{"id":285206,"date":"2025-11-15T18:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285206\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T18:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:28:12","slug":"phillies-receiving-interest-in-lefty-relievers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285206\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Receiving Interest In Lefty Relievers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phillies have gotten trade calls on left-handed relievers\u00a0Matt Strahm<\/a>,\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Alvarado<\/a> and\u00a0Tanner Banks<\/a>, reports Matt Gelb of The Athletic<\/a>. Philadelphia could leverage their bullpen depth for help in a different area of the roster.<\/p>\n

All three pitchers are affordable and above-average performers. Alvarado, who\u2019ll make $9MM next season, is the most talented of the group. He\u2019s the hardest-throwing lefty reliever in the game, averaging more than 99 MPH on his fastball. The 30-year-old dominated early in the season and took over the closer role until MLB suspended him for 80 games because of a failed performance-enhancing drug test. That made him ineligible for postseason play, but the Phillies welcomed Alvarado back for the end of the regular season and were confident enough in his ability to exercise<\/a> a 2026 club option.<\/p>\n

Jhoan Duran<\/a> is locked into the ninth inning now. Alvarado projects as Philly\u2019s top lefty setup arm. He\u2019ll be eligible for the playoffs in future seasons, so it\u2019s unlikely the Phillies are putting much stock in the PED suspension moving forward. Alvarado also finished the year on the injured list with a forearm strain but is expected to be fine going into Spring Training.<\/p>\n

An Alvarado trade would be relatively surprising. It\u2019s easier to see the Phils swapping one of Strahm or Banks for someone at a position of greater need. Strahm, who turned 34 on Wednesday, vested a $7.5MM salary for the upcoming season. He\u2019s coming off a 2.74 ERA with an above-average 27.3% strikeout rate across 66 appearances. Strahm owns a 2.71 mark over three seasons in Philadelphia and led the team with 22 holds this year.<\/p>\n

While Strahm remains a quality leverage option, the Phillies could have some concern about his trend lines. His strikeout rate dropped six percentage points relative to 2024, when he fanned a third of opponents. He averaged a career-low 92.3 MPH on his fastball and has seen his swinging strike rate dip in consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Banks, also 34, is the least well known of the Phils\u2019 lefty trio. He didn\u2019t reach the big leagues until his age-30 season and spent his first couple seasons on a rebuilding White Sox team. Banks was an under-the-radar deadline pickup in 2024 and has turned in a 3.24 ERA with a league average 22.5% strikeout rate over 91 2\/3 innings in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

His fastball sits in the low-90s, but he attacks the strike zone with a pair of breaking pitches and held lefty batters to a putrid .172\/.213\/.243 slash line this year. Banks has held his own against right-handed hitters as well, but he\u2019s the kind of pitcher whom teams generally prefer in a middle relief\/specialist role rather than as a true high-leverage arm. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects<\/a> him for a $1.2MM salary in his first of three seasons of arbitration eligibility.<\/p>\n

Teams seeking lefty relief help don\u2019t have many free agent options<\/a>. Gregory Soto<\/a> is probably in line for the largest contract. He\u2019s a power arm but has inconsistent command and has allowed more than four earned runs per nine in each of the past three seasons. Drew Pomeranz<\/a>,\u00a0Caleb Thielbar<\/a>, Hoby Milner<\/a>, Justin Wilson<\/a>, Taylor Rogers<\/a>\u00a0and Danny Coulombe<\/a> should be limited to one-year deals based on their age.\u00a0Sean Newcomb<\/a> or\u00a0Caleb Ferguson<\/a> could command a cheap two-year deal but aren\u2019t ideal high-leverage options.\u00a0Steven Matz<\/a>, Ryan Yarbrough<\/a>\u00a0and NPB returnees Anthony Kay<\/a> and\u00a0Foster Griffin<\/a> are swing types.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a weak group, which could lead teams to turn to the trade market. The Cardinals are likely to move former Phillie JoJo Romero<\/a>, who is going into his final season of arbitration. The rebuilding Nationals could hear teams out on grounder specialist\u00a0Jose A. Ferrer<\/a>. The Rays are down to two years of control on Garrett Cleavinger<\/a> and would surely entertain offers, but they\u2019re going to have a huge asking price. Every contender could evaluate the bullpen market. The Blue Jays, Giants, Mariners, Diamondbacks and Cubs are among the teams that could use another left-handed arm in particular.<\/p>\n

While the Phillies have a good group of southpaws, they could use a more reliable right-handed setup arm than\u00a0Orion Kerkering<\/a> in front of Duran. They\u2019re also in the market for outfield help<\/a> and potentially a depth starter\/swingman with Harrison Bader<\/a> and\u00a0Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> hitting free agency. They\u2019re prioritizing re-signing\u00a0Kyle Schwarber<\/a> and\u00a0J.T. Realmuto<\/a>. They\u2019d need to go outside the organization for a catcher if Realmuto signs elsewhere, as a\u00a0Rafael March\u00e1n<\/a>\/Garrett Stubbs<\/a> pairing would be one of the worst offensive duos in the game. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski acknowledged at the GM Meetings that they\u2019re evaluating an otherwise weak catching market as a backup plan in case Realmuto doesn\u2019t return (link via Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies have gotten trade calls on left-handed relievers\u00a0Matt Strahm,\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Alvarado and\u00a0Tanner Banks, reports Matt Gelb of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,13307,77259,14565,462,82,129487],"class_list":{"0":"post-285206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-j-t-realmuto","11":"tag-jose-alvarado","12":"tag-matt-strahm","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tanner-banks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}