{"id":532124,"date":"2026-03-11T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532124\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T00:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:16:14","slug":"by-signing-jesus-luzardo-phillies-quadruple-down-on-their-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532124\/","title":{"rendered":"By signing Jes\u00fas Luzardo, Phillies quadruple down on their rotation"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 On the day the Phillies signed pitcher Jes\u00fas Luzardo to a five-year, $135 million contract extension<\/a>, here\u2019s a question you might want to ask yourself:<\/p>\n

Is it even possible that you love anything as much as Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski loves starting pitching?<\/p>\n

Really. Think about it. Ice cream? Cool cars? That new 196-inch flat screen in your living room? Seriously. Anything?<\/p>\n

Seems doubtful, even to the starting pitchers on Dombrowski\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Dave,\u201d his ace, Zack Wheeler, mused on Tuesday morning. \u201cAnd Dave loves his starting pitching. I think he\u2019s kind of proven that everywhere he\u2019s been. And he\u2019s proven it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, this week, he proved it yet again, by extending Luzardo, a rising 28-year-old star who put up the sixth-best strikeout percentage (28.5 percent) of any qualifying starter in the major leagues last season. The average annual value of Luzardo\u2019s deal ($27 million) puts him behind only five other left-handed starters in the sport.<\/p>\n

PITCHERAAV<\/p>\n

Framber Valdez<\/p>\n

$38.33M<\/p>\n

Blake Snell<\/p>\n

$36.4M<\/p>\n

Tarik Skubal<\/p>\n

$32M<\/p>\n

Garrett Crochet<\/p>\n

$28.33M<\/p>\n

Max Fried<\/p>\n

$27.25M<\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Luzardo<\/p>\n

$27M<\/p>\n

Chris Sale<\/p>\n

$27M<\/p>\n

Carlos Rod\u00f3n<\/p>\n

$27M<\/p>\n

(Source: Cot\u2019s Baseball Contracts)<\/p>\n

Luzardo could have pitched out this season and headed for the shelves of the free-agent superstore next winter. Had he done that, he could have been positioned as the top left-handed starter on the market not named Tarik Skubal. But as Dombrowski said Tuesday, \u201cWe didn\u2019t really want to test that out ourselves.\u201d And Luzardo shared that sentiment, once the dollars lined up, saying: \u201cI don\u2019t like to play the what-ifs (of free agency). I think this came at the perfect time for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources briefed on the Phillies\u2019 discussions said that it wasn\u2019t merely the star-power upside of Luzardo that fueled their push to finalize this contract. It was an assessment of the potential replacement cost of losing Luzardo, in a market with few high-end alternatives other than Skubal and Mets ace Freddy Peralta.<\/p>\n

So three weeks ago, those sources said, the Phillies picked up the pace of negotiations with Luzardo\u2019s agents, Brodie Van Wagenen and Roger Tomas, and chiseled out this deal, which contains escalator clauses that could spike Luzardo\u2019s 2032 club option from $32.5 million to\u00a0as much as $42.5 million.<\/p>\n

But the Phillies will worry about their 2032 payroll some other time. At the moment, they\u2019re reminding the world that they\u2019re as committed to winning \u2014 and building around high-end starting pitching \u2014 as any team in the big leagues. Take a look:<\/p>\n

Luzardo \u2014 under team control through 2032<\/p>\n

Cristopher S\u00e1nchez \u2014 under team control through 2030<\/p>\n

Wheeler \u2014 under team control through 2027<\/p>\n

Aaron Nola \u2014 under team control through 2030<\/p>\n

Andrew Painter \u2014 under team control through 2030<\/p>\n

At a time when their fan base is already getting edgy about how soon this team\u2019s window to win<\/a> could be closing, Dombrowski and the Phillies\u2019 principal owner, John Middleton, clearly have other thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pitching window,\u201d Middleton said, pointedly, \u201cis absolutely not closing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the Phillies will now roll out one of the most expensive rotations in MLB. Luzardo, Wheeler, Nola, S\u00e1nchez and Taijuan Walker will earn more than $115 million this year. And even with Painter making the major-league minimum salary of $780,000, the Phillies will join only the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox on the list of teams with at least three starting pitchers earning $24 million a year or more.<\/p>\n

What is also notable here is that the other teams in the National League East are not built this way. The Braves have Chris Sale and Spencer Strider, but their rotation is filled with pitchers with injury history. The Mets, under president of baseball operations David Stearns, are all about short-term commitments and young arms. And the Nationals and Marlins are floating in a whole different orbit.<\/p>\n

But the Phillies? They haven\u2019t just doubled down on expensive, long-term rotation contracts. They\u2019ve quadrupled down \u2014 by handing out long-term deals to Wheeler, Nola, S\u00e1nchez and now Luzardo.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t a thing that just happened, of course. It\u2019s a central tenet of Dombrowski\u2019s longstanding team-building philosophies. And even if much of the rest of the industry is zigging in the other direction, Dombrowski has no second thoughts about zagging and collecting as many old-school, inning-devouring, swing-and-miss starters as he can round up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t speak for other teams,\u201d Dombrowski said Tuesday. \u201cI don\u2019t know what their mentality is. But basically, it\u2019s worked. \u2026 It\u2019s really worked throughout the years for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Detroit, he had Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, David Price and Rick Porcello \u2014 all once or future Cy Young Award winners \u2014 in his rotation. In Boston, it was Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Price and Porcello. In Miami, he won a World Series with Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Livan Hernandez and Alex Fernandez. They were all vintage Dombrowski pitching productions.<\/p>\n

