong 2024 season, Romano threw only 9 1/3 innings due to elbow problems that required an arthroscopic surgery. The Blue Jays chose to non-tender Romano in the wake of this lost year, moving on from their former closer rather than pay him a projected $7.75MM in arbitration.
Dombrowski indicated at the end of last season and again this week that Philadelphia would only be re-signing one at most of Hoffman and Carlos Estevez, and the team ended up going with Romano over either of the free agent duo. Unsurprisingly, Dombrowski framed the decision as a baseball move, rather than anything related to salaries or contractual demands.
“We just moved off [Hoffman] and did Romano because we thought [Orion] Kerkering was ready to step up and, I don’t want to say take on more because his role has been important, but pitch more at the back and high leverage,” Dombrowski said.
While we’re only a month into the 2025 season, the early returns on the Phillies’ decision haven’t been promising. Philadelphia is near the bottom of the league in bullpen ERA, even despite superb numbers posted by closer Jose Alvarado and set-up man Matt Strahm. Alvarado has quickly assumed closer duties since Romano has struggled to a 13.50 ERA in his first 9 1/3 innings as a Phillie, and Kerkering also has a 5.79 ERA in 9 1/3 frames of work this year. Since we’re still dealing with small sample sizes here, it is worth noting that most of Kerkering’s damage took place in two rough outings this past week, though Romano has already allowed multiple runs over four of his outings.
Hoffman, meanwhile, has excelled in the first full-time closing assignment of his 10 MLB seasons. The right-hander is a perfect 6-for-6 in save changes and has a 1.35 ERA over 13 1/3 innings for Toronto, with an eye-opening 39.6% strikeout rate and 2.1% walk rate. Even with the caveats of a 92.1% strand rate and a .259 BABIP, Hoffman’s 1.16 SIERA is even lower than his already incredible ERA, further enhancing just how dominant Hoffman has been this year.
Should he keep pitching at anywhere near this level, Hoffman’s performance could lead to some second-guessing in Baltimore, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Turning to the Phillies in particular, Lauber feels the team will again find itself having to acquire some significant bullpen help before the trade deadline, perhaps with a particular aim of improving the relief corps’ strikeout numbers.
I wouldn’t feel too bad about losing Hoffman. The Jays are currently trying to run his arm into the ground.
Have you seen the Phillies pen?
Yes replacing him with Romano hasn’t been a great move.
Von purple hays I told you so. Dumbrowski went cheap. Never got that that right handed power bat. Never got that legitimate closer. 300 million dollar payroll and went cheap when it counted most. Unbalanced lineup. Getting killed by lefthanders. Same old story. A 500 team at best. The bullpen is laughable. The manager looks lost. Sad as a Phillies fan .
Johnny – Two things you wrote make absolutely no sense.
You said he “went cheap”. What do you expect when the Phillies already have the 4th-highest CBT payroll in MLB and are being assessed at 50% because this is the third consecutive year they’ve been over the threshold.
The Phillies are not the Dodgers, therefore Dave doesn’t have an unlimited budget with which to work.
As for .500 team at best, that prediction makes no sense. Time will tell though.
Nonsense. Wasted money on the likes of Romero, Walker,Kepler,Turner,Nicky Nola and the list goes on. Hoping Marsh will hit, Bohm will hit anybody will hit. Laughing. Go away with that Dodgers nonsense. Philly fans sell out at home and sell out on the road. Dumbrowski is doing in Philly what he did in Detroit.
The Detroit comparisons make no sense. Phillies had a great bullpen last year. This year it’s off to an awful start, but it’s also April. Phillies just won a series against the surging Cubs. A series in which the Phillies pen performed pretty well.
Also Kepler? Criticizing Kepler already seems foolish. He’s performing better than I expected so far. Nola always starts off horribly. He looked great against the excellent Cubs lineup. I’m not too worried. He’ll be fine. Marsh/Rojas will be frustrating. We need a real OF bat, but so does a lot of the league. CFs are hard to find.
The Phillies had the same record they had at this point in 1980 and 2008. They won the WS those years. Giving up on the Phillies in April is pretty dumb. It’s April
Von – Great post!
Yeah it’s comical when Dave haters say crap like “he was lucky”. He’s directly responsible for 4 different organizations going to the WS, and would have been 5 if not for the 1994 labor dispute.
DD saved the Phillies franchise, without DD the Phillies would be like the LA Angels.
Steve Carlton and I are laughing.
