15 hours Ago
The Philadelphia Phillies have gotten off to and up and down start to the 2025 campaign. The team currently sits in second place in the NL East with a 17-14 record, but there have been some serious concerns arising in key areas over the first month. Chief among these concerns has been the bullpen, which has struggled to find any sort of consistency.
As of this writing, the unit has a collective 4.87 ERA, which is bottom-five among all major league teams. This poor start is what drove the Phillies' new GM Preston Mattingly to bring in some early season reinforcements on Thursday, as he traded a minor league prospect to the Texas Rangers in exchange for right-hander Daniel Robert.
While the 30-year-old hasn't seen to much action at the big league level in his career thus far, Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson appears to be very optimistic about what he could offer the Phillies with his skillset. “We got what looks like a pretty good arm,” Thomson said before Thursday night's game ( per Philly Sports Network .) “Guys got a good fastball.
Throws Strikes, good slider.” All of this is what any manager ideally wants in a guy coming out of the pen, but the lack of big league experience could also present some concerns for Robert. He made is MLB debut at the tail-end of last season for Texas, making just four appearances before starting 2025 at Triple-A Round Rock.
While the sample size certainly is small, Robert did provide some very promising results across his 5.2 innings of work last season. Over that stretch, he posted a respectable 3.
18 ERA and struck out six batters. He has also been dominant at the minor league level so far this year as well, currently boasting a sub-two ERA across 11.2 innings of work at the Triple-A level.
On paper, this trade is a low-risk, high-reward move for the Phillies. They got a very promising pitcher who can offer immediate help to a struggling bullpen, and they gave up very little in return. The man in charge of the lineup card also appears to like what he sees in his newest reliever, so there's really no downside here.
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