Those were very different times in this sport than these times. But in many ways, it\u2019s the same Dombrowski. When his starting pitcher is better than your starting pitcher, he still likes his chances as much as ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that you go out there daily, and you look at who\u2019s on the mound,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t always work this way, but do you have the edge or not? I really like having the edge myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as Dombrowski succinctly put it, has it \u201cworked?\u201d It\u2019s hard to argue that it hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Last year, on the way to a 96-win season, Phillies starters led the major leagues in Wins Above Replacement (FanGraphs), strikeout percentage, innings pitched and quality starts. And that occurred in a season in which the two veteran stabilizers in that rotation, Wheeler and Nola, dealt with significant injuries for the first time in their Phillies careers.<\/p>\n

But into that breach stepped S\u00e1nchez and Luzardo, to finish second and seventh, respectively, in NL Cy Young Award voting. Now, the Phillies have both locked up on deals that clearly stamp them as the future leaders of this rotation. S\u00e1nchez has grown into a Cy Young waiting to happen, assuming Paul Skenes ever lets anyone else win one. And Luzardo had the largest jump in strikeout rate last year (7.3 percentage points) of any qualifying pitcher in the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you told me he was going to win a Cy Young some day, I wouldn\u2019t be shocked,\u201d said his catcher, J.T. Realmuto. \u201cHe\u2019s got that type of stuff and that type of work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Happy for our guy \u2764\ufe0f pic.twitter.com\/TECbiEK6HF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) March 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

The question, with Luzardo, has always been health. The Marlins traded him to the Phillies before the 2024 season because they were worried about injury risk. And just before the Phillies traded for him, the Cubs reportedly backed out of a deal because of concerns over his medicals.<\/p>\n

But the Phillies didn\u2019t share those concerns. And even as executives from other teams were still questioning the \u201crisk\u201d the Phillies took in crafting this deal, Luzardo\u2019s team was still shrugging off the idea that he couldn\u2019t stay healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to know all the intricacies of where he\u2019s been and the routines there,\u201d Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham said. \u201cBut all I know is, in the past year, I haven\u2019t seen a guy that\u2019s more dedicated to the recovery aspect, taking advantage of everything that (the Phillies\u2019 athletic training staff) can offer. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, injuries, in some ways, they just happen. But I think there\u2019s also a piece where it\u2019s just him understanding himself better, opening up a playbook in his game \u2014 like throwing all his pitches a little bit more, and not just doing one thing and trying to throw 100 (mph) all the time. It\u2019s actually afforded him a little more freedom to just pitch a little bit, even though he still throws 99.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Phillies added a lethal sweeper to Luzardo\u2019s repertoire last year. It became one of the best swing-and-miss pitches in baseball. But his agent, Tomas, said that isn\u2019t the only reason he has thrived in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the Phillies were able to do with Jes\u00fas made things click for him,\u201d Tomas said. \u201cEveryone talks about the sweeper, and yes, no doubt, that has been a huge difference working off his electric fastball. But what most don\u2019t realize is that the Phillies were so proactive with his health from the minute they traded for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so good at getting him to understand his body, how it works, how they can keep him healthy for a season. Jes\u00fas realized a lot of his little injuries could have been prevented. He\u2019s told me, \u2018I never listened to my body the way I was supposed to and didn\u2019t have the type of plan that I did last year with Phillies from a preventive-care standpoint.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n \u201cSo if you told me he was going to win a Cy Young some day, I wouldn\u2019t be shocked,\u201d J.T. Realmuto said of Jes\u00fas Luzardo. \u201cHe\u2019s got that type of stuff and that type of work ethic.\u201d (Emilee Chinn \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

No one can ever be sure, of course, that one pitch at the wrong time won\u2019t land any pitcher on the injured list. And the Phillies enter this season with more rotation questions than at any time in the last five years:<\/p>\n

\u2022 What will Wheeler look like on the other side of thoracic outlet syndrome surgery?<\/p>\n

\u2022 How much will they miss Ranger Su\u00e1rez, the one key member of this rotation they didn\u2019t keep?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is Nola going to regain his place as one of the most dependable, inning-devouring starters in baseball?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is Painter going to be the guy who once ranked as the No. 1 pitching prospect in the sport or the guy who had a 5.40 ERA in Triple A last year in his first season back after Tommy John surgery?<\/p>\n

\u2022 And is there enough depth in the system to ride to the rescue if any of these things go wrong?<\/p>\n

But the Phillies have made their bet on the upside of this group. And on Tuesday, Middleton even went so far as to compare this rotation to the fabled 2011 all-aces Phillies rotation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2011,\u201d the owner said, \u201cI expected to win every single game.\u201d And if the best-case scenario for all these starters happens, he said, \u201cI\u2019ll have the same feeling I had in \u201911. Why should we ever lose a game?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, the lesson of history is, they\u2019ll lose a lot more than one. But even if they do, there\u2019s one thing the architect of this team can\u2019t ever be accused of:<\/p>\n

Skimping on his starting rotation.<\/p>\n