There are names here that might pique the team’s interest
Friday was the deadline to tender arbitration eligible players a contract for 2025 and it led to a lot of interesting decisions across the league. It’s kind of a bummer when players that still have some value are let go simply because teams do not feel like going before the arbitration panel against them, but that is the nature of the game.
After all, it allowed the Phillies to not have to pay Austin Hays nearly $6 million.
This is a complete list of all the players that were nontendered on Friday. Scanning the list, there are names there that could lead the Phillies to give their agents a phone call.
Jordan Romano
Possibly the stand out name to get nontendered, Romano was a two time All Star in Toronto that simply could not stay healthy last year with the Blue Jays. He missed most of the season with two different stints of elbow inflammation, an issue that must have been serious enough that the team didn’t want to pay the projected $7.75 million he’d have made in arbitration.
When on the mound, Romano was very good, striking out 36.8%, 33.6%, 28.3% and 29.0% of hitters before dipping to 21% last year in his lost season. He coupled that with decent walk rates and a good enough ability to keep the ball on the ground. When hitters did put the ball in the air against him, it mostly stayed in the yard, but again that was before a disastrous last season. Clicking through his Baseball Savant sliders and you’ll find a lot of red on his ledger. He gets hitters to chase with his four seam/slider combination, a duo of pitches that the team would be able to build off of.
The biggest issue with Romano is the elbow. Inflammation is a scary thing to deal with and the team that knew his medicals the best felt he wasn’t going to be worth a relatively inexpensive arbitration number. That is going to give anyone pause when checking in with Romano. If all of those medicals do check out and the team feels comfortable enough making an offer, Romano does offer the kind of upside the team likes as they try to add multiple high leverage relievers.
Kyle Finnegan
This is a name you’ve heard linked to the Phillies before. As the trade deadline approached in 2024, the Nationals shopped Finnegan around the league, including the Phillies, before holding to him and not finding a taker. In the wake of this nontender news, that looks like a foolish decision.
Finnegan is probably going to garner interest around the league as a high leverage option for a team’s bullpen, but a closer look under the hood should be cause for pumping the brakes on that idea. He doesn’t strike out as many batters as one would like for those situations (22.1% in 2024). He has a good fastball velocity (92nd percentile in 2024), but the rest of the things one looks for in a reliever are decidedly bad.
If he’s not striking out batters, not getting them to chase that much and walking a bit too many, is that the kind of pitcher you want in a high leverage spot?
As a middle relief option, someone in the Jose Ruiz vein, Finnegan would make a completely fine arm to choose from. The likelihood that he would want to be compensated as someone like Jeff Hoffman would probably mean the team looks elsewhere for relievers. But if he’s willing to accept a lesser role (and a lesser contract), the Phillies would have something to work with here.
Huascar Ynoa
This would be one of those under the radar moves that don’t make many headlines at all, but might have some solid results.
Ynoa hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022. He’s been hurt often – recovery from Tommy John surgery in 2023 and a stress reaction in the same elbow in 2024 – and, like Romano, wasn’t going to be worth the cost to the Braves in 2025. When he was healthy in 2021, he was pretty good across 17 starts, relying heavily on a slider to get some solid under the hood stuff as a 23 year old. Since then, it has just been a matter of health with Ynoa and getting a chance to pitch. He could probably no longer be counted on as a starter in the majors, but as a possible flyer in the bullpen, Ynoa has demonstrated an ability to get major league hitters out consistently.
As with Romano though, it’s always eyebrow raising when a team that has the most detailed medical information on a pitcher lets that pitcher go rather than giving him a contract. Prying Ynoa out of Atlanta would probably also be difficult since they may be interested in bringing him back at a cheaper cost. Would be worth further investigation though.
Enyel de los Santos
I mean, why not for nostalgia’s sake?