The Phillies announced that they have recalled right-hander Alex McFarlane from Double-A Reading. He’ll be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game. The Phils had an open roster spot due to yesterday’s moves, where they released Taijuan Walker and optioned Alan Rangel while recalling Nolan Hoffman.
McFarlane, 25 in June, was a fourth-round pick in 2022. The Phils tried him as a starter in the lower levels without much success. He underwent Tommy John surgery late in 2023 and missed all of 2024. Back on the mound in 2025, the Phils tried stretching him out again for a while, but moved him to a relief role late in the year. His final ten appearances were out of the bullpen. He wasn’t particularly impressive in those, with a 4.50 earned run average, 22.4% strikeout rate and 12.1% walk rate.
The Phils still believed in McFarlane th the point that they didn’t want him to get scooped in the Rule 5, so they added him to their 40-man roster in November. Baseball America ranked him the club’s #19 prospect coming into the year. FanGraphs put him at #14, highlighting the huge spin on his slider. He threw a splitter as a starter but both BA and FG suggest he would likely move to be more of a fastball/slider guy as a reliever.
He has started this year back at Double-A with some intriguing results. It’s only 6 1/3 innings but McFarlane has only allowed one earned run while striking out ten. However, there is some wildness, as he has walked four and thrown two wild pitches.
The Phils have been pushing their pitching staff a bit lately. Today will be the eighth game in a stretch of ten without an off-day. In the past five, their starter/bulk guy hasn’t gone more than 5 1/3 innings. That has left the relief group to pitch a lot, including five relievers in yesterday’s ten-inning loss to the Cubs.
McFarlane will give the club a fresh arm for tonight’s game. It’s possible he’ll be optioned back down right after. The Phils are planning to reinstate Zack Wheeler from the injured list to start Saturday’s game, so someone will have to be sent out for him. Since it could just be a short assignment, the Phils are going with McFarlane since he’s on the 40-man roster, skipping him over Triple-A. After the game, perhaps he will be sent back to Double-A Reading but heading to Triple-A Lehigh Valley is also a possibility.
Photo courtesy of Morgan Tencza, Imagn Images
Giving everyone on the 40 man a shot I see. He isn’t ready though.
The Phillies free agency team has gotten old really fast.
Maybe he can get his Uncle Seth to manage the team. At least they would be entertaining.
It’s time to stop postponing the inevitable. They need to break that team up.
It’s basically impossible to break it up. Look at the money they have committed to the roster.
If they really want to do a rebuild most of the current roster will have trade value, especially if the Phillies kick in some extra money. You would need to get Harper and others with no-trade clauses to waive them, but the prospect of spending the rest of their careers on a rebuilding team might be adequate motivation. Duran (if healthy), Sosa and Schwarber will definitely have value; Sanchez would bring a monster return.
“Basically impossible ….committed to the roster”…They committed “stupid money” to the team after a basically failed rebuild. As Forrest Gump once said, “stupid is as stupid does.”
Crazy. Plus Harper, Nola, Turner and Schwab all signed until 2030 min