Philadelphia Phillies reliever José Alvarado was suspended by Major League Baseball on Sunday morning for 80 games after testing positive for exogenous testosterone, a banned performance-enhancing substance. Though the left-hander will be eligible to return in mid-August, MLB rules prevent players who test positive during a season from participating in the postseason. Should the Phillies qualify for what would be their fourth straight playoff appearance, Alvarado will be unavailable.
Signed by the Tampa Bay Rays out of Venezuela in 2012, the bearded flamethrower was traded to Philadelphia in December of 2020. Alvarado had always thrown hard, but upon joining the Phillies, he honed his control and improved his breaking stuff. His best season came in 2023, when he posted a 1.74 ERA in 41 innings with 64 strikeouts.
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It’s a devastating blow to a Phillies bullpen that, even with Alvarado, had been the club’s weakest unit. Entering play Sunday, Philly relievers had combined for a 4.66 ERA, the seventh worst mark in MLB. Alvarado had been the bullpen’s most dependable piece. In 20 innings, the soon-to-be 30-year-old had posted a 2.75 ERA with a strikeout rate just under 30 percent. His 99.6 mph average fastball velocity ranked fifth in all of baseball.
Without him, Phillies skipper Rob Thomson will lean even more on lefty Matt Strahm, who has also been excellent this season. Right-handers Orion Kerkering and Jordan Romano got off to horrid starts, but have looked better as of late. But without Alvarado, the Phillies are undeniably undermanned.
Over the winter, the Phillies lost two impact relief arms via free agency, Jeff Hoffman to Toronto and Carlos Estévez to Kansas City. Romano, a former closer with a strong track record coming off an injury, was the only addition to the mix. The Phillies were hoping somebody from their gaggle of middle relievers — Carlos Hernández, Tanner Banks or José Ruiz — would take a step forward. So far that hasn’t really happened, though Banks, as the only other left-hander besides Strahm, will get more high-leverage chances in Alvarado’s absence.
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Alvarado’s suspension, and unavailability for October, all but guarantees Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski will swing a deal for another reliever at the trading deadline. Dombrowski has upgraded his team’s pitching staff at each of the past three deadlines, acquiring Estévez last year, swingman Michael Lorenzen in 2023 and veteran reliever David Robertson in 2022.
Replacing Alvarado is impossible — he’s the hardest-throwing left-hander in the bigs. The lack of obvious options on the reliever market could make things even harder. There’s no Tanner Scott/Jason Adam type this year; a dominant late-inning arm on a bad team close to free agency. Dombrowski may have to get creative and find a player with more team control.
Philadelphia’s farm system doesn’t have any massive relief arms zipping up the system, like it did with Kerkering in 2023. Seth Johnson, a former starter relieving in Triple-A, has huge stuff and a bigger walk problem. Expect to see him up at some point.
But the Phillies do have an impressive assortment of starting pitchers, some of whom will surely transition to the ‘pen, at least temporarily, later this summer.
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The current big league rotation is: Zack Wheeler, Jesús Luzardo, Cristopher Sánchez, Ranger Suárez and Taijuan Walker. Aaron Nola, who got off to a rough start, is on the IL with an ankle injury. The Phillies also have two well-regarded pitching prospects in Mick Abel, who made his MLB debut in a spot start Sunday, and Andrew Painter, perhaps the top pitching prospect in baseball. That, barring major injury, gives the Phillies eight starters for five rotation spots, four come postseason time.
Walker has already bounced between ‘pen and rotation a few times this season and there’s a world where Dombrowski and Co. move Suárez into relief as well. A Wheeler, Luzardo, Sánchez, Nola playoff rotation means Suárez, Abel, Painter and Walker could work in relief, a relative luxury considering the circumstances.
Reality is never paved that smoothly, but the Phillies have options. Who they choose to use as a bullpen option and when they choose to make that decision will be an interesting dynamic to follow. If they want to have, say, Abel and Painter working in relief in October, they’ll need to learn the rhythms of the gig over the summer. So even with the internal pieces available, an external upgrade feels inevitable for a team with championship aspirations and a gradually closing competitive window.
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