Phillies' latest public show of faith in Taijuan Walker sounds completely insane

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The Philadelphia Phillies have some pretty good starting pitching, but an injury — in this case, to Ranger Suárez — has opened the door for someone to fill a vacancy for the time being. And here comes the $72 Million Man himself, Taijuan Walker, riding to the rescue to take up occupancy in the rotation for probably most of the month of April.

Walker's contract doesn't end until after the 2026 season, and the Phillies showed no real urgency to divest themselves of it over the offseason, so it shouldn't be a surprising development. But we all should have expected better.

Not to fear, however, says Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who recently dished on several hot topics facing the club on the eve of the 2025 season, according to MLB.com's Todd Zolecki.

“It’s a great opportunity. It’s good to have somebody like that," Dombrowski said about Walker, per Zolecki. "I hope he pitches like he did a couple years ago. I don’t see why he can't with what he has now. He’s thrown well enough.”

Let that sink in, and then we'll discuss.

Phillies' latest public show of faith in Taijuan Walker sounds completely insane

Two years ago, Walker won 15 games to lead the club, which was nice. But to say that he pitched well that year is extremely generous, as Walker's 4.38 ERA and 4.53 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) indicated a hurler who was average at best, even with a little batted ball luck on his side. Walker didn't even pitch well enough to get a sniff of the postseason roster in 2023, then he completely fell apart to the tune of a 7.10 ERA in 2024.

Baseball Savant rated him in the bottom one percent among MLB pitchers in average exit velocity (91.4 mph), whiff rate (16.7 percent), and barrel rate (13.4 percent), and in the bottom three percent in strikeout rate (15.2 percent) and hard-hit rate (46.3 percent). Last time I checked, that's not good.

And yet, Dombrowski is here telling us that Walker won't be a complete disaster in four or five turns through the rotation. We all know that executives have to maintain outward positivity and try to largely avoid throwing their players under the bus, but there isn't a Phillies fan alive who shares his sentiment or is uninformed enough to lend it any credence.

As for the last part of Dombrowski's comments that Walker has "thrown well enough," maybe he was talking about some past incarnation of Walker, because he obviously wasn't referring to his performance this spring. Walker actually looked decent over his first three starts, compiling a 3.86 ERA. But that only spanned 9 1/3 innings pitched, and his last two starts were downright ugly, as he allowed over two baserunners per inning and finished the spring with a 7.41 ERA.

By this point, we've all accepted Walker's ignominious place in Phillies lore, a true blast from the past. Maybe the guy can somehow string together a handful of starts effective enough to help the Phillies win some games. But we would all rather have Joe Ross or some other veteran step in for a little bit while one of the regular Phillies starters recuperated. Unfortunately, Walker is really the only one stretched out enough to do it right now, something that will come to an end soon enough.

If multiple injuries strike the rotation, we could be in for a bumpy 2025, but the Phillies can make it through the imminent hurdle of turning to Walker every fifth game for the time being. As we all pine for Ranger to return to health and for Andrew Painter to finally make his long-anticipated MLB debut, let's focus on the positives surrounding the team without getting too dragged down about the continuing presence of #99 for the immediate future. Let's just hope that we never reach Vinny V. levels of exasperation with this guy.

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