Phillies 2020 Player Grades: Heath Hembree, David Hale

Grading Phillies reliever David Hale’s 2020 season

Right-hander David Hale was the first reliever the Phillies acquired during the 2020 season — and arguably the most effective. Yet, he made the fewest appearances of the Phillies four trade acquisitions.

The team landed Hale from the New York Yankees on August 21. However, he didn’t appear in a game for the Phils until August 30, after the also-acquired Heath Hembree and Brandon Workman already made multiple appearances for the team.

Hale’s appearances were few and far between; while Workman, Hembree, and David Phelps frequently pitched on back-to-back days or every other day, Hale almost always went four to six days between appearances.

Neither Joe Girardi nor Matt Klentak ever acknowledged why Hale pitched so infrequently. This was particularly frustrating to Phillies fans, considering that the team gave up a promising young prospect in the Hale trade —  Addison Russ — who was ranked among the team’s top-30 prospects.

When Hale did pitch, he was perfectly competent, which is all the Phillies needed from him. His ERA was a non-ideal 4.09, but his strikeout to walk ratio of 7.00 was stellar. Also, Hale’s 1.64 HR/9 wasn’t great, but compared to some of the other Phils relievers, it was good enough.

It’s hard to grade Hale’s season when he pitched in so few games. Should Girardi be blamed for not using Hale enough? Or should we presume that Girardi had a good reason not to trust Hale? It’s hard to say, so I’ll just grade Hale based on numbers he put up in his six games here.

Grade: C