He was good. Then he was disappointing. Then he got hurt.<\/p>\n
One could also say that Alvarado\u2019s injury was a major inflection point for the 2025 Phillies season and not really in the good way.<\/p>\n
28 G, 26 IP, 7 SV, 28.1 K%, 6.1 BB%, 1.38 HR\/9, 3.81 ERA (3.60 FIP), 0.3 fWAR<\/p>\n
About the only positive thing to say about Jose Alvarado in 2025 is that his walk rate was one of the lowest in his career. Otherwise, he really, really messed up last year.<\/p>\n
Pretty much everything. Alvarado\u2019s PED suspension hurt the team\u2019s bullpen because he was pitching well and his absence forced everyone into a role they were not truly meant for when the team laid out its plans for the season. Without him at the end of games to lock down the ninth inning, they were forced to roll through different options in the spot, including the failure that was Jordan Romano.<\/p>\n
One doesn\u2019t want to think about flapping wings on butterflies and such, but consider the following questions if Alvarado is able to legally play the entire 2025 and was as effective as he was in the early part of the season:<\/p>\n
The trade for Duran is probably something that does happen regardless of whether or not Alvarado was suspended or not. They loved having relievers that can throw hard in the playoffs and a Duran-Alvarado duo would have been something to behold.<\/p>\n
However, Alvarado made a poor decision. Choosing to put something in his body that was considered by MLB to be illegal cost the team dearly. It may have cost him a multiyear deal as well.<\/p>\n
The future with the Phillies<\/p>\n
The team decided that picking up Alvarado\u2019s 2026 option for $9 million was a wise decision and it\u2019s hard to argue. The price of good relief pitching and only having to commit to Alvarado for one season is an easy choice. If he\u2019s good, which he should be motivated to be after his missteps in 2025, then they can think about going beyond next season then. If he\u2019s bad, they don\u2019t have a ton of money flowing his way beyond the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s reason to think that he\u2019ll be fine this coming season so long as his elbow issues are behind him. The fact that it was the dreaded \u201celbow inflammation\u201d can sometimes portend doom, but maybe it was just being out of routine that caused it to flare up. The leash will probably be long for him, but really, should it be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was good. Then he was disappointing. Then he got hurt. One could also say that Alvarado\u2019s injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,11036],"class_list":{"0":"post-478337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-analysis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115724432462851185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}