The Phillies announced Wednesday morning that right-handed reliever Carlos Hernández has been designated for assignment. His spot on the 26-man roster will go to fellow righty Michael Mercado, who’s been recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Mercado was already on the 40-man roster, so the Phils now have one open spot.
Hernández, 28, came to the Phils via waivers back in spring training. The Royals had attempted to pass the flamethrowing, out-of-options righty through waivers and retain him as a depth arm, but Philadelphia claimed the power-armed, 6’4″ righty in hopes of unlocking what’s long looked like some latent potential.
It hasn’t worked out thus far. In 25 2/3 innings out of Rob Thomson’s bullpen, Hernández has been tagged for 15 earned runs on 32 hits and 13 walks. He’s plunked a pair of hitters as well. The resulting 5.26 ERA is an eyesore, Hernández’s once strong strikeout rate has dipped below average; he’s fanned only 18.7% of opponents against a 10.6% walk rate.
Back in 2023, Hernández looked like a breakout arm in Kansas City’s bullpen in the season’s first half. He was averaging better than 99 mph on his fastball and carried a 3.57 ERA, 30% strikeout rate and 7.1% walk rate into that year’s trade deadline. With the Royals operating as sellers and Hernández performing so well, he even looked like an under-the-radar trade chip for a club that, at the time, didn’t have much to peddle to deadline buyers.
The Royals hung onto Hernández — understandably so; he had four additional seasons of club control remaining — and things went south almost immediately. Hernández served up four runs in his third outing post-deadline, and his season snowballed from there. In 17 innings post-deadline, he was shelled for 20 runs. The strong command he’d displayed evaporated, as he walked more hitters than he struck out in the season’s final two months. Hernández missed about two months the following season due to shoulder troubles. He never required surgery, but his velocity has never returned to his 2023 levels, and his command has never rebounded to the levels we saw in the first two-thirds of the 2023 season.
Now that Hernández has been designated for assignment, the Phillies will either trade him or place him on waivers within the next five days. Waivers themselves are a 48-hour process. Within a week’s time, we’ll know what’s next for the hard-throwing righty.
The link for Hernandez is to a different player.
Thanks. We use a script that auto-generates links to the players’ B-Ref pages and it grabbed the wrong one. I typically double-check the links on guys with common names, as it’ll often grab the wrong one, but I forgot to do so here.
It’s been updated. Appreciate you pointing it out.
Thanks for this explanation, Steve.
It happens on other sports websites too.
Sorry you didn’t make it to the big leagues, Johnny Devil
The Carlos Hernandez link is to another mlbtraderumors article.
Dumb move. Hernandez has been doing his best work the last couple of weeks. Mercado is not a major league caliber player.
DD vs ctb. Roster management showdown.
Long, long time fan here. This year’s team was suspect from the start with stopgaps like Romano and Kepler. But, the Alvarado suspension, plus injuries to Nola and now Harper, have sealed things. I hope Middleton and Dombrowski realize this. With some smart deadline moves, talent like Crawford and Painter emerging and cash to spend this offseason we can enter 2026 stronger.
I go to 1967. When I was 6.
Longer clueless fan obviously, your train derailed long ago. When someone doesn’t know the manager’s name, credibility stops right there. I would ask just who the manager should be, who would handle the pitching staff so much better, but of course you won’t be able answer that….
So of course, you can’t answer the question – who should be named manager who wouldn’t be “inept handling of this pitching staff”?What manager in baseball is handling his pitching staff so much better? You won’t be able to name one, considering you don’t even know the Phillies manager’s name lol. Your irrelevant nonsense is what should be muted.
So just admit you can’t answer the question instead of your irrelevant nonsense. Who should the Phillies manager be who wouldn’t be “inept handling of this pitching staff”? What manager in baseball handles his pitching staff so much better? You won’t be able to name one considering you don’t even know the Phillies manager’s name lol.
Summer League catcher, veteran MLB reliever. Easy to get them confused.
Overtaxed pen needing fresh arms.
Issue this early with so much demand is that anyone looking for decent bullpen help is going to give up more to seller than logical (even merely solid/not top notch setup guys). No seller will be patient listening to lame lowball offer attempts.
Relievers, man.
Took too long to make this move which is the DD way the last 2 seasons.
Dodgers on line 2… get as many arms as you can for now
Dropping one bad pitcher whose AAA line is just as bad.
Craig Kimbrel can’t be as bad as these folks.
Yeah….He imploded during the last playoff run with the Phillies and may be washed…..but still better than this junk.
Hopefully they can figure out some real solutions there….because this is not it at any level.
Please no with Kimbrel.
Mercado isn’t the answer but Dombrowski knows this. He’s just already conveniently on the 40 man roster.
I’d guess that spot will go to Crawford and we’ll see him come up soon.
Michael Mercado was just heard saying, “Hold my beer!”
That dude stunk