Phillies Andy MacPhail Believes in Pitching Direction
By Matt Veasey
Philadelphia Phillies club president Andy MacPhail is fully supportive of GM Matt Klentak’s deals to bring in large numbers of starting caliber pitchers.
Over the last month, Klentak has completed three trades that have added six starting caliber pitchers to the organization, at least two of whom will, barring injury, certainly be members of the 2016 rotation.
It began on November 14th, with Klentak sending a low-level minor leaguer to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for veteran righthander Jeremy Hellickson.
On December 12th came the Ken Giles trade with the Houston Astros, which landed a five pitcher haul including starters Vincent Velasquez and Brett Oberholtzer, who each should battle for a back-end rotation role with the Phils in spring training.
Also coming in that deal with Houston were former #1 overall MLB Draft pick Mark Appel and another minor league starter with potential, Thomas Eshelman. The final piece, 20-year old Harold Arauz, also has minor league starting experience.
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Finally, the Phillies GM traded another low-level minor leaguer to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for veteran righty Charlie Morton.
“For us to become a postseason-caliber team, that (starting pitching) had to improve,” MacPhail was quoted by Phillies MLB insider Todd Zolecki. “That had to be the first thing to improve. What we hope we’ve done…is propped up our ability to improve the first six innings through our starting pitching.”
The newcomers will sort out between the Phillies and AAA Lehigh Valley. Both Hellickson and Morton are sure to join incumbent young success stories Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff to make up 4/5 of the Opening Day rotation, with the others fighting for the 5th starter role.
At Lehigh Valley, whomever doesn’t make the Phillies big league roster at the end of spring training as either a starter or reliever will head to the IronPigs and join a stable of rising young arms that includes Jake Thompson, Zack Eflin, and Ben Lively, all brought to the organization via trade in the last year, and 2013 Cuban signee Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez.
“We all know that we’re going to have some injuries, we’re going to have some disappointments. Whatever starting pitching you think you have, conservatively divide by two. But we still hope we’re getting enough of a critical mass that it can matriculate up to the big league level,” said MacPhail, per Zolecki.
Phillies fans should expect the 2016 regular season to be almost all about sorting out and developing those young starting pitchers. The veterans Hellickson and Morton will fill, and hopefully improve upon, the role filled last season by Aaron Harang and Jerome Williams, eating up innings while those kids finish up their development.