{"id":350660,"date":"2025-12-16T00:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T00:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/350660\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T00:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T00:55:07","slug":"latest-on-evan-phillips-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/350660\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On Evan Phillips – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dodgers non-tendered former closer Evan Phillips<\/a> in November, as the right-hander is recovering from Tommy John surgery and was heading into his final season of club control. Phillips\u2019 projected $6.1MM salary would\u2019ve cost the Dodgers more than double due to taxes, and given that he underwent surgery in early June, there\u2019s no guarantee he\u2019ll be back on a mound this season at all.<\/p>\n

On the surface, Phillips makes for an interesting free agent target for clubs looking at bullpen help both in 2026 and in 2027. It\u2019s become increasingly common for pitchers rehabbing from UCL surgeries to sign two-year deals, with the first year ticketed largely for rehab and the second intended to be a full season on the mound. Phillips, however, prefers to sign a straight one-year deal and return to the market next offseason, reports Tim Healey of the Boston Globe<\/a>. Phillips isn\u2019t planning to sign until at least January, when he\u2019s cleared to resume throwing, and may delay signing until July, when he\u2019s effectively game-ready.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are among the teams that have expressed interest in Phillips, per Healey, though they\u2019re surely just one of many. Phillips\u2019 one-year target and pre-injury track record make him a plausible fit for nearly any team. He\u2019s not going to be prohibitively expensive for most clubs, and the 31-year-old righty has been terrific in four-plus seasons with Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Originally landing with the Dodgers by way of a waiver claim from the Rays, Phillips pitched decently in the final few weeks of the 2021 season. However, it was the 2022 season that saw the right-hander truly break out. In 63 innings that season, he turned in a superhuman 1.14 ERA with a 33% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate.<\/p>\n

Dating back to that 2022 breakout, Phillips has pitched 184 2\/3 innings with a 2.14 earned run average, a 29.6% strikeout rate, a 6.6% walk rate, a 43.3% ground-ball rate, 45 saves and 36 holds. He\u2019s allowed an average of just 0.68 homers per nine innings pitched while sitting better than 96 mph with his four-seamer, just under 95.8 mph with his sinker, 93.1 mph with his cutter and 85.1 mph with his slider.<\/p>\n

There are advantages both to waiting into late in the offseason and waiting until midseason to sign. If Phillips waits until January or later, he\u2019ll be able to more tangibly show the progress he\u2019s made in his surgery rehab. Scouts won\u2019t be getting a glimpse of him at 100%, of course, but it\u2019ll show he\u2019s well into the rehab process and give them some empirical data to compare to other pitchers when they were at the same point in their own rehab process. That could improve his earning power. Waiting until spring training could create some new suitors and\/or new urgency among interested teams, too, as it\u2019s inevitable that a handful of relievers around the game will go down with injuries this spring (as is the case every spring).<\/p>\n

Waiting until midseason would mean going through the first several months of the year rehabbing on his own rather than with a team, but Phillips could more accurately see which clubs are postseason contenders. It\u2019d also rule out any possibility of a qualifying offer \u2014 however slight it would be. (Had Phillips not been injured and continued on his prior trajectory, he\u2019d have been a QO candidate; obviously, doing that over 20-30 innings post-surgery would make the chances of receiving one far smaller.) That wouldn\u2019t be an option if he signs a one-year deal in late June or early July, as players need to spend the whole season on a major league roster\/injured list in order to receive a QO.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fairly rare for a reliever to receive a QO but it does happen. As shown on MLBTR\u2019s Contract Tracker<\/a>, in the past five years, three relievers have received and rejected QOs. They are Raisel Iglesias<\/a>, Josh Hader<\/a> and Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a>, who were all top closers when those deals were signed.<\/p>\n

Phillips was arguably near that tier not too long ago but he would have to really dominate late in 2026 for a QO to become a real consideration after an extended surgery layoff. Still, from his perspective, he might prefer to wait to sign until the season has begun. Since he\u2019s going to be missing the first half of the season regardless, he might as well close off the chance of a QO, even if it\u2019s already a small one. A QO has a negative impact on a free agent\u2019s earning power, so it\u2019s always preferable to avoid it, if possible.<\/p>\n

The midseason signing path would also give him more time to get fully healthy. As the season rolls along, it would also create a clearer picture of which teams need him the most due to injuries, competitiveness, and so on.<\/p>\n

Last winter, David Robertson<\/a> was a free agent but was reportedly looking for a deal with an average annual value of $10MM. When he didn\u2019t find what he was looking for, he decided not to sign until the Phillies inked him in July, barely a week before the trade deadline. That was technically a prorated $16MM deal. Robertson only received about $6MM of that but that got him pretty close to his asking price for just a few months of work and he got to pick a club clearly in contention after the All-Star break.<\/p>\n

That situation wasn\u2019t exactly the same since Robertson was healthy whereas Phillips is not. However, it\u2019s possible it plays out in a somewhat similar fashion. If Phillips doesn\u2019t find offers to his liking in the coming months, he could just keep building strength. Presumably, interest from clubs would ramp up in kind. On the other hand, all this is contingent on Phillips avoiding setbacks. If he receives a somewhat fair offer in the coming months, he\u2019ll have to weigh the pros and cons of turning it down to potentially try for more in the summer.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers non-tendered former closer Evan Phillips in November, as the right-hander is recovering from Tommy John surgery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,171678,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-350660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-evan-phillips","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}