Evan Phillips is entering his fifth season with the Los Angeles Dodgers and again is expected to fill a key role out of the bullpen.
Phillips has emerged as a mainstay since first joining the team in 2022, with his current stretch producing far better results than those from parts of four seasons prior. Before joining the Dodgers, Phillips only had brief stints up in the Majors and never pitched more than 28 innings in a single year.
In his first two full seasons with the Dodgers from 2022-2023, Phillips quickly became one of the top relief pitchers in all of baseball with just 22 earned runs allowed over 124.1 innings. The sudden emergence of Phillips as an elite reliever is reflective of a much larger trend for the Dodgers pitching coaches.
Whether it be undervalued players within another team or a veteran castoff, the Dodgers have a well-established reputation around MLB as an organization with the ability to find and develop hidden gems.
A lot of that success can be attributed to the Dodgers identifying something that a pitcher can do very well and presenting a detailed plan on how to improve going forward. According to Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times, Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness was the driving force behind exactly that type of development with Phillips:
During an initial workout at Dodger Stadium, assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness suggested Phillips tweak the grip on his slider to give it more spin and sweeping action. Before 2022, McGuiness and pitching coach Mark Prior encouraged Phillips to add a cut fastball and sinker to his repertoire.
“I didn’t have a choice — it was sink or swim at that point,” Phillips, 29, said. “When the Los Angeles Dodgers come calling and say, ‘Hey, we think you can be great,’ you tend to listen. They really forced the envelope and said, ‘You’re gonna need to do these things to pitch well,’ and I was in no position to argue with them.”
It is not a foolproof process by any means and there are certainly some reclamation projects that simply don’t pan out, with Noah Syndergaard being the most recent case. But more often than not, Dodgers pitching coaches seem to have tremendous insight and success.
Phillips highlighted the ability of Dodgers coaches to accentuate strengths while introducing other aspects:
“They really amplify the thing you do really well, and then they’ll teach you another tool, something they envision down the road,” Phillips said. “We bring in guys every year who they go through that process with. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you don’t, but they usually get the most out of guys and have turned some careers around.”
Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior garners plenty of deserved praise, but McGuiness has often been touted by players as being an instrumental figure as well. So too is Dodgers director of pitching Rob Hill and others in the organization.
Prior is in his sixth season as pitching coach, after spending 2018 and 2019 as the Dodgers’ bullpen coach. McGuiness also is in the sixth year of his current role.
Evan Phillips beginning season on IL
Phillips was unable to help the Dodgers finish off their World Series run because of a right shoulder injury that he since has revealed to be a tear in the back of his rotator cuff.
Thus, he’s behind in Spring Training and not expected to be on the Dodgers’ Opening Day roster for the Tokyo Series or when the team returns stateside for the Dodger Stadium opener.
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