Role?
Archie Bradley didn’t want to talk about no stinkin’ role.
On his first day as the Phillies new closer, all the bushy-bearded right-hander wanted to talk about was winning.
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Oh, yeah, and throwing to J.T. Realmuto.
Even though the roster on the Phillies’ official website quickly designated him as the team’s closer, Bradley would hear nothing of that when his signing was announced in a video conference with reporters on Monday.
“I’m happy to be a Phillie. I’m very fired up,” he said. (As proof, he wore a sweater with the fired-up visage of Ric Flair emblazoned across the front.) “Any questions about closer or save opportunities, I really don’t care to answer today.
“I want to talk about winning. I want to talk about the Phillies getting better and our chance to go win a World Series. All that stuff will work itself out, trust me. I want to take the ball in the ninth. I want to take the ball in any situation."
MLB
The Philies had the worst bullpen in the majors in 2020, a fatal flaw that prevented the team from having a winning season for a ninth straight year and cost general manager Matt Klentak his job. Dave Dombrowski is the new leader of baseball ops. He said he’d be aggressive in trying to fix the bullpen. Bradley, who ranks eighth in innings (233 1/3) and 14th in ERA (2.82) among big-league relievers the last four seasons, is a big addition.
“I think we’ve significantly improved ourselves,” said Dombrowski, who previously added octane to the bullpen by trading for hard-throwing lefty Jose Alvarado and hard-throwing righty Sam Coonrod.
Bradley signed a one-year, $6 million contract. He might represent the biggest expenditure the Phillies make in the bullpen this winter, but he might not be the last.
“We can continue to work on improving ourselves, too,” Dombrowski said. “We’re open-minded to future additions as we continue to talk in this free-agent market so we’ll continue to work on it.”
The Phils are also likely to stay active on the market for a back-end starting pitcher and, of course, they remain active in securing potential reunions with free agents Realmuto and Didi Gregorius.
Like Realmuto, Bradley hails from Oklahoma.
“Great dude and I hope he’s a Phillie and I hope to get to throw to him this year,” said Bradley, who sent out a tweet Monday that said #SignJT.
Bradley is not the first player to politic on Realmuto’s behalf. Bryce Harper spent much of the summer stumping for his favorite player. Dombrowski understands where they’re coming from.
“I don’t blame them,” he said. “We feel the same as they do. We’re all on the same page. I think everybody knows we’d like to bring him back. That’s not a secret.”
Manager Joe Girardi has talked many times about his desire to have Realmuto back. Potential landing spots for Realmuto have dried up and other options on the catching market are not nearly as good. Dombrowski said, “There’s just too many good players on the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team to be thinking about transitioning. We’re thinking about winning. That’s what we’re going to try to do.” Bringing back Realmuto would give the Phillies a lot better chance to win in 2021.
Bradley does that, too.
He gives Girardi another option, along with Hector Neris and others, at the back end of games. Neris has been up and down as a closer for the Phillies. It’s not difficult to envision him working in the seventh or eighth inning, helping get the ball to Bradley in the ninth. Bradley has setup and closer experience. He finished 32 games for Arizona in 2019 and had 18 saves.
“He definitely has the ability to close,” said Girardi, who favors a bullpen with defined roles. “But one of the things that excites us about Archie is what he said earlier and what he said to me three weeks ago: He just wants to pitch. We’ll just let it iron itself out in spring training.”
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