The Phillies announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired righty Nolan Hoffman from the Rangers in exchange for cash. Hoffman was not on the 40-man roster with Texas but has been selected to Philadelphia’s 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He won’t immediately join the Phillies’ bullpen, but the instant addition to the 40-man clearly puts him in position to potentially make his major league debut in the near future.
Hoffman, 27, was originally a fifth-round pick by the 2018 Mariners and landed with the Orioles by way of the minor league phase of the 2021 Rule 5 Draft. He became a minor league free agent following the 2024 season, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers and is now on the doorstep of a big league opportunity in Philadelphia.
The submarining Hoffman brings an uncommon arm slot to the Phillies’ bullpen mix, but he’s had a rough stretch with the Rangers’ Triple-A club in 2025. He’s punched out 29% of his opponents in 35 innings, but Hoffman also has a bloated 13.2% walk rate that has contributed to an ugly 5.91 earned run average. He’s been plagued by a .321 average on balls in play despite awful batted-ball metrics from his opponents — 85.7 mph average exit velocity, 28.2% hard-hit rate — as well as a 66.8% strand rate that’s well shy of his typical levels.
Prior to this season, Hoffman enjoyed nice stretches in Double-A and Triple-A with the O’s organization. His 2023 campaign saw the righty take advantage of his deceptive arm slot in the form of a 3.05 ERA over 44 1/3 innings between Baltimore’s top two minor league affiliates. He followed that with a 3.88 ERA and what was then a career-best 28.2% strikeout rate in 58 Triple-A frames in 2024.
Hoffman has regularly generated grounders at huge rates, though this year’s 44.6% mark is only a couple percentage points north of the MLB average. That’s perhaps in part due to some tweaks made by the Rangers’ development staff. He’s still throwing his sinker more than half the time, and Hoffman has even upped the average velocity on that pitch from 91.9 to 93.3 mph. He’s also begun to incorporate a new (but still seldom-used) cutter and scaled back his usage of his curveball and changeup. Obviously, Hoffman isn’t going to step in and cure all the Phillies’ bullpen woes, but he gives them another option to evaluate in the weeks leading up to a trade deadline that figures to see Philadelphia president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski again focus heavily on upgrading his relief corps.
