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Phillies news and rumors 1/26: David Robertson finds new home

David Robertson had two different stints with the Phillies. (Ian D’Andrea)

As the Phillies look to supplement the core of their bullpen with cheaper moves around the edges, one potential target and a former Phillie came off the board Thursday.

Though given the price tag, the move might not have constituted a “cheaper move around the edges.” David Robertson agreed with the reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers on a one-year contract, Jeff Passan of ESPN reported — for somewhere in the $11-12 million range.

Robertson, who represents himself as his own agent, deserves tons of credit for the deal. The veteran reliever posted a 2.05 ERA and almost 10 strikeouts per nine innings with the New York Mets last year, but his season spiraled a bit following a deadline-time trade to the Miami Marlins. From July 30 on, he posted a 5.06 ERA and blew three saves in seven chances.

To be fair, his strikeout rate jumped to a quite impressive 12.7 per nine in Miami, but it was still a rough way to end a contract year. Nonetheless, Robertson, who signed a one-year, $10 million pact last offseason — with the big-spending Mets, no less — will earn a raise in his age-39 season.

Robertson spent the last year-and-a-half with three different teams, all in the NL East. The first of that trio was the Phillies, who traded pitching prospect Ben Brown to the Chicago Cubs for Robertson around the 2022 trade deadline. Philadelphia got somewhat of a mixed bag from him down the stretch, as well as in the postseason, when he frequently ran into trouble but generally escaped unscathed, aided in part by Ranger Suárez’s pennant-clinching save after Bedlam at the Bank. Arguably Robertson’s most memorable moment of that season was his save in Game 1 of the World Series, when he put the tying and winning runs in scoring position before closing it out.

Upon that 2022 trade, Robertson viewed his second Phillies stint as somewhat of a shot at redemption. Before the 2019 season, the Phillies gave him a two-year, $23 million contract and got 6 2/3 innings out of it before Tommy John Surgery kept him down until 2021.

The Rangers will be team No. 8 and season No. 16 for Robertson, who’s spent nine of those seasons with the Yankees and took down the Phillies in the 2009 World Series wearing pinstripes.

If there’s any ripple effect here as far as the Phillies are concerned, perhaps the Robertson signing takes Texas out of the Héctor Neris sweepstakes, after reportedly emerging as frontrunners for him last Sunday. If Héctor Gómez’s report last Wednesday that Neris wants $50 million in free agency is true, though, perhaps he was never in the cards for the Rangers — or, for the matter, the Phillies.

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