How the Phillies went from a historically bad bullpen to one of MLB’s best

In 2020, the Phillies had a historically bad bullpen. This is not hyperbole (or a secret). Their relievers combined for a 7.06 ERA, which ranked second-highest in MLB history. No team had more blown saves.

They opened their season with pitchers like Reggie McClain and Deolis Guerra and finished it with the additions of Heath Hembree and Brandon Workman, who were acquired from the Red Sox in August. After one particularly brutal blown save, Congressman Brendan Boyle, who represents Pennsylvania’s 2nd District, took to Twitter.

“I’m introducing legislation in Congress to outlaw the Phillies bullpen,” he wrote.

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Things are different now. The Phillies have legitimate bullpen depth. They’ve shown an ability to acquire major league relievers in unorthodox places, whether it be the waiver wire, small trades, or minor league deals.

Andrew Bellatti was signed to a minor-league contract in 2021 and pitched for the Phillies in the World Series about a year later. Jeff Hoffman — also signed to a minor-league contract — has become a high-leverage arm in their bullpen.

There are player development success stories, like Orion Kerkering, and coaching success stories, like José Alvarado. Of course, not every player has panned out. The Phillies signed Jeurys Familia to a $6 million contract in March 2022 only to designate him for assignment in August. But there are more wins than losses.

FanGraphs recently projected the Phillies to have the best bullpen in baseball by fWAR this season — which is something that didn’t seem possible three years ago. Here are a few reasons they got to this point:

Left-handed reliever Kolby Allard had plenty of interest from teams around the league this offseason, but he ended up signing with the Phillies for one reason above all else. He watched from afar as pitchers like Bellatti, Cristopher Sánchez, and Hoffman found success in Philadelphia. It seemed like the coaches were able to unlock something with almost every pitcher they worked with.

Allard wanted that for himself. He was a 26-year-old former first-round pick who struggled at the major-league level. He saw a chance to reach his potential and took it.

“I’d heard amazing things over the years about [assistant pitching coach Brian] Kaplan and [pitching coach] Caleb [Cotham],” Allard said. “I think there’s been a lot of times in my career where I’ve felt very close to being who I know I can be. And I think working with Kap and Caleb can hopefully push me to the next level.”

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Spencer Turnbull, who was signed as a free-agent reliever in February but will now start out in the rotation with Taijuan Walker opening the season on the injured list, seconded Allard’s sentiment.

“I knew enough to know that there was a really good pitching staff here,” he said. “I was pretty confident that I’d be able to get a lot better and improve. That definitely factored in to my decision to come here.”

Players aren’t just drawn to the coaching. Over the past few years, the Phillies have done a good job of keeping guys healthy — a big draw for pitchers, who are more susceptible to injury than other position players.

Turnbull spent most of last season on the injured list. He missed the 2022 season while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He said he wasn’t aware of the caliber of the Phillies’ medical and training staff before signing, but it has been a pleasant surprise.

“They are absolutely incredible,” Turnbull said. “Their philosophies on how the body works, and how fascia works, and how to get muscle groups firing in all the right ways … they know how to individualize things for each player to get them feeling their best. My body is feeling great, and I attribute that a lot to the training staff.

“I feel like everything I need is here. I don’t need to go searching for it anywhere else. All the hands-on treatment, and the muscle activation techniques that they use, have been extremely effective. In the past, I would have to outsource that stuff. Find different experts in different fields. I don’t have to do that here. I don’t have to fly someone in for massage or physical therapy. If I need cupping, massage, or whatever, it’s not just that they have that available, they’re also very skilled at it.”

The front office has confidence that the Phillies’ coaching and medical staffs will improve their players, too. It shows in their acquisitions. They’ve sought out players who have high upside but also are a work in progress.

“I think we’ve put a heavy emphasis on acquiring stuff, loud stuff — whether that’s off-speed pitches or velocity — with some guys who have maybe had a track record of not being around the zone,” Kaplan said. “Or maybe had a track record of not being consistent or healthy. But in those scenarios, we’ve been able to kind of improve some of that skill to get the most out of those guys.”

In January 2020, Sam Fuld was promoted to director of the Phillies’ integrative baseball performance department. Fuld — who is now general manager — brought a different perspective to the job. He spent parts of eight seasons in the big leagues and understood how important it was to see the full picture of a player.

His job was to facilitate that by connecting different wings of the organization. What started as a small department has now become a team-wide ethos.

“It was an initiative to knock down silos and bring people together in one room,” Fuld said. “We all spend a lot of time talking about players and finding ways to make them better. Sometimes, it’s really marginal decisions, but those little changes can really open up big doors. It’s rarely as simple as just making one little adjustment within one department. It’s more often than not a really holistic approach that gets guys to that next level.

“So it was about trying to connect dots between what guys are doing in the weight room and what they’re doing in the training room and what they’re doing with their mental performance staff and what they’re doing with their nutrition and sleep. You connect that to what they’re doing in their bullpen sessions and then their catch play. They’re all inextricably linked. And I think it’s important to be able to see that. It’s not easy to connect those components. But I think we’re doing a much better job of it today.”

There are many Phillies pitchers who have benefitted from this approach. Sánchez is one of them. Not so long ago, he was a reliever who was shuffled back and forth from triple A. Now, he’s an entrenched member of the Phillies’ rotation.

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Sánchez deserves the credit for making it happen, but there also were staff members behind the scenes who contributed. Kaplan and Cotham encouraged him to stay in the zone and rely on a more unpredictable pitch mix, which helped him attack the plate. The nutrition, strength and conditioning, and training departments helped Sánchez get stronger, specifically in his lower half.

“Morgan [Gregory] and Furey [Leva] and Stephanie [MacNeill] — it’s been a group effort on their part,” Kaplan said. “They’ve shown Sanchy why stuff in the weight room could be such a valuable tool for what he’s trying to do on the field. He finally bought into that last year, and he’s kind of run with it.”

It is an ongoing process. This offseason, Sánchez, Kaplan, and Cotham discussed adding a cutter to help him keep righties off the plate. He saw good results from it this spring that bode well for the regular season. He also came into camp with added muscle and saw an uptick in velocity as a result.

This is the kind of development that would have been hard for the Phillies to pull off a few years ago, but they are a different organization now. Collaboration is more of a priority.

There’s no guarantee they will have the best bullpen in the game this season, as FanGraphs WAR projects, or even one of the best. Injuries happen, and pitching is fickle. But the processes that have been created over the past few years are not. And the Phillies are confident that they will continue to lead to results.

“Part of the equation is certainly which players we look to acquire, and a big piece of it is what our staff can do once they become Phillies,” Fuld said. “I think, collectively, we’ve done a nice job of acquiring talented guys and then getting a lot of the untapped talent out there. And that’s just a credit to everybody involved.

“We’ve been especially pleased with particularly some of the relievers that we’ve been able to bring in that don’t necessarily make headlines but ultimately end up helping us win games.”

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