Phillies end-of-year awards: Most/Least Valuable, Cy Young/Yuk
Cy Yuk: Relief pitchers Yacksel Rios and Luis Garcia
There was no one starter who had a downright bad season. Jake Arrieta, Zach Eflin, Nick Pivetta, and Vince Velasquez all had solid seasons, succeeding in at least a couple areas. That leaves me to look towards the bullpen, and two relievers stood out to me as the worst on the team: Yacksel Rios and Luis Garcia.
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Rios started the year in the minors but got recalled on the second day of the season when Pat Neshek hit the disabled list. It was one of six times he was recalled from Triple-A by the time the year ended. He made the trip between Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia plenty of times, and for good reason.
In 36 appearances, Rios had a 6.75 ERA, 4.74 fielding-independent pitching, 1.611 WHIP, and 2.40 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
He struck out 36 batters and walked 15 in 36 innings pitched. Rios was worth -0.5 wins above replacement, tied for worst among all Philadelphia pitchers this season.
Meanwhile, Garcia showed some promise last year with a 2.65 ERA in 66 appearances. Unfortunately, that success did not translate to this season. In 59 appearances this year, he had a 6.07 ERA, 1.457 WHIP, and 2.83 strikeout-to-walk ratio. While he struck out 10 batters per nine innings, he walked 3.5 per nine. His -0.3 wins above replacement were tied for third-worst among the team’s pitchers.
On the bright side, when the worst pitchers on the team are relievers throwing under 50 innings, that means your pitching staff did pretty well as a whole.