Ha
He’s pitched in 12 out of 26 games, 13.1 innings. He’s on pace for roughly 73-74 appearances. Had 68 last year. Not sure that qualifies as running him into the ground.
What does another teams usage of a player have to do with the Phillies losing him?
The Phils shouldn’t feel bad because the Jays are misusing him?
That is a remarkably strange rationalization.
Don’t worry.. he’s probably typing from Kensington St.
Canuckleball:
“That is a remarkably strange rationalization.”
Well put.
Just trying to be positive lol
Seriously, the Phillies’ ‘pen is atrocious; whatever Hoffman does in Toronto they failed to replace him.
troy – Yeah it’s hard to believe a bullpen with two guys as good as Strahm and Alvarado could be the 2nd-worst in MLB, and yet that’s exactly what the Phillies bullpen is.
The way modern reliever’s are used, a team really has to have a deep pen. Everyone gets used a lot so any weak links tend to show up quickly.
20 years ago, a pen with a couple elite arms could be great. Starters go 7, then you bring in the setup man and the closer and you’re done. This pen would have worked well in that era.
Not hard to believe
Brutal is a better word.
And Kerkering
A lot of comments on this site seem to be folks dumping on other teams that they have no idea about.
The London Soccer ballers have terrible defense.
Excellent observation.
@simonkiller
When they run on the field, could it be said they hit the pitch?
Hoffman is being used like he should have been used in Philly.
They can trade for him when the Jays eventually implode.
I believe the Cubs were courting Hoffman as well, but knowing Hoyer he didn’t like the price tag.
Acoss – I’m really curious what the second offer from the Orioles was. Seems so weird.. They didn’t want to risk $40M because of his medicals, but they were okay with risking let’s say $30M? Either you think the guy will break down or you don’t.
If I need a strong reliever and I have injury concerns about a guy, I wouldn’t try to sign him at any price. It’s almost like the O’s were just trying to save a few bucks.
It probably came with injury protection for the team like the deal Pivetta signed.
Fever,
Jbigz12 is probably right about the injury protection clause and Hoffman balked at that offer.
Acoss – I agree, but the way the article is worded it implies the second offer was a lower total guaranteed amount.
It’s really hard to speculate without hearing the details, maybe it was let’s say $30M guaranteed with an additional $10M based on meeting certain IP requirements?
Maybe it was a 1 year offer to limit risk.
Put up a parking lot……
The issue with the Phillies offseason the past couple of years has been their desire to get all their business done in early December then move on… Teams are more likely to get deals later in offseason. Not sure if DD just likes to have the time off or what… They never look to add potential bargains to the bench either….They pigeon hole themselves with guys with no options hence they overwork their pen and do not do what other teams do in terms of bringing people up and down to help and overworked pen.
Cam – Dave’s approach is similar to Cashman’s and other teams. It’s not about getting bargains, it’s about getting the most talented players that are also needed the most. Nobody does that better than Dave.
And this past offseason Dave was obviously limited by budget constraints.
Bwa bwa
That’s pretty common for teams that are already competing. They don’t need many moves, and the moves they want to make are done early.
Von – I think the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets take the early aggressive approach targeting players they want. Teams like the Orioles, Cubs, Red Sox and Padres wait for bargains. Buehler and Bregman definitely fall into that category for the Sox.
Agreed.
The farm system is bad and it’s going to be a lot worse the day after the trade deadline.
Hoffman is a great player, problem with Phillies is the manager Thompson doesn’t know how to use his Bullpen. DUMBroski got lucky with his other teams, he doesn’t understand Philly and the environment. Both the Manager and DUMBroski need to be let go.
Bub – I appreciate your humorous post!
Agree bubba but the truth is bitter
The Phillies have been in need of a position player that has the ability to put a ball in play let alone getting a hit. A strikeout is an unproductive at bat.
Actually, their problem this year has been driving the ball. They haven’t been striking out as much.
Honestly, the pen’s not doing terrible. A 3.67 SIERA vs. a 5.46 ERA and a BABIP of of .338 tell me they’re getting unlucky. I wouldn’t overreact at this point.
This is true of their offense as well. They’ve been very unlucky. These things tend to even out fairly quickly. I’m no proclaiming the Phillies to be the best team in baseball or anything, but the people panicking in April are going to look silly in June.
“Meanwhile” has to start the sentence, not come in the middle between commas. Also, commas are unnecessary around “indeed.”