This Is Why the Phillies Didn’t Lower Taijuan Walker Final Winter

On Monday night time in Cincinnati, Taijuan Walker scattered six hits and a stroll over six innings. He allowed solely a single earned run. He didn’t choose up a win; in reality, he was in line for the loss when supervisor Rob Thomson yanked him. However Walker pitched nicely sufficient to maintain the Phillies inside putting distance. Reds starter Andrew Abbott remained within the sport into the eighth inning, the place the Phillies lastly touched him up. The NL East leaders went on to win the sport 4-1.

I final wrote about Walker 5 months in the past, on the very finish of spring coaching. On the time, Walker was coming off a season wherein he was the worst common beginning pitcher in baseball, and as frustrations across the workforce bubbled over following a disappointing playoff loss, the workforce’s overpaid and underperforming no. 6 starter was a straightforward goal for public ire. Even in Philadelphia, it’s laborious for an athlete to achieve pariah standing on high quality of play alone, however Walker had managed it.

By means of all of it, I remained extra optimistic than most concerning the veteran right-hander, which was not troublesome. I additionally felt unhealthy for the man on a human stage; it’s not straightforward to have tens of hundreds of individuals boo you each time you screw up at work, regardless of how a lot cash you make.

Extra to the purpose, I noticed no utility in any respect in making an attempt to commerce or reduce Walker after the worst season of his (or, certainly, virtually anybody’s) profession. The Phillies would both must eat $36 million in wage or commerce a severe prospect to be able to get another person to take action; higher to let him take the offseason to get proper and re-evaluate issues later in 2025. It’s not like he may pitch any worse.

However, Monday’s outing was Walker’s twenty fifth of the yr, and his 14th begin. In whole, he’s posted a 3.39 ERA over 85 innings, which is a greater ERA over a heavier workload than Spencer Strider or George Kirby this yr, amongst others. In line with Baseball Savant’s Yr to Yr Modifications Leaderboard, Walker has had the largest enchancment of any pitcher within the league in xwOBA, and the seventh greatest in wOBA.

At the same time as a Walker optimist, I’d by no means have guessed that he’d obtain these numbers, and nonetheless be beginning for the Phillies in mid-August.

Irrespective of how unhealthy Walker was in 2024, the opposite cause to maintain him round is that nearly each workforce runs out of beginning pitchers. The Phillies are higher on this respect than most. In 2025, they’ve solely used seven actual beginning pitchers; for the needs of this text, I’m defining a “actual” begin as lasting not less than three innings and 15 batters confronted, to weed out the openers and bullpen video games.

That’s abnormally low; solely the Angels, unironically a bastion of stability on this case, have used fewer real starters. The Dodgers have used 14, whereas the Brewers and Astros have each used 12, and the Tigers, Mets, and Padres 11 every. That’s rather a lot!

It hasn’t all been easy crusing; Walker acquired his first few turns within the rotation whereas lefty Ranger Suárez was on the IL. Aaron Nola has been damage a lot of the yr, and unplayable when wholesome. Even the unflappable Zack Wheeler is having some problems with late and will find yourself on the IL himself in some unspecified time in the future.

The Phillies are one of many higher organizations in baseball in terms of preserving their pitchers wholesome, they usually’ve invested immense assets in terms of filling out their rotation depth. Contemplate what it took to amass these seven starters, plus the as-yet-un-decanted Andrew Painter, who looms in Triple-Some time ready for his name: Three of their previous 12 first-round picks; two prospects who would hit the worldwide Prime 100 after being traded; and slightly below $102 million in wage this yr alone.

And nonetheless, as an alternative of being run out of city on a rail, Walker is driving into the rotation on a white horse to avoid wasting the day.

OK, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, however Walker has pitched nicely, and in nice quantity, when he regarded cooked a yr in the past. It’s not good; his fastball velocity continues to be down a tick from 2023, and Walker is outperforming his xERA by two-thirds of a run and his FIP by a run and a half. However a good back-end starter (albeit an costly one) is an enormous enchancment from final yr.

