It’s going to take a collective effort for the Phillies bullpen to thrive without José Alvarado, who will miss at least a few weeks after an MRI revealed he had some inflammation in his left elbow.
The onus is on Seranthony Domínguez, Craig Kimbrel and Gregory Soto to lock down the high leverage innings late in the game, but a few others are going to have to be reliable in different spots in order to protect the top guys.
Jeff Hoffman, a former first-round pick who signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in the beginning of April, is one of those guys. His first outing, which came in the eighth inning of a loss against the Red Sox on Saturday, epitomized the good and the bad you get with Hoffman.
He walked the leadoff batter Raimel Tapia and then fell behind 3-0 to Reese McGuire. He threw nine four-seam fastballs and only two landed in the strike zone.
Then he started to get a feel for his new slider. Six of his final seven pitches were all sliders and all of them either landed for a strike or generated a swing-and-miss out of the zone. The sequence to Justin Turner was particularly nasty.
Statcast calls the pitch a cutter. Call it whatever you want, but the most important thing for Hoffman is that he’s throwing it hard.
Hoffman threw a slider earlier in this career with the Rockies, shelved it for a couple years and then brought it back when he started pitching for the Reds in 2021. The problem, according to Hoffman, was that he could never figure out how to throw the pitch hard enough. The slider averaged 81 to 82 mph in his two seasons with Cincinnati. He’s sitting at 88 with it now.
“It’s always been a pitch that I wanted in my repertoire, but we couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t throw it hard enough,” Hoffman said. “I threw a hard fastball, a hard splitter and then a slider just wouldn’t come out hard enough.”
It all came together during his time in spring training this year with the Minnesota Twins. He altered the grip by sliding his thumb up on the ball and “[thought] a bit more cuttery.” Hoffman eventually opted out of his minor league deal with the Twins on March 28 with a new weapon in his arsenal.
A few days later, he signed with the Phillies. Just like his reported deal with the Twins, he would make $1.3 million if he made the major league roster. That would entail spending at least a few weeks in Triple A.
“We just tried to put ourselves in the best situation and for us, that meant taking a minor league deal and going to the minors for a month if it meant to be here,” Hoffman said. “It’s something that we kind of sacrificed and thankfully it paid off.”
Hoffman’s fastball velocity is also up this year. He averaged around 94 mph on his four seam in 2022. He hit 99 in his last outing. Hoffman says that comes from adding “general strength” in the weight room over the offseason.
Command, however, is something the Phillies and Hoffman will have to fix if he’s going to be an effective reliever for a team with postseason aspirations. He walked seven batters over nine innings with Triple-A Lehigh Valley before his call up. His ERA was 7.00.
His minor league deal with the Phillies included an opt out on May 1. He exercised that opt out and the Phillies had a 48-hour window to either add him to the 26-man roster or release him. The decision looked easy just by looking at his Triple-A stats, but the Phillies saw enough to at least give him a chance.
Hoffman was asked to come to Philadelphia to throw live batting practice to rehabbing superstar Bryce Harper on April 21. Harper, who was still getting his timing down, struggled to hit Hoffman’s slider. He threw strikes and left an impression. The Phillies kept that in mind when they had to make a decision on Hoffman.
“It was 96 to 99 with a good slider,” Rob Thomson said that day. [Harper’s] timing is off a little bit, but it was pretty good stuff he was facing.”
“When they gave me the opportunity to come up here and throw to Bryce, it definitely helped and it got their eyes on me,” Hoffman said. “I think that’s a big reason why I’m here now.”
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