Phillies 2016 Grades: Rotation
The Philadelphia Phillies experienced everything from injuries to rookie debuts in their starting pitching rotation, where there remain many questions.
When the 2016 regular season opened, the Phillies anticipated a starting rotation of veterans Jeremy Hellickson and Charlie Morton pitching in front of youngsters Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff.
The role of fifth starter in that rotation was a wide open spring training battle, with the favorites being a pair of left-handers with big league experience in newcomer Brett Oberholtzer and organizational arm Adam Morgan.
But another newcomer, Vince Velasquez, emerged during the Grapefruit League season as the best pitcher at Bright House Field back in March, and forced the Phillies hand in naming him to that final starting rotation berth.
As often happens to big league teams over the course of a long 162-game season, injuries struck. Morton went down in the season’s first month, presenting an opportunity for another prospect, Zach Eflin, to make his Major League Baseball debut.
Before the summer was out, both Eflin and Nola had also succumbed to injuries. This gave Morgan and top pitching prospect Jake Thompson opportunities in the rotation as well.
In the end, Morton and soon to be 25-year old Alec Asher made just four starts for the Phillies, Morton back at that beginning and Asher here at the end of the season. Neither will receive a grade due to those limited appearances.
The Phillies also gave one start to right-hander Phil Klein, who may be given another shot on the season’s final weekend. He will not receive a grade either.
The other seven will all be graded out in order of the least number of starts made to the most: Thompson (10), Eflin (11), Nola (20), Morgan (21), Velasquez (24), Hellickson (31), and Eickhoff (32).
I am flip-flopping Morgan and Nola here, simply because of their anticipated importance to the future of the Phillies as the club continues to build towards the future.
JAKE THOMPSON
Thompson was the Phillies top-rated pitching prospect, and depending on the ranking service was the #2 or #3 overall prospect in the Phils minor league system and certainly a Top 100 overall prospect in the entire game when he was promoted to make his big league debut on August 6th.
He came to the Phils from the Texas Rangers as a key piece of the big six-player haul the team received at last year’s trade deadline in exchange for Cole Hamels and Jake Diekman.
Thompson didn’t fare well in that first start, lasting just 4.1 innings at Petco Park against the host San Diego Padres.
He allowed six earned runs on seven hits while walking two batters against the normally light-hitting Friars in what is known as one of baseball’s best pitching environments.
It didn’t get better over his next few outings. After four starts, Thompson was 1-3 with a 9.78 ERA and had allowed 22 hits over 19.1 innings with a 13/13 K:BB ratio. He looked for all the world like he simply was not ready for prime time.
But then the rookie settled down, began trusting his stuff, and showed that he belonged after all. Over his final six starts, Thompson went 1-1 with a 3.41 ERA. He allowed just 31 hits over 34.1 innings during that span.
Thompson was shut down for the season following a September 25th loss to the New York Mets after having thrown 183.1 combined innings at AAA Lehigh Valley and with the Phillies.
In 2017, Thompson should have an inside track to a regular role in the Phillies starting rotation, and would have to look bad down in Clearwater while being outpitched by others to lose that role.
GRADE: C+
ZACH EFLIN
Eflin will only turn 23 years of age as the 2017 regular season gets underway, and it is expected that he should be healthy for spring training after undergoing surgery to repair a torn right patella tendon.
Obtained along with lefty relief prospect Tom Windle in the December 2014 deal that sent Jimmy Rollins to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Eflin made a solid showing at AA Reading in 2015 and at AAA Lehigh Valley this season.
He was promoted to the Phillies to make his big league debut on June 14th, when he was bombed by the host Toronto Blue Jays to the tune of eight earned runs on nine hits over just 2.2 innings.
But from his second start on June 19th out through July 22nd, Eflin was perhaps the Phillies best starting pitcher for a month stretch of the season.
During that seven-start period, Eflin went 4-3 with a 2.08 ERA, allowing just 36 hits over 47.2 innings with a 24/5 K:BB ratio.