Numerous the distinction comes from stuff I wrote about in March. Walker’s repertoire has extra elements than your step dad’s secret chili recipe, and final yr all the things went form of bland. The most important drawback, from my vantage level, was that his three fastballs and his splitter blended collectively into one extremely hittable upper-80s mush. Even in Grapefruit League play, he was getting extra separation on that facet of his repertoire, and that’s continued all through the common season.

Let’s zoom in on the sinker and splitter as a pair; these had been Walker’s two most-used pitches in 2023 and 2024, and even now they’ve fairly comparable motion. In 2024, these had been two of the worst pitches in all of baseball; as a tandem, Baseball Savant had them costing Walker 27 runs over the course of the season:

Normally, life will get simpler for a pitcher when his fastball/changeup combo will get hit for a .700 OPS, quite than a 1.100 OPS.

Walker’s finest pitch this yr is his cutter, which he’s throwing with extra horizontal motion than in 2024. Extra to the purpose, he’s throwing it thrice as usually. Final yr, he was throwing a sweeper that acquired good leads to isolation, however its motion profile bumped into the cutter’s, rendering the latter ineffective. This yr, after returning to a standard slider with extra downward break, Walker is throwing his cutter virtually a 3rd of the time. It’s not a terrific pitch — Walker has allowed six dwelling runs off his cutter and eight dwelling runs off his different 5 pitches mixed — however opponents are solely hitting .212 towards it.

Add in some marginal good points elsewhere — extra strikes, fewer walks, extra groundballs — and Walker is as soon as once more a usable main league starter. However because the Phillies trundle towards a fourth consecutive playoff berth, it’s not clear what function (if any) he’d be able to enjoying within the postseason.

Let’s get as pessimistic as doable concerning the Phillies’ rotation with out turning the following six weeks right into a catastrophe film. Say Wheeler’s barking shoulder — which he says he’s “not involved” about — seems to be severe. Let’s additionally say that Nola, who’s at present working by means of a minor league rehab project as he recovers from an ankle damage, will get again to the majors and continues to pitch, nicely, like Walker did in 2024.

That’d nonetheless go away the Phillies with a playoff rotation of Cristopher Sánchez, Suárez, Jesús Luzardo (all of whom are within the prime 20 within the league in pitcher WAR, together with Wheeler), and possibly Painter.

Again in 2023, Walker pitched higher than he’s pitching now, Luzardo was on the Marlins, and Sánchez was however an egg. And he was nonetheless an unused substitute through the postseason. On this act of his profession, Walker’s power has been quantity, which is much less useful in October.

Through the common season, a significant league workforce wants 1,400 innings, enjoying six occasions per week towards variable competitors, to make it by means of the season. Within the playoffs, the competitors is totally unforgiving, off days are quite a few, and the trail to the World Collection may be traveled in not way more than 100 innings whole. A pitch-to-contact man with a 4.85 FIP is of extremely restricted utility in that state of affairs.

Given the Phillies’ surfeit of rotation choices, Walker has already taken just a few turns within the ‘pen; his 11 aid appearances this season greater than doubled his earlier profession whole. He even picked up his first profession save again in Might.

However whereas some pitchers can run the marathon of beginning and nonetheless thrive in one-inning sprints, Walker isn’t actually reduce out for that. When pitching out of the bullpen, he throws tougher and will get extra swings and misses, however the good points are laughably small: His fastball velocity improves from 92.2 mph to 92.9 mph, and he goes from a 15.6% strikeout price and 18.1% whiff price to 22.9% and 18.7%, respectively.

Having strengthened the bullpen by signing David Robertson and buying and selling for Jhoan Duran, the Phillies are already operating out of aid spots, and issues will get extra crowded when Nola will get wholesome and Painter will get known as up.

So this glad second for Walker will most likely find yourself being bittersweet, which is a disgrace. He’s bounced again from that dreadful 2024 marketing campaign. He’s remade himself, performed nicely, and had a not-insignificant hand in placing the Phillies on the trail to defend their division title. And but the overwhelming chances are high that he’ll spend one more October not on the mound, however in sneakers and a windbreaker.