{"id":493385,"date":"2025-12-25T13:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/493385\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T13:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:42:14","slug":"have-the-phillies-ever-made-christmas-roster-moves-history-of-holiday-transactions-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/493385\/","title":{"rendered":"Have the Phillies ever made Christmas roster moves? History of holiday transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have the Phillies ever made Christmas roster moves? History of holiday transactions<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> have given the fanbase a few gifts this winter, re-signing Kyle Schwarber to a huge $150 million deal, and bringing in Brad Keller and Adolis Garcia on $22 million and $10 million deals, respectively.<\/p>\n

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But the Philadelphia fanbase is looking for more, and with the offseason continuing to progress, the options are slowly dwindling. A Christmas Day gift would be welcome for the Phillies fan base.<\/p>\n

According to Baseball Reference<\/a>, on December 25th in Major League Baseball history, there haven’t been many roster moves. Fortunately for Phillies fans, there’s one example in MLB history of a Phillies Christmas Day roster move.<\/p>\n

Phillies Christmas Day roster moves: MLB holiday history<\/p>\n

Back in 2008, the Phillies signed right-hander Scott Mathieson to a free agent contract. Originally a 17th-round pick by the Phillies in 2002, Mathieson had made his MLB debut before this Christmas roster move.<\/p>\n

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In 2006, he appeared in nine games, making eight starts, recording a 7.47 ERA with a 1-4 record, -0.9 bWAR, 28 strikeouts, 16 walks, and eight home runs allowed in 37.1 innings pitched.<\/p>\n

On December 12th, 2008, Mathieson was granted free agency, and 13 days later, he re-signed with the Phillies. After a few years out of the Major Leagues, he returned in 2010.<\/p>\n

Mathieson returned to the Majors with a 10.80 ERA in two outings for the Phillies in 1.2 innings pitched. But that 2010 season wouldn’t be his last.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Phillies predicted to replace Ranger Suarez with in-house righty<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2011, across five innings pitched with five strikeouts and three walks, he posted a 0.00 ERA in four outings for the Phillies in the best season of his MLB career. But that offseason, he was released and never returned to the Major Leagues.<\/p>\n

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Mathieson is the Phillies’ only Christmas Day signing in franchise history. They’ve made a few Christmas Eve roster moves, signing Jake Jewell in 2022, and selecting Mike Donlin off waivers in 1912 from the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Phillies also made a trade on Christmas Eve, sending Sherry Magee to the Boston Braves in 1914 for cash and players to be named later (Oscar Dugey and George Whitted).<\/p>\n

It’s not an extensive holiday shopping list from the Phillies, but with little action across the league on this holiday, it’s impressive that the Phillies have been involved in a few Christmas roster moves over the last 100+ years.<\/p>\n

More Phillies news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have the Phillies ever made Christmas roster moves? History of holiday transactions originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,7798,65776,65827,81,19,4,144,25,4216,40,64,90,9685,65826],"class_list":{"0":"post-493385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brad-keller","10":"tag-christmas-day","11":"tag-jake-jewell","12":"tag-kyle-schwarber","13":"tag-major-league-baseball","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-philadelphia","16":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","17":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","18":"tag-phillies","19":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","20":"tag-ranger-suarez","21":"tag-roster-moves","22":"tag-scott-mathieson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115780501257977870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493385","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=493385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}