For good measure, Eflin also tossed a pair of complete games, one of those a three-hit shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He is still the only Phillies starting pitcher to go the distance more than once this season.
However, Eflin fell apart over his final three starts, and something was clearly wrong. After being bombed by the LA Dodgers on August 8th, he was finally shut down. The torn patella tendon diagnosis came shortly thereafter.
Suffering from knee issues since childhood, Eflin is now slated to have surgery on his other knee in the first week of October.
It is hoped that these two surgical procedures will alleviate those troubles once and for all, and that he will be ready to compete for a role in the starting rotation at spring training.
GRADE: C+
ADAM MORGAN
Morgan is a lefty who will turn 27 years of age just as spring training is opening in late February down in Clearwater.
The Phillies 3rd round pick in the 2011 MLB Amateur Draft, he battled through injuries to finally make his big league debut a year ago, when he turned in a mediocre 15-start performance.
He began this season back at AAA Lehigh Valley, but was given another shot at the Phillies rotation after Morton was lost at the end of April.
Morgan was ineffective over 11 starts, and was finally relegated to the bullpen at the end of June. That relief pitcher stint lasted for just two appearances before injuries on the staff provided him one more starting opportunity, an ineffective outing in Colorado, and he was demoted back to AAA.
Recalled in mid-August after the Phillies had suffered the losses of Eflin and Nola, he became a regular member of the rotation from that point on.
Overall the numbers on Morgan show a 2-11 record with a 6.04 ERA, 1.500 WHIP, and a weak 69 ERA+ figure. He allowed 141 hits over 113.1 innings, but did have a strong 95/29 K:BB ratio.
As the pure numbers reveal, Morgan rarely beats himself. He simply gets pounded by opposition hitters, revealed further by the 23 home runs that he has surrendered.
Morgan is a AAA pitcher as a starter. If he limits his repertoire and takes mentally to the role, he could become an effective lefty out of the bullpen.
It’s difficult to say how the Phillies will use Morgan, who still has five years of team control, as they move forward.
He is going to have to find a way to get big league hitters out on a much more effective and consistent basis to remain not only in the team’s plans, but on the roster at all.
GRADE: F
AARON NOLA
The Phillies 1st round selection in the 2014 MLB Amateur Draft out of LSU, Nola was promoted to the big leagues a little more than a year later, delivering 13 effective starts out of the rotation in the 2015 season.
He entered the 2016 season with lofty expectations, and over his first dozen starts he largely met them. With the exception of one blowout loss to the Washington Nationals in his third start, Nola was cruising into early June.
Over those first 10 weeks of the regular season, Nola fashioned a 5-4 record with a 2.65 ERA. He allowed just 62 hits over his first 78 innings, with an 85/15 K:BB ratio.
And then trouble began.
On June 11th in Washington, Nola ended a string of nine consecutive outings of at least six innings each. He was rolled for four earned runs on seven hits over just 3.2 innings that day.
It began a horrible stretch of eight starts, only one of which showed him to be effective. During the period between June 11th and July 28th, Nola went 1-5 and the team lost seven of his eight starts.
He allowed 54 hits in 33 innings during that stretch with a 9.82 ERA. As with Eflin, something was clearly wrong.
Nola was finally shut down with what was diagnosed as a right elbow sprain. He recently began a throwing program, but has not yet tried to throw from a mound.
The team will slowly progress him back to that point during the off-season, but it remains an unknown how he will respond. If the elbow responds favorably, he will continue to work out and prepare for spring training.
However, there remains the possibility that it will not respond favorably. If this goes wrong, we could be talking Tommy John surgery.
That worst-case scenario would mean that Nola is lost for the entire 2017 season, and we wouldn’t see him in Phillies pinstripes again until spring of 2018 when he would still be just 24 years of age.
GRADE: C
VINCE VELASQUEZ
The 24-year old Velasquez came to the Phillies in last December’s big Ken Giles trade with the Houston Astros.
He made his big league debut a year ago with Houston when he appeared in 19 games, seven of those starts.
