6 stats that prove beyond a doubt Phillies' Jesús Luzardo trade was a winning move

In the 2024-25 offseason that was filled with marquee names in the rotation like Max Fried, Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes, Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski opted to bank on upside instead. He traded No. 4 prospect Starlyn Caba and No. 23 prospect Emaarion Boyd to the Miami Marlins for then 27-year-old Jesús Luzardo, and boy did that move pay dividends.

In 51 games at Single-A, Caba recorded just a .222/.335/.278 slash line while Boyd tallied a .241/.337/.330 line in 101 games between High-A and Double-A. Meanwhile, Luzardo had a career year in just about every stat during his first season wearing red pinstripes.

6 stats that prove Phillies' trade for Jesús Luzardo was a winning move

1. 183 2/3 innings pitched

Entering the year, Luzardo had only tallied over 100 innings twice in his five seasons as a starter. But in his first season with the Phillies, the southpaw proved to be a workhorse with a career-high 183 2/3 innings pitched, surpassing his previous career-high of 178 2/3 in 2023.

Across his 32 starts, Luzardo pitched into the sixth inning or later in 24 of them, with 12 going into the seventh and two pushing into the eighth, which are all career highs. Only Cristopher Sánchez (29) had more starts go into the sixth inning or later.

Not only did Luzardo routinely pitch deep into games, but he became more dominant as the game went on. Opponents hit just .204 against him in innings four through six and .239 in innings seven through nine, compared to .268 in the first three innings. We saw this unfold in a start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11 when Luzardo allowed four runs in the first before setting down the next 22 batters.

2. 18 quality starts

Speaking of pitching deep into games, Luzardo racked up 18 quality starts during the regular season, the 14th most in the majors and second most on the team behind Sánchez's 22. His 18 quality starts also marked a new career high, surpassing his 2023 total of 17.

Ranger Suárez (17) and Zack Wheeler (16) weren't too far behind Luzardo, but his ability to keep the Phillies in games as the team's third-best starter for the majority of the year isn't something to scoff at.

3. 15 wins

All of those quality starts led to a plethora of wins for Luzardo, who finished the year with a career-high 15 wins. It also tied for fifth in MLB behind just Max Fried (19), Carlos Rodón (18), Garrett Crochet (18) and Freddy Peralta (17) and beat out Sánchez (13), Suárez (12) and Wheeler (10) for the team lead.

Luzardo was a huge part of the Phillies' early-season success, as he racked up a perfect 5-0 record over his first 11 starts before a blowup outing against Milwaukee ruined an All-Star-caliber and potential Cy Young-caliber season.

4. 3.92 ERA

On the surface, this number doesn't look too appealing, especially when you consider the ERA of the other Phillies starters. However, when you take away the two games Luzardo was tipping his pitches, his ERA drops all the way down to 3.03, which would have been a career best.

The way Luzardo was able to bounce back from those two rough starts and finish the year — with a 3.57 ERA over 111 innings — impressed manager Rob Thomson.

"This isn't a normal place to play because there's a lot of expectations. There's a lot of noise," Thomson said during a press conference near the end of the regular season. "When a guy comes in and starts off good and then goes into a bit of a slump... it's good to see a guy come out of that and get to the other side of that... put the bad starts behind him and get going again."

5. 216 strikeouts

Luzardo was one of just 12 MLB starters to record 200+ strikeouts this season. He tallied the fourth most with a career-best 216, ahead of notable names like Paul Skenes, Hunter Brown, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and his teammate Sánchez, as they became the only duo to have over 200 strikeouts each.

The addition of a sweeper to Luzardo's arsenal proved to be a deadly wipeout pitch, as hitters whiffed on it over 43 percent of the time with just a .178 batting average against. The southpaw was also able to generate more swings and misses on his four-seam fastball than the year prior as over 20 percent of his strikeouts came via the fastball, compared to just nine percent in 2024.

Luzardo even showcased his swing-and-miss stuff against his teammates during the Phillies' intrasquad game, striking out Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Harrison Bader to begin the scrimmage, giving us a little tease of what would eventually follow suit.

6. 18 swings and misses in NLDS

Luzardo's nasty repertoire was on full display for the entire baseball world to see during the NLDS series that was dominated by pitchers. With the Phillies in need of a great performance in Game 2, Luzardo rose to the occasion, going nearly pitch-for-pitch with Los Angeles Dodgers starter Blake Snell for six scoreless innings.

He was nearly untouchable all game with a streak of 17 straight Dodgers' retired thanks to 11 swings and misses and five strikeouts across his outing before finally allowing two base runners in the seventh.

Then, with the season on the line in Game 4, Luzardo once again gave the Phillies a shot to win with seven swings and misses and three strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings of relief work. From the jump he was dominant, setting down Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández in order to begin the 10th.

Overall, his 18 total swings and misses ranked fifth among all pitchers in the series, behind Sánchez (32), Ohtani (23), Snell (23) and Glasnow (20). Despite all the uncertainty now surrounding the state of this Phillies core, Luzardo has proven to be a bright spot in a potentially dark time.