Following the disastrous 2015 season that saw them bottom out completely, the Philadelphia Phillies set to work on making some changes to reshape the club. One of the few luxuries that they enjoyed at the time, but that a bad team doesn't need whatsoever, was a solid closer in Ken Giles. As a result, they sent Giles to an up-and-coming Astros team on Dec. 12 of that year in a six-player deal that brought young Vince Velasquez to town. What ensued was a roller coaster couple of years for the right-handed hurler and the team that kept giving him chance after chance to prove himself.
Velasquez debuted in the bigs in 2015 for Houston, making seven starts and 19 appearances overall while pitching to a 4.37 ERA across 55.2 innings. He struck out 58 hitters in that stretch, and he was a tantalizing target for a team like the Phillies that was looking for raw talent in need of an opportunity. And so it came to be that Velasquez won a spot in the Phillies' starting rotation to begin the 2016 season, with his first assignment coming in the team's fifth game of the season on the road against the Mets.
To his credit, Velasquez was terrific, tossing six shutout innings and striking out nine. It was a great team debut. But hardly anyone even remembers that game anymore because of what followed five days later. On April 14, 2016, the Phillies played the Padres in a Thursday afternoon getaway game, the final match of a four-game series and Velasquez's debut at Citizens Bank Park for the Phils. Vinny V wasted absolutely no time getting the crowd pumped, striking out the side in the top of the first inning.
Phillies fans should take note of the cautionary tale of Vince Velasquez on the tenth anniversary of his greatest performance
Ryan Howard homered in the bottom of the second to open the scoring, and Velasquez continued to put up zeroes. He even collected a hit of his own in the bottom of the third, then he just kept mowing down the Padres long enough to see the Phils go up 2-0 on a Howard sac fly in the sixth. Velasquez was at the plate again in the seventh trying to help his own cause, but he didn't need to after a wild pitch brought home another run for the Phillies. It was 3-0 after seven innings, and Velasquez was hurling an absolute gem.
He struck out the side in the top of the eighth, bringing him to 14 whiffs on 102 pitches to that point. Then, to cap things off, he struck out two more in the ninth, putting an exclamation point on his effort by blowing away Wil Myers to end the ballgame. It was an astounding home debut for Velasquez. Unfortunately, it also set the bar impossibly high and established an unrealistic standard that the team kept trying to coax out of him for another half-decade but which didn't really exist.
Even with such a fantastic head start of 15 scoreless innings to start the 2016 season, Velasquez posted a middling 4.12 ERA over 24 starts on the season, throwing a total of 131 innings. Then, the results took a nose dive in 2017 when he battled injury and went 2-7 with a 5.13 ERA in just 15 starts. His strikeouts per 9 also dipped from 10.4 the previous season to just 8.5.
Velasquez got healthy and stayed that way for 2018 and 2019, but the results were overall disappointing ,with just the occasional flash of brilliance mixed in to keep fooling the team (and some of the fans). Taken together, he went 16-20 with a cumulative 4.88 ERA over the 2018 and 2019 campaigns, and it should have been clear to everyone by then that the 27-year old Velasquez was a live arm who just couldn't get over that hurdle to establish himself as even an average MLB starting pitcher.
But the Phillies kept going back to the same well with Vinny V. The strange 60-game 2020 season offered him another chance to redeem himself, but his first eight appearances (six starts) saw him revert to his typical form and carry a 5.46 ERA into the final series of the year. Even though the Phillies were stumbling and bumbling through it all, they still had a shot to make the expanded playoff field and were forced to turn to Velasquez one last time for a game in Tampa.
This was truly his shot to re-write his story, but he was his typical self, allowing three runs in 4.1 innings while throwing too many pitches to give the team any real length. They lost that game 6-4, setting the tone for an embarrassing season-ending sweep that saw the Phillies miss the playoffs by one game.
Despite all this, the Phillies decided to keep Velasquez with the team to start the 2021 season, and he didn't disappoint ... in the sense that he delivered what everyone knew he would: a 5.95 ERA over 25 appearances (21 starts) in 94.1 innings. All of this finally, mercifully, led to his release on September 12 of that year. That didn't stop the Padres from immediately swooping in to pick him up. Presumably, they were still enamored by him because of his great game against them five years earlier.
Velasquez finished up 2021 with San Diego and saw time with the White Sox in 2022 and the Pirates in 2023. He is currently in Triple-A with the Cubs, and there is a distinct possibility that he’ll see some MLB time this year thanks to numerous injuries to their pitching staff already. As for his long and unstoried Phillies tenure, Velasquez ended up going 30-40 in 133 appearances (116 starts) with a 4.93 ERA over 582.2 aggravating innings pitched. He was who we thought he was, at least after the initial excitement died down.
All of this begs the question; would we have all been better off if Velasquez had never had such an amazing debut?
Long-time fans, and the Phillies organization itself, would have to answer in the affirmative on that one. The instant mystique that Velasquez created ten years ago lasted far too long. Despite his raw talent, he wasn’t able to make the kinds of adjustments and preparations off the mound that could have helped turn him into something legitimate.
The only legacy he leaves is one of disappointment, as well as the ignominy of having an unofficial stat named after him — the Velasquez, wherein a pitcher goes less than five innings, allows at least three earned runs, and throws more than 70 pitches. Ultimately, did the Phillies “win” or even break even in the 2015 trade to bring Velasquez to town? Some think they might have, but it sure doesn’t feel like it to Phillies Nation.
It all started ten years ago when Vinny wowed us with his talent and gave us hope that we were going to witness something special for years to come. Fans should have known better, and the Phillies should have known better, yet they just kept sending him out there for years on end.
Thankfully, the winning brand of baseball that the team has been playing since 2022 (the year after they finally ditched Velasquez) has washed away most of the bad taste. But sometimes, like today, you just have to look back and shake your head.
Won't get fooled again. Until the next time.
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