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Phillies Sign Drew Hutchison To Minor League Deal

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The Phillies announced this morning that they’ve signed right-hander Drew Hutchison to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training.

Hutchison, 27, once looked like a potential long-term rotation cog for the Blue Jays. After missing the entire 2013 season due to Tommy John surgery, Hutchison returned in 2014 to make 32 starts in Toronto, pitching to a 4.48 ERA with more impressive 9.0 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 3.85 FIP and 3.59 SIERA marks. That solid performance came at just 23 years of age.

However, Hutchison endured some significant struggles in an uneven 2015 season and finished out the year with an unsightly 5.57 ERA in 150 1/3 innings. While fielding-independent metrics felt there was some misfortune at play (he did sport a lofty .343 BABIP and an uncharacteristically low 64.5 percent strand rate), Hutchison saw his strikeout, swinging-strike and home run rates all trend in the wrong direction during that ugly 2015 season.

Hutchison appeared sparingly in the Majors in 2016 and was ultimately traded from Toronto to Pittsburgh in the Francisco Liriano salary dump. While Hutchison seemed a reasonable buy-low piece for the Pirates in that swap, though, he never received much of an opportunity in the Majors despite posting quality numbers in Triple-A. Over the past two seasons at that level, Hutchison has tossed 297 1/3 innings of 3.57 ERA ball with 7.9 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and 0.9 HR/9.

With the Phillies, he’ll compete for a rotation spot behind staff leader Aaron Nola. Others in the rotation mix for the Phils include Jerad Eickhoff, Vince Velasquez, Nick Pivetta, Ben Lively, Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin and Mark Leiter Jr. — each of whom saw some time in the Major Leagues last season. Eickhoff and Velasquez are probably penciled in for rotation spots, health permitting, though neither turned in an especially impressive showing in 2017.

Should Hutchison reestablish himself as a big league arm, the Phillies will have the added bonus of controlling him for up to three years via the arbitration process, as he’s currently sitting on three years, 165 days of Major League service time.

Phillies Called Cubs About Mike Montgomery

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  • Also from Wittenmyer’s piece, he notes that the Cubs have been getting trade interest in Montgomery since the Darvish signing, with the Phillies and possibly other teams calling about Montgomery’s availability even long before Darvish came to Wrigleyville.  Philadelphia’s interest isn’t a surprise, as the Phils have seemingly checked in on just about every controllable young starter that could conceivably be a trade candidate.

Phillies Will Test Roman Quinn At Shortstop

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  • With the Phillies stressing defensive versatility, the team will work Roman Quinn out at shortstop this spring, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Daily News writes.  Manager Gabe Kapler said the team won’t try Quinn at shortstop in an actual game before they see how he handles infield drills, though Kapler noted that “we’d be foolish not to look under that stone” given Quinn’s athleticism.  Quinn was originally drafted as a shortstop the Phillies took him in the second round in 2011, but was shifted to the outfield after some early-career defensive struggles.  Quinn can already play all three outfield spots, though adding shortstop to his defensive repertoire would only help his chances of winning a spot on what could be a short Phillies bench.

Phillies Will Reportedly Attend Lincecum Showcase

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  • More than 10 teams are set to attend Tim Lincecum’s showcase on Thursday, it seems. Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press, Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com and Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com respectively report that the Tigers, Twins and Orioles will have scouts in attendance (all Twitter links). Heyman adds another handful of clubs, listing the Rangers, Phillies, Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Brewers, Padres and Braves as attendees (links to Twitter for the last three), in addition to the previously reported Giants. If anything, it’s perhaps more notable which clubs have elected not to attend the showcase, as there’s no real downside to at least taking a look and the showcase is shaping up to be reasonably well-attended. To that end, the New York Post’s Kevin Kernan wrote over the weekend that the Mets aren’t planning to have a scout in attendance.

Giants Negotiating With Tony Watson; Phillies & Red Sox Also In Mix

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11:33am: San Francisco isn’t the only team in the mix, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag, who tweets that the Phillies, Red Sox, and unstated other teams are also still involved.

10:20am: The Giants are engaged in “serious contract talks” with southpaw reliever Tony Watson, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports (via Twitter). It is not clear at this time what sort of contractual terms the sides are contemplating, but Watson is clearly the best lefty pen piece still unsigned at this stage.

