Phillies add Joaquin Benoit to bolster bullpen

Journeyman reliever Joaquin Benoit has a deal in place with the Philadelphia Phillies, according to multiple reports. Jim Salisbury of CSN Philly was first. Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports Benoit is getting $7.5 million for one year.

Joaquin Benoit’s one-year deal with the Phillies will pay him $7.5 million, according to a source. That is what he made in 2016, too.

— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) December 5, 2016

BLS Take: Benoit’s 2016 was essentially a Tale of Two Seasons. He started out with the Seattle Mariners and did pretty terribly in 26 games. He pitched 24.1 innings and racked up a 5.18 ERA with 28 strikeouts and 15 walks. Woof. In late July, the Mariners traded Benoit to the Blue Jays, and that’s when things turned around. He pitched 23.2 innings for Toronto, almost exactly what he pitched for Seattle, but the result could not have been more different. His ERA was 0.38, with nine walks and 24 strikeouts. His time in Seattle was almost surely an anomaly: before the 2016 season started, his ERA since 2010 was 2.35.

The Phillies desperately needed to upgrade their bullpen, especially since it kept vomiting all over itself in the 2016 home stretch. In the final month of the season, the Phillies had an MLB-worst 7.88 bullpen ERA, more than two runs worse than the second-to-last team. Over the whole season, the Phillies had the third-worst bullpen ERA in baseball (5.05). Benoit can’t fix it all on his own, but he’s a definite upgrade. — Liz Roscher