When spring training opened down in Clearwater, it was unknown in what role the Phillies planned to utilize him. But Velasquez quickly became the team’s best spring starter.
In a battle as the Grapefruit League season was drawing to a close for the fifth starter role, Velasquez simply seized it, out-pitching the other candidates and forcing the Phillies hands.
Over 24 starts, Velasquez showed that he could dominate big league hitters. This was demonstrated no better than on April 14th at Citizens Bank Park.
On that day in front of the home fans, in just his second start for the Phils, Velasquez struck out 16 batters, walked none, and allowed just three hits in a complete game shutout of the San Diego Padres.
However, Velasquez also had a maddening habit of simply throwing too many pitches in his outings to last more than 4-5 innings on a number of occasions.
Velasquez would remain in the Phillies rotation all season before being shutdown as Labor Day rolled around.
Overall this year, Velasquez showed that he is a genuine big league starter. He tossed nine Quality Starts among his 24, and could have a half-dozen more had he been more efficient.
His final numbers for the season: 8-6 with a 4.12 ERA, 1.328 WHIP, 101 ERA+. He allowed 129 hits over his 131 innings, with a 152/45 K:BB ratio.
While some, including me at times, have felt that he ultimately could end up a closer, Velasquez indeed demonstrated that he has what it takes to be a starting pitcher.
Velasquez will come to spring training as a solid member of the Phillies 2017 rotation. The club will look to work with him to gain that greater efficiency, control, and maturity on the mound. If he can harness it all, he can be an ace.
GRADE: B
JEREMY HELLICKSON
Hellickson was signed for one year to be, along with Morton, a seasoned, veteran presence in a rotation that was likely to otherwise be relying on a number of youngsters.
He has fulfilled his role well, going 12-10 with a 3.78 ERA, 1.169 WHIP, and 109 ERA+ while surrendering 172 hits over 185.2 innings with a 150/45 K:BB ratio.
The Phillies have to be ecstatic with that production. They would have been even more ecstatic had they been able to deal him at the trade deadline for something of value, but such a deal never materialized.
Hellickson will be a free agent again this off-season, and it is unlikely that the Phillies will be able to re-sign him.
While they would surely love to bring him back, in a weak pitching free agent class, Hellickson’s services will be valuable. His solid season has put him in a line for a nice payday.
The Phillies will likely make him a near $17 million qualifying offer in order to at least receive a nice draft pick as compensation should he sign elsewhere. However, worse things could happen than his accepting the offer and coming back.
Hellickson turns 30 years of age just as the 2017 regular season gets underway. If he is a part of the Phillies starting rotation again at that point it will be a major upset.
GRADE: A
JERAD EICKHOFF
At the 2015 MLB trade deadline the Phillies sent lefty ace Hamels and power lefty reliever Diekman to Texas for a big six-prospect package. It is very possible that Eickhoff was the least well-known of those prospects, with the least expected of him.
The Phils gave him a somewhat unexpected call-up to the big leagues late last summer. He responded with eight solid starts the rest of the way, putting himself in line for a rotation spot this year.
Coming into spring training, Eickhoff was the one player that I was most interested to watch. Was his performance at the end of last year for real, or would he prove to have been a flash-in-the-pan?
Eickhoff has answered any questions emphatically this year. Quite simply, he has rivaled Hellickson as having been the Phillies most consistently reliable starting pitcher all season long.
The now 26-year old righty has put together an 11-14 record that could be better were it not for often feeble offensive support from the lineup.
His other numbers are excellent: 191.1 innings over 32 starts, allowing just 183 hits with a 159/41 K:BB ratio. He has produced a team-high 19 Quality Starts as well.
He has a 3.72 ERA, a 1.171 WHIP, and an ERA+ at the 111 mark. The one knock on him may be a penchant for the longball. Eickhoff has yielded 30 home runs this season.
Eickhoff will enter spring training solidly in the Phillies starting rotation, where he is likely to join Velasquez, Thompson, and at least one veteran free agent signing. The Phils would love to see either Nola or Eflin there joining them.