The Phillies have not added many players yet this offseason, signing four to minor-league contracts and trading for two relievers.
Since taking over as the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski has dealt for lefty Jose Alvarado (Rays) and righty Sam Coonrod (Giants), both of whom possess upper-90s fastballs but haven’t been very productive the last two years. Relievers are fickle and the Phillies are banking on the stuff each pitcher has over their 2019-20 results.
In early January, they agreed to minor-league deals with relievers Neftali Feliz and Michael Ynoa, as well as utilityman Ronald Torreyes and catcher Christian Bethancourt.
With our All Access Daily newsletter, stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams!
SIGN UP HERE Feliz, who is now a decade removed from his early-career dominance and 2010 Rookie of the Year award, spent a half-season in 2015 with Dombrowski’s Tigers.
A pitcher who spent much more time playing for Dombrowski’s clubs is, according to MLB.com’s Jon Morosi, also on their radar: veteran starter Anibal Sanchez.
Sanchez, who was signed to a five-year, $80 million contract by Dombrowski in the offseason after 2012, turns 37 years old in February. He’s spent the last three seasons in the NL East, pitching very well in 2018 and ‘19 but struggling in 11 starts this summer.
The Phillies would be looking at him as rotation depth, which they badly need. The Phillies have Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Zach Eflin, Spencer Howard and Vince Velasquez. There is almost no trustworthy, major-league-ready rotation depth beyond that group of five. Even if the Phillies are going to give Velasquez another shot to start in 2021, they need multiples of insurance behind him. They could use insurance for Howard’s No. 4 spot as well, given the time the 24-year-old has missed two summers in a row with shoulder issues.
As Phillies fans know from watching him over the years, Sanchez is not a hard-thrower. He’s more of a junkballer who relies heavily on soft contact and the disruption of a hitter’s timing. His fastball sits in the 89-91 mph range. Here’s a breakdown of his vast repertoire over the last three seasons:
- 26% 4-seam fastball
- 26% cutters
- 23% changeups
- 9% sinkers
- 7% curveballs
- 5% splitters
- 4% sliders
The splitter has historically been Sanchez’s most effective pitch, holding hitters to a .142 lifetime batting average.
MLB
Sanchez was hittable in 2020, leading the NL in earned runs and posting a 6.62 ERA in 11 starts. In 55 games the prior two seasons with the Nationals and Braves, he was 18-14 with a 3.39 ERA and 1.19 WHIP, numbers that would have made him the Phillies’ second-best starter those years.
He even nearly pitched the second no-hitter of his career in the 2019 NLCS, having it broken it up with two outs in the eighth inning against the Cardinals. The Nationals would not have won it all without Sanchez’s playoff contributions. He held the Dodgers down in an NLDS start and pitched those 7⅔ scoreless innings to win Game 1 of the NLCS.
Sanchez will not be expensive to sign. He just finished a two-year, $19 million deal and is in line for something in the $1-3 million range this time around.
If he does join the Phillies’ rotation, he’d offer a much different look than Nola, Wheeler, Eflin, Howard or Velasquez, relying more on finesse than any of them, almost like a right-handed Jamie Moyer.
We discussed Sanchez in further depth at the 10:19 mark of the latest Phillies Talk podcast.
Subscribe to the Phillies Talk podcast: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube