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Phillies Select Buddy Kennedy, Transfer Aaron Nola To 60-Day IL

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The Phillies announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Buddy Kennedy. Infielder/outfielder Weston Wilson has been optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley as the corresponding active roster move. To open a 40-man spot, right-hander Aaron Nola has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Kennedy, now 26, was acquired from the Tigers about a year ago. He exhausted his final option year in 2024 and was therefore out of options coming into 2025. He didn’t break camp with the club, which got him pushed onto the waiver wire. After he cleared waivers, the Phillies re-signed him to a new minor league deal. Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports that Kennedy had recently triggered an upward mobility clause in that deal. The Phils didn’t want him to get away, so they have added him to the roster today.

Since signing that deal, Kennedy has been in good form at the Triple-A level. He has appeared in 61 games for the IronPigs, hitting eight home runs with an 11.6% walk rate and 15.3% strikeout rate. That’s led to a .283/.388/.447 line and 126 wRC+, indicating he’s been 26% better than league average at the plate overall.

Triple-A success isn’t new for him but he hasn’t yet translated it to the majors. He has received scattered big league time from the Diamondbacks, Tigers and Phils, with a .203/.295/.313 line and 72 wRC+ in 149 trips to the plate over the 2022-2024 campaigns.

He has experience at all four infield positions and left field, so he should replace Wilson as the club’s multi-positional bench piece. That may not lead to a lot of playing time for Kennedy. Wilson was reinstated from the injured list about two months ago but has received only 42 plate appearances since then, including just one since June 9th.

As for Nola, he landed on the IL in the middle of May due to a sprained right ankle, though that’s no longer the main concern. It was reported just over a week ago that he would be shut down for two weeks due to a stress reaction in his rib cage. He’s now ineligible to return until 60 days from that initial IL placement, which would be mid-July. Even if he’s declared healthy in a week, he will need to ramp up his throwing and probably make a few rehab starts, so he likely wasn’t going to be back before the All-Star break anyway.

Photo courtesy of Eric Hartline, Imagn Images

Phillies Acquire Nolan Hoffman From Rangers

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The Phillies announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired righty Nolan Hoffman from the Rangers in exchange for cash. Hoffman was not on the 40-man roster with Texas but has been selected to Philadelphia’s 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He won’t immediately join the Phillies’ bullpen, but the instant addition to the 40-man clearly puts him in position to potentially make his major league debut in the near future.

Hoffman, 27, was originally a fifth-round pick by the 2018 Mariners and landed with the Orioles by way of the minor league phase of the 2021 Rule 5 Draft. He became a minor league free agent following the 2024 season, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers and is now on the doorstep of a big league opportunity in Philadelphia.

The submarining Hoffman brings an uncommon arm slot to the Phillies’ bullpen mix, but he’s had a rough stretch with the Rangers’ Triple-A club in 2025. He’s punched out 29% of his opponents in 35 innings, but Hoffman also has a bloated 13.2% walk rate that has contributed to an ugly 5.91 earned run average. He’s been plagued by a .321 average on balls in play despite awful batted-ball metrics from his opponents — 85.7 mph average exit velocity, 28.2% hard-hit rate — as well as a 66.8% strand rate that’s well shy of his typical levels.

Prior to this season, Hoffman enjoyed nice stretches in Double-A and Triple-A with the O’s organization. His 2023 campaign saw the righty take advantage of his deceptive arm slot in the form of a 3.05 ERA over 44 1/3 innings between Baltimore’s top two minor league affiliates. He followed that with a 3.88 ERA and what was then a career-best 28.2% strikeout rate in 58 Triple-A frames in 2024.

Hoffman has regularly generated grounders at huge rates, though this year’s 44.6% mark is only a couple percentage points north of the MLB average. That’s perhaps in part due to some tweaks made by the Rangers’ development staff. He’s still throwing his sinker more than half the time, and Hoffman has even upped the average velocity on that pitch from 91.9 to 93.3 mph. He’s also begun to incorporate a new (but still seldom-used) cutter and scaled back his usage of his curveball and changeup. Obviously, Hoffman isn’t going to step in and cure all the Phillies’ bullpen woes, but he gives them another option to evaluate in the weeks leading up to a trade deadline that figures to see Philadelphia president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski again focus heavily on upgrading his relief corps.

Tigers Claim Carlos Hernández

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The Tigers have claimed right-hander Carlos Hernández off waivers from the Phillies, according to announcements from both clubs. Philadelphia had designated him for assignment last week. Detroit had an open 40-man roster spot due to designating righty John Brebbia for assignment yesterday. Hernández is out of options, so the Tigers will need to open an active roster spot once he reports to the club.

Hernández, 28, has big velocity but hasn’t always been able to translate it into results. After working in a swing role with the Royals from 2020 to 2022, he seemed to be breaking out as a reliever in the first half of 2023. Through August 1st of that year, he had thrown 54 innings with a 3.67 earned run average, 30.2% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate.

Unfortunately, he posted a 10.69 ERA in his final 16 innings that year. In 2024, he battled some shoulder soreness and spent the first two months of the season on the injured list. When he was reinstated, the Royals shuttled him to Triple-A and back. He posted a 3.30 ERA in the big leagues that year but with subpar strikeout and walk rates of 20.9% and 12.4% respectively. He also had a 5.40 ERA in his minor league work.

He came into 2025 out of options and didn’t make the Kansas City roster out of camp, which led him to the waiver wire and a claim by the Phillies. He logged 25 2/3 innings for the Phils this year with a 5.26 ERA, 18.7% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. Though he hasn’t been able to execute, the stuff is enticing, with Hernández averaging just under 98 miles per hour on his fastball this year while also throwing a splitter, slider and knuckle curve.

Perhaps the Tigers feel they have a path to help him better harness that stuff. Or perhaps he’s just available when they want a fresh arm. Righty Will Vest departed yesterday’s game due to some discomfort in the pinky finger of his throwing hand, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. Perhaps he will require a stint on the injured list, opening a hole in the big league bullpen. Since the Tigers had an open 40-man spot anyway, claiming Hernández is perhaps a bit of insurance for Vest.

It’s also possible that the Tigers plan to put Hernández back on waivers shortly with the hope of passing him through unclaimed. The Tigers have the best record in baseball and therefore the final waiver priority, meaning the other clubs just passed on him. Hernández has between three and five years of big league service time, meaning he has the right to reject an outright assignment but would have to forfeit the remainder of his $1.16MM salary in order to do so. For now, he’ll report to the Tigers and try to put some good outings together for them.

Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images

Orioles Claim Kyle Tyler

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The Orioles announced that right-hander Kyle Tyler has been claimed off waivers from the Phillies.  Tyler has been assigned to the Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate, and no further move was necessary since Baltimore already had an open spot on its 40-man roster.

The Phillies landed Tyler themselves via the waiver wire last August when the righty was acquired from the Marlins, and Tyler will now end his tenure with the Phils without any time on the big league roster.  Tyler acted as rotation depth at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, and this season had a 4.31 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate, and 7.6% walk rate over 12 starts and 62 2/3 innings.

A 20th-round draft pick for the Angels in 2018, Tyler has a 4.31 ERA over 48 career innings in the majors, with 31 2/3 of those frames coming with the Marlins last season.  Tyler has experience as both a starter and a swingman, and he could provide the O’s with help in either of those departments as Baltimore is still dealing with a number of injuries to key starters and relievers.

With a collective 2.97 ERA over the last two weeks, the Orioles’ pitching staff has started to nicely stabilize itself after some extreme early-season struggles, though naturally any team would love to have some depth arms available.  Tyler has a minor league option remaining, giving him and the Orioles some extra flexibility in potentially moving him back and forth between Baltimore and Triple-A Norfolk.

Zack Wheeler Plans To Retire After 2027 Season

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Phillies ace Zack Wheeler signed a three-year, $126MM contract extension in March 2024 that covers the 2025-27 seasons.  It appears as though that will be the final deal of Wheeler’s career, as The Athletic’s Matt Gelb writes that Wheeler is aiming to retire following the 2027 campaign, at age 37.

Plenty can change within the next two and a half years, of course, and even such teammates as J.T. Realmuto have some doubt that Wheeler would really hang up the cleats if he is still healthy and pitching well by the time the 2027 season wraps.  That said, Wheeler said “it’ll be easy to walk away” from baseball — not because of any burnout or lack of drive, but simply because Wheeler is looking forward to spending time with his family.

Should the right-hander continue on his current track through his planned retirement date, Wheeler will surely draw some attention from Cooperstown voters.  Since the start of the 2018 season, Wheeler leads all pitchers in fWAR (35.7), and only teammate Aaron Nola has thrown more innings than Wheeler’s 1289 frames.  He has a 3.14 ERA over those eight-plus years, and a 3.31 ERA for the entirety of his 11 big league seasons.

Selected sixth overall by the Giants in the 2009 draft, Wheeler has more than lived up to the high expectations that came with that high pedigree, though he famously never pitched a game in a San Francisco uniform.  The Giants dealt Wheeler to the Mets at the 2011 trade deadline for Carlos Beltran, as the Giants made the bold decision to acquire a star rental player in order to make a bid for the playoffs.  San Francisco’s three World Series titles from 2010-14 give the organization some leeway when looking back at “what if?” scenarios, yet it is intriguing to wonder if keeping Wheeler might have allowed the Giants to extend their contention window deeper into the decade.

That said, Wheeler’s time in New York was interrupted by injury, as he didn’t pitch at all in 2015-16 due to both a Tommy John surgery and a strained flexor tendon.  He naturally showed some rust in his return to the mound in 2017, but then pitched well enough over the next two seasons to make him one of the most prized members of the 2019-20 free agent class.  The Phillies inked Wheeler to a five-year, $118MM contract that now stands as one of the best free agent pitching deals in history, given how Wheeler has elevated his game since arriving in the City of Brotherly Love.

Wheeler has a 2.93 ERA, 27.5% strikeout rate, and a 5.7% walk rate over 911 1/3 regular-season innings in a Phillies uniform, as well as a 2.18 ERA over 70 1/3 playoff innings.  Wheeler has twice been an NL All-Star during his time with the Phils, and he was the runner-up in NL Cy Young Award voting in both 2021 and 2024.  The righty is only a couple of weeks removed from his 35th birthday, but he continues to be one of the league’s top arms this season, with a 2.85 ERA, 6% walk rate, and a 32% strikeout rate that is on pace for a new career high.

Extending Wheeler helped the Phillies keep their rotation cornerstone in place through now what looks to be the rest of his career, and the team has already made some preparations for the post-Wheeler era.  Cristopher Sanchez was inked to an extension that (if club options are exercised) could run through 2030.  Nola was re-signed to a new contract during the 2023-24 offseason, though Nola has been quite shaky this year.  Younger pitchers like Andrew Painter and Mick Abel are viewed as the future of the rotation, plus it seems likely that the Phils will keep spending big, so a future free agent splash to add pitching is certainly possible down the road.

Phillies Designate Carlos Hernández For Assignment

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The Phillies announced Wednesday morning that right-handed reliever Carlos Hernández has been designated for assignment. His spot on the 26-man roster will go to fellow righty Michael Mercado, who’s been recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Mercado was already on the 40-man roster, so the Phils now have one open spot.

Hernández, 28, came to the Phils via waivers back in spring training. The Royals had attempted to pass the flamethrowing, out-of-options righty through waivers and retain him as a depth arm, but Philadelphia claimed the power-armed, 6’4″ righty in hopes of unlocking what’s long looked like some latent potential.

It hasn’t worked out thus far. In 25 2/3 innings out of Rob Thomson’s bullpen, Hernández has been tagged for 15 earned runs on 32 hits and 13 walks. He’s plunked a pair of hitters as well. The resulting 5.26 ERA is an eyesore, Hernández’s once strong strikeout rate has dipped below average; he’s fanned only 18.7% of opponents against a 10.6% walk rate.

Back in 2023, Hernández looked like a breakout arm in Kansas City’s bullpen in the season’s first half. He was averaging better than 99 mph on his fastball and carried a 3.57 ERA, 30% strikeout rate and 7.1% walk rate into that year’s trade deadline. With the Royals operating as sellers and Hernández performing so well, he even looked like an under-the-radar trade chip for a club that, at the time, didn’t have much to peddle to deadline buyers.

The Royals hung onto Hernández — understandably so; he had four additional seasons of club control remaining — and things went south almost immediately. Hernández served up four runs in his third outing post-deadline, and his season snowballed from there. In 17 innings post-deadline, he was shelled for 20 runs. The strong command he’d displayed evaporated, as he walked more hitters than he struck out in the season’s final two months. Hernández missed about two months the following season due to shoulder troubles. He never required surgery, but his velocity has never returned to his 2023 levels, and his command has never rebounded to the levels we saw in the first two-thirds of the 2023 season.

Now that Hernández has been designated for assignment, the Phillies will either trade him or place him on waivers within the next five days. Waivers themselves are a 48-hour process. Within a week’s time, we’ll know what’s next for the hard-throwing righty.

Aaron Nola To Be Shut Down For Two Weeks With Stress Reaction In Rib Cage

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Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola is already on the injured list but won’t be returning soon. Per Matt Gelb of The Athletic, a recent MRI revealed a stress reaction in his right rib cage. He won’t throw for the next two weeks.

Nola landed on the 15-day IL almost a month ago due to a sprained right ankle. It’s unclear how or when he suffered this rib injury but it’s a notable setback for him. Even if he’s healthy two weeks from now, it will have been about six weeks since his most recent game action. At that point, he’ll have to ramp back up into game shape. As noted by Gelb, it’s now possible that Nola won’t return until after the All-Star break.

Prior to hitting the IL, Nola wasn’t having his best season, with a 6.16 earned run average in nine starts. However, that may not have been entirely his fault. His 23.6% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate were fairly close to his previous levels, while his .348 batting average on balls in play and 68.7% strand rate were both to the unlucky side. ERA estimators like his 5.00 FIP and especially his 3.63 SIERA felt he deserved far better.

He now won’t get a chance to improve his numbers for a while. As he has been out of action, the Phils have endured their toughest stretch of the season. They have lost nine of their past eleven contests, dropping them to four games back of the Mets in the National League East.

On paper, the Philadelphia rotation is strong even without Nola in it. They still have Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suárez, Cristopher Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo and Mick Abel. However, Wheeler recently spent some time on the paternity list and Luzardo’s past two starts have been awful. Abel’s big league numbers are good so far but he literally has two starts under his belt.

Ideally, that group can help the team right the ship in the coming weeks. If not, the Phils have some potential in-house pivots. Prospect Andrew Painter is now healthy and putting up decent numbers in Triple-A, though he may have workload concerns after missing all of the previous two seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery. Taijuan Walker is currently in the bullpen and could return to the rotation, though getting stretched out midseason can be a challenge.

The trade deadline is on July 31st, which may coincide with Nola’s return to the big league club. Given the starting options the Phils already have on hand, trading for more help is probably not the top of their to-do list, but it’s always possible that more injuries pop up or that Nola experiences another setback of some kind.

Photo courtesy of Bill Streicher, Imagn Images

Phillies Claim Ryan Cusick, Designate Kyle Tyler

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The Phillies announced that right-hander Ryan Cusick was claimed off waivers from the White Sox and optioned to the Florida Complex League.  In the corresponding roster move, Philadelphia designated right-hander Kyle Tyler for assignment.

In less than two weeks’ time, Cusick is now joining his fourth different team after a whirlwind series of waiver claims.  The odyssey started when he was designated for assignment by the Athletics on May 27, and he has since gone from the A’s to the Tigers to the White Sox and now to the Phils.  Cusick will now head not to Philadelphia’s Triple-A affiliate but to the FCL for what might be a mechanical tune-up in the wake of a difficult minor league season.

The 25-year-old Cusick was the 24th overall pick of the 2021 draft, selected by the Braves but then quickly flipped to the Athletics that offseason as part of the trade package that brought Matt Olson to Atlanta.  Cusick has struggled to live up to that first-round potential, as his career 5.20 ERA over 238 2/3 minor league innings hasn’t resulted in any Major League playing time.

A starter for most of his career, Cusick appears to have moved into the bullpen on a full-time basis this season, but the results haven’t been there, as he has more walks (14) than strikeouts (11) while posting a 6.32 ERA over 15 2/3 combined innings with the Athletics’ and Tigers’ Triple-A affiliates in 2025.  The Phillies will become the latest team to see if they can solve Cusick’s control problems and turn him into a playable big league reliever.

Tyler can relate to Cusick’s waiver wire travels, as Tyler also changed teams four times on waiver claims within a month’s span in March-April 2022.  His MLB resume consists of a 4.31 ERA over 48 innings with the Angels, Padres, and Marlins, with the bulk (31 2/3 IP) of that work coming with Miami last year.

Tyler started seven of his eight games with the Marlins, and has mostly worked as a starter over the last three seasons in the minors after working in more of a swingman capacity earlier in his career.  All 12 of Tyler’s outings with Triple-A Lehigh Valley came as a starter, though he had only a 4.31 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate, and 7.6% walk rate.  The Phillies are deeper than most teams when it comes to starting pitching, while Tyler’s numbers don’t jump off the page, another club in need of rotation depth could be motivated to put in a claim.

Braves Claim Jose Ruiz From Phillies

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The Braves announced that right-hander Jose Ruiz has been claimed off the Phillies’ waiver wire.  Atlanta has yet to announce a corresponding move for the 26-man roster, and a 40-man move doesn’t need to be made since the Braves only had 39 players on their 40-man roster.

Philadelphia designated Ruiz for assignment last week, after the righty posted an 8.16 ERA in 14 1/3 relief innings this season.  A 4.11 SIERA paints a better picture of Ruiz’s quality, as a .383 BABIP and a 57% strand rate contributed to that inflated ERA.  Still, Ruiz didn’t help his cause by allowing a lot of hard contact, and striking out only 17.6% of batters.  He also spent just under three weeks on the injured list in May due to neck spasms, and he was charged with seven earned runs (over three innings) over his three appearances after returning from the IL.

Ruiz has pitched in parts of the last nine Major League seasons, amassing a 4.55 ERA in 284 2/3 innings with four different teams (primarily the White Sox from 2018-23).  Inconsistency has marked Ruiz’s career, though he has been a solid bullpen piece during his better seasons — a 3.05 ERA over 65 innings for the AL Central champion White Sox in 2021, and a 3.71 ERA over 51 frames for the Phillies just last year.  Ruiz has always been a hard thrower, but his 95.7mph fastball this season is down a mile from the 96.7mph average he posted prior to 2025.

While the results haven’t been there this season, the Braves saw enough in Ruiz to put in a claim, and absorb the 30-year-old’s remaining 2025 salary (roughly $765.6K of a $1.225MM salary).  It isn’t a huge figure, and it’s enough for the Braves to take a flier on Ruiz and add him to the long list of pitchers cycled through the back of Atlanta’s struggling bullpen.

Phillies Place Bryce Harper On 10-Day IL Due To Wrist Inflammation

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The Phillies announced that Bryce Harper has been placed on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to June 6) due to inflammation in his right wrist.  Utilityman Otto Kemp had his contract selected from Triple-A in a corresponding move, and no 40-man transaction was needed since the Phillies only had 39 men on their 40-man roster.  Philadelphia also sent right-hander Alan Rangel down to Triple-A while calling up righty Daniel Robert to provide a fresh arm for the bullpen.

Harper didn’t play in the Phils’ 5-4 loss to the Pirates yesterday, and manager Rob Thomson told reporters (including Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer) that Harper was being given a rest day to deal with a wrist problem that has been bothering the first baseman “for a while,” as Thomson put it.  Lauber wrote that it isn’t known if this current injury is similar to or a continuation of the right wrist issue that also nagged at Harper during the 2024 season.

It’s been a rough stretch overall for Harper on the health front, as he was hit on the right elbow by a Spencer Strider pitch on May 27 and then missed Philadelphia’s next five games.  No IL stint was ultimately required for that injury, though Harper had only one hit in 11 plate appearances after returning to the lineup.  Between both Harper’s wrist and any lingering soreness with his elbow, a proper IL placement seems like a good idea to allow Harper to get fully rested and healed up.

Harper is hitting .258/.368/.446 with nine home runs over 253 PA this season — good for a strong 129 wRC+ but down from Harper’s usual superstar levels of production.  While there’s never a good time to get drilled on the elbow by a Major League pitch, Harper’s painful encounter with Strider came at a particularly inopportune moment, as Harper had a .936 OPS in the 20 games prior to May 27.

With Harper either unavailable or not hitting much, the Phillies have hit a slump in the last week, losing seven of their last eight games.  Alec Bohm moved over to play first base in Harper’s previous absence and Edmundo Sosa played third base, so that will likely be the most standard alignment for the Phils while Harper is on the IL.  Weston Wilson could also factor into the infield picture if utilityman Sosa is spending more time in an everyday role, and Kemp has seen a lot of time at first, second, and third base (plus a handful of games at shortstop and in the corner outfield) during his four minor league seasons.

Kemp will be making his Major League debut whenever he first appears in a game for the Phillies, which marks quite a journey for a player who went undrafted in 2022.  Philadelphia signed Kemp as a free agent following the draft and he has only gotten better as he has risen through the minor league ranks, including some sensational numbers at Triple-A Lehigh Valley this year.  The 25-year-old Kemp is hitting .317/.417/.602 with over 264 Triple-A plate appearances, and he leads the International League with 14 home runs.

This kind of production is more than worthy of a look at the MLB level, and Kemp figures to also be part of the third base picture while Harper is out.  Like Bohm, Sosa, and Wilson, Kemp is also a right-handed hitter, so it doesn’t make for a smooth platoon situation.  Since Kemp has played some left field in Lehigh Valley, however, he might get some time in left field in place of the left-handed hitting Max Kepler if a southpaw is on the mound.

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