9:55 am: Anderson is guaranteed to get $ 4 million, tweets Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
9.40 am: It’s a one-year Major League deal for Anderson, MLBTR has learned.
9:10 am: The Phillies agree on a contract with free agent Righty Chase Anderson, reports Robert Murray of Fansided (via Twitter). Hub Sports Management’s customer will join a growing inventory of experienced guns competing for innings at the back of the Philadelphia rotation. His deal is pending completion of a physical.
Anderson, 33, spent the 2020 season with the Blue Jays, but missed the start of the shortened season due to an oblique strain. He returned and pitched well in August before struggling through a tough month in September. In total, he had only 33 2/3 innings with a 7.22 ERA.
Despite that unsightly figure, there are plenty of reasons to expect the Anderson pickup to be a worthwhile, low-cost investment. From 2014-19, Anderson was a sustained source of average or better innings, pitching to a 3.94 ERA and 4.43 SIERA over the lifetime of 857 frames between the D-backs and the Brewers. Anderson’s only IL stints at the time were a minimum stay for triceps tightness in 2015 and then brief absences due to an oblique strain and a tear in his finger. His arm held up nicely in both Arizona and Milwaukee, and even last year’s absence had nothing to do with his elbow or shoulder.
If I dig a little deeper into his work for 2020, there is reason for optimism there too. Anderson reduced the use of his four-seamer in favor of more cutters and changes, and the results were encouraging in some ways. He recorded a career-high 24.7 percent strikeout percentage checking in above the league average, and his 6.5 percent running speed was an improvement over his Brewers days, well south of the league average. Anderson was plagued by an average of .362 on the number of balls in play and a home run percentage so high that a positive regression is almost inevitable (2.94 HR / 9).
Anderson has been somewhat gay throughout his career, but there is little reason to expect this outspoken struggle to continue. Fielding-independent metrics normalizing the home run rate, such as xFIP (4.09) and SIERA (4.01), were a lot more optimistic for him than his baseline ERA.
Anderson will join Lefty Matt Moore on the big league roster as a cost-effective option at the back of the rotation behind the best starters Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Zach Eflin. His addition would allow the Phillies to provide a top perspective Spencer Howard more time in Triple-A and to move Vince Velasquez to the bullpen, but it’s likely that each of Moore, Anderson, Howard and Velasquez will start games for the Phils in 2021. Teams will be more cautious than ever with workload after last year’s reduced game count, so having multiple starting options is more important. The Phils have also added Ivan Nova and Bryan Mitchell about minor league pacts.