The Philadelphia Phillies pitching staff has a chance to be the best in baseball in 2025. The first half of the 2024 season exemplified that this team can hit multiple gears even with some of the injuries they sustained. This coming season, they'll again have something to prove with now defending their NL East crown.
To add to an already playoff-caliber roster and keep their window open, the Phillies went out and traded for another potential All-Star in left-handed hurler Jesús Luzardo.
Luzardo had been a force in the Miami Marlins starting rotation, pairing with Sandy Alcántara. The 26-year-old lefty has a lively arm with put-away stuff and will add serious depth to an already stacked rotation for the Phillies at a relatively cheap price. One concern, however, is his injury history — a reasonable issue that could hurt his contributions in 2025.
Jesús Luzardo's health update should be music to Phillies fans' ears
After hearing from Luzardo, it sounds like it may be all in the past now.
In a recent Zoom call with the media, Luzardo described his battle with injury. The injuries prevented him from doing what he knows he's capable of as a competitor, per MLB.com's Todd Zolecki.
“I feel 100 percent,” Luzardo said, per Zolecki. “I’ve felt 100 percent the whole offseason. Yeah, last year definitely the back was the root issue and the problem. And now that we’ve got that all figured out, thankfully, everything is back to normal.”
"There’s always ways to improve," Luzardo stated. "Health was the biggest one. I think it hindered me in my ability to do these other things. But now being back to being healthy, I think that there are certain things that I was doing in ’22 and ’23, maybe in the way of attacking guys. You know, different little things I could do in my game planning, attacking these hitters. I would say health was probably the root of the problem, and now that that’s gone, we can get back to what it was."
Luzardo was coming into his own in 2022 with the Marlins and truly shined in 2023. He finished the year with a 3.58 ERA and 208 strikeouts in 178 2/3 innings pitched. Last season was a down year, with a 5.00 ERA with back issues limiting him to only 66 2/3 innings pitched.
It was a risk bringing in another previously injured player to get the team back to the playoffs, but Luzardo is someone with high upside, per Corey Seidman of NBC Sports Philadelphia. A young and talented left-hander can go a long way for this staff if he remains healthy. Luzardo sounds confident that things are back on track for his health and Phillies fans wouldn't want any different.
Luzardo also gives the Phillies an option to extend the window for their staff post-Zack Wheeler. If Luzardo can stay healthy and become a reliable top-of-the-rotation option, an extension and a heavier workload could be down the pike for him with a chance to continue the Phillies' winning ways.