Phillies 2020 Player Grades: Brandon Workman, David Phelps

Grading Phillies RHP Brandon Workman’s 2020 season

The Phillies acquired Brandon Workman on August 21, just two days after he earned the save in a 6-3 Red Sox victory over the Phillies. Klentak must have seen something he liked that day. Fellow reliever Heath Hembree also came over in the trade, which had them giving up Nick Pivetta an prospect Connor Seabold.

This trade might look even worse for the Phillies in a few years if Pivetta finally lives up to his potential and pitches well for the Red Sox; not to mention, Seabold developing into a reliable starting pitcher.

Workman was coming off a 2019 season in which he had a 1.88 ERA in 73 games. His fWAR that season was a whopping 2.1. The Phillies haven’t had a reliever with numbers like that since Ken Giles in 2015.

However, before 2019, Workman was a mediocre reliever at best. From 2013 to 2018, his ERA 4.37; he also got off to a mediocre start in 2020, with a 4.05 ERA in 6 2/3 innings.

Clearly, the Phillies saw Workman’s 2019 season as a breakout rather than a fluke, and manager Joe Girardi appointed him as closer almost immediately upon his arrival.

Workman did not pitch like a closer, however, and he certainly did not pitch like the top trade deadline acquisition of a team with playoff aspirations.

While a victim of some very bad luck in 2020, Workman also pitched very poorly. His home run to flyball ratio (HR/FB) this year was 30.8%, while his career HR/FB is 12.2%. This means that he gave up far more home runs this season than he deserved to, based on how well he pitched.

Workman’s atrocious 6.92 ERA and 6.96 FIP were fueled in large part by his 2.77 HR/9. However, his xFIP — which takes into account how many home runs a pitcher would have allowed with an average HR/FB ratio of 10.5% — was 4.89, which is still far too high for a closer.

I could go on and cite more statistics, but I’m pretty sure everyone reading this already knows how bad Workman was in 2020.

Many fans would give Workman an F for the 2020 season; I can’t blame them for that, however, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Workman has been a mediocre reliever for most of his career, but he was expected to be the Phillies’ closer because he had one good season in 2019 and because the Phillies had no one else better.

Workman was bad in 2020, but if general manager Matt Klentak put together a better bullpen and the Phillies weren’t relying so heavily him, then his failures wouldn’t have been nearly as noticeable.

Grade: D

Grading Phillies RHP David Phelps’ 2020 season

The Phillies acquired David Phelps on August 31 in exchange for three low-level minor leaguers. He was the final pitcher that general manager Matt Klentak acquired for the bullpen in 2020, and perhaps the worst.

Phelps had been a quality bullpen arm for five different teams since he became a full-time reliever in 2016; his ERA from 2016-2019 was 2.85. He was particularly excellent in 2016, when he had a 2.28 ERA in 86.2 innings, with a 2.1 fWAR.

Phelps also impressed the Phillies’ brass with his early performance in 2020. In 13 innings for the Milwaukee Brewers, he pitched to a 2.77 ERA and a 2.81 FIP. He was striking out more batters and walking fewer than he ever had before.

However, there was some cause for concern with Phelps. He sat out the entire 2018 season with an elbow injury, and when he came back in 2019, he showed signs of decline. While his 3.41 ERA was still impressive, his 4.58 FIP and 5.01 xFIP were the worst of his career. His strikeout rate went down, his walk rate went up, and home run rate skyrocketed.

Clearly, Klentak thought that Phelps’ early 20202 success indicated that he had fully rebounded from his Tommy John surgery. Unfortunately, his performance with the Phillies showed that that was far from the case.

In 10 games, Phelps had an absurd 12.91 ERA and 9.97 FIP. While his strikeout rate was impressive and his walk rate was decent, he allowed five home runs in only 7 2/3 innings pitched.

As with Workman, Phelps was the victim of a ridiculously high HR/FB ratio: 50%. His career mark is 11.4%. Thus, he finished with a 4.01 xFIP, which is actually a decent number. It’s not good enough for a closer or a set-up man, but it’s better than a lot of pitchers in the Phillies bullpen.

Thus, while Phelps’ ERA was much worse than Workman’s, his K/9, BB/9 and xFIP suggest that he actually pitched somewhat better.

As with Workman, I want to take into account the fact that our expectations for Phelps were too high.

Grade: C-