This is certainly an interesting bit of news, due largely to San Francisco’s closely watched effort to improve while staying shy of the competitive balance tax line. Recent tabulations have suggested the team is only $2MM or so beneath the $197MM threshold at present, leaving little room for a player of Watson’s anticipated price.

If the Giants were to accept the luxury tax for the 2018 season, it’s at least fair to wonder whether they’d plan to go further over the line to add other players. On the other hand, part of the team’s strategy could be to engineer a mid-season sell-off to get back below the line if things don’t go quite as hoped.

As things stand, the Giants’ depth chart features Steven Okert as the top southpaw on hand. Josh Osich and D.J. Snelten also represent 40-man options, with recent minor-league signee Derek Holland perhaps also factoring in the mix if he cannot earn a rotation slot. San Francisco will ultimately hope for a bounce back from Will Smith, who is looking to return from a Tommy John procedure that was performed just before the start of the 2017 season, but clearly there’s some room for improvement.

Entering the winter, Watson was tabbed as the 44th-best free agent in MLBTR’s ranking of the top 50 open-market players. We guessed the 32-year-old could command $12MM in total guaranteed money over two years. While he has plenty of general late-inning experience, our assessment was that he’d be pursued (and paid) more as a quality lefty specialist. Watson, after all, has long been much more effective against opposing lefties.

Eric Fryer Retires

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Veteran catcher Eric Fryer, who earlier this offseason had inked a minor league deal with the Phillies, has elected to retire instead of attending camp this spring, the team announced.

Fryer, 32, has spent parts of the past seven seasons in the Majors, including 94 games between the Pirates and Cardinals in 2016-17. In 374 plate appearances across the life of 159 games, Fryer hit .232/.320/.300 with a pair of homers, 14 doubles and a triple. In addition to spending parts of three seasons with the Pirates and two with the Cardinals, Fryer also saw action with the Twins in the 2014-15 seasons.

In addition to his time in the Majors, Fryer, a former 10th round pick (Brewers, 2007), enjoyed a nine-year career in the minors, during which he batted .269/.357/.396 in an additional 647 games. Best wishes to Fryer in his post-playing days.

The Phillies' Bench Battle

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  • The Phillies’ bench situation is broken down by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury, who notes that defensive versatility will be at a premium for a team that may have just four bench spots available.  The Phils may need to deploy an eight-man bullpen to account for its injury-laden rotation, which leaves less room for position players in general, and especially players who can only fit in at one position (i.e. first baseman Tommy Joseph).  Two of the bench spots are already filled by outfielder Nick Williams and the backup catcher, leaving a utility infield job up for grabs in Spring Training and possibly another reserve outfield job as well.

Steve Geltz Gets 100-Game Suspension

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  • Four minor leaguers – Rays catcher Nick Ciuffo, Padres right-hander Alex Cunningham, Phillies righty Steve Geltz and Pirates second baseman Mitchell Tolman – received suspensions for drug use on Saturday (via Bob Nightengale of USA Today, on Twitter). The harshest punishment went to Geltz, who will serve a 100-game ban without pay after testing positive for a drug of abuse for the third time in his career. The 30-year-old, who signed a minor league deal with the Phillies last month, previously sat 50 games in 2014 after testing positive for marijuana. Meanwhile, Ciuffo, Cunningham and Tolman each got 50-game suspensions. Ciuffo and Tolman tested positive for a drug of abuse for the second time, while Cunningham tested positive for an amphetamine. The most notable member of that trio is the 22-year-old Ciuffo, whom the Rays selected in the first round of the 2013 draft and who currently sits 27th on MLB.com’s ranking of the team’s top 30 prospects. Ciuffo, who got an invitation to big league camp prior to the suspension, took to Twitter on Saturday to apologize.

Phillies Still Seeking Starting Pitching

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Latest On Phillies' Search For Starter

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  • The Phillies’ search for a starter remains a bit of a wild card on the market. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand has the latest, citing sources for the proposition that the Phils are taking an “aggressive” approach, though it’s not entirely clear what that means. While the organization has been tied, at least speculatively, to a wide variety of hurlers, the indication from Feinsand is that the organization is mostly looking currently at one-year targets rather than more significant hurlers. As Feinsand notes, it’s possible to imagine quite a few names that could conceivably fit. Indeed, many of the free agent starters remain available, so a Phillies team in an opportunistic position could yet take any number of different courses in filling out its staff.
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