Phillies: Which starting pitchers can survive the season?
I know it may be considered a hot take, but the Phillies need some starting pitching help.
We now know that the Phillies are reportedly one of the more active teams looking at the available pitchers. but who are the Phillies going to replace them with?
We’re now going to play a game of Stay or Go, Phillies starting pitchers version!
Aaron Nola: Stay
Aaron Nola has been struggling all season and has yet to fit into his groove. With another bad outing against the Braves in the last series, he has put the team in an uncomfortable position.
Although he has struggled there isn’t much debate here on his status with the team. Although he has pitched poorly we have seen some (although small) signs of the ace that we thought would be here this year. This is a pretty easy one.
Jake Arrieta: Stay
A lot of Phillies fans would love to see Jake Arrieta and his salary leave the team, but that’s not going to happen. We needed Arrieta to be better than he was last year but that didn’t happen.
Arrieta has been very, to say the least, average this year as he has a mix of solid starts to disaster games. If the Phillies make a push for the playoffs and beyond they are going to have to find a new number two option, which means finding one on the trade market.
The team doesn’t have many options with the once Cy Young pitcher because no other team is going to take him and us Phillies fans can’t be getting too picky with the situation we have going on now.
Zach Eflin: Stay
Zach Eflin has been the most consistently good starting pitcher the team has right now and has shown how much better his placement has got this year. Although Eflin has shown a lot of improvements we most likely are seeing the best it’s going to get which is a third or fourth starting pitcher on a good team.
Eflin leads the team with a 2.6 WAR and leads starters with a 2.81 ERA and a 1.150 WHIP.
The Phillies would be in no business to move on from Eflin and hopefully can help him get back into the success that they will need from him.
Nick Pivetta: Stay
One of the most interesting storylines so far this season is the tale of Nick Privetta. At the beginning of this year, he was given the second role in the rotation and was praised by the coaching staff.
After a major collapse in his early starts, he went down to the minors only to come back to pitch some of the best games we have seen all season. After pitching to the tune of a 7.71 ERA prior to his demotion, Pivetta has a 2.08 ERA in three games since coming back.
Pivetta has proven so far that his minor absence did dividends to his mindset which now is transferring to the results. Once again, the Phillies are not going to get rid of Pivetta especially after his last couple of outings. Although he is skating on thin ice he could be shown off as trade bait to land a bigger named starting pitcher.
Vince Velasquez, Jerad Eickhoff: Go
Yes, we have to group them all together because frankly, I don’t know where all of them stand on the starting pitching rotation.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Gabe Kapler didn’t know either, nevertheless, this is the review for the starters, openers or whatever else you like to call them.
Philadelphia Phillies
All of these pitchers have had some good moments this year and they all have had enough to give you hope that they are the answer. As soon as they win your heart over and you fully believe in their abilities they immediately let up back-to-back-to-back home runs (looking at you Eickoff), or they go into the bullpen and pitch dominant innings, and then horrible ones (yes you Velasquez).
Eickhoff was placed on the injured list with an arm injury and Velasquez was scheduled to get another start before back-to-back rainouts pushed the rotation back.
To get back on track, these pitchers have been given a chance, some more than others, yet they all failed to execute and deliver consistent innings.
Before the combined efforts on Friday in Atlanta, I may have had different answers for these pitchers, yet when you let up that many runs and Sean Rodriguez out pitches you, you have to go.
Next. Phillies rotation in disarray. dark
Now, these can always change due to how inconsistent every pitcher has been this year but the Phillies will need to find some new faces to revamp this rotation.