Philadelphia Phillies Breakout Reliever Showing Flashes of Elite Talent This Spring

The Philadelphia Phillies focused heavily on in-house development this offseason, with only a few key acquisitions via signing or trade, they leaned more into looking at their young talents and how they could improve them going into the 2025 season. One of these players has already had a stellar season, and now he continues to improve before Opening Day during spring training.

Right handed reliever Orion Kerkering has been a welcome surprise for the Phillies the last few seasons, as his meteoric rise through their farm system was absolutely astounding to watch, and now at the MLB level, he only continues to get better. With one full season under his belt in 2024, and a few innings in 2023, he now looks to not only be quality, but become dominant.

This spring Kerkering has been lights out, posting a 1.42 ERA, with a 0.79 WHIP, nine strikeouts, only one walk, and only one earned run which came on a home run. Additionally, he is only allowing a .174 batting average against him this spring, which is outstanding in his 6.1 innings of work.

This type of success was shown by him in 2024 as well, when he played in a whopping 64 games for Philadelphia, and in 63 innings had a 2.86 ERA, 1.079 WHIP, 74 strikeouts to 17 walks (4.35 SO/BB), and only allowed two home runs in that span of time. He was absolutely outstanding, especially considering he only had three innings of major league work before that, and now he is improving even further during spring training.

Kerkering will no doubt be a key part of the bullpen which added Jordan Romano and Joe Ross this offseason, both of whom will add value to the team. A season where the young reliever becomes even better would make this group of players look absolutely outstanding, especially given there are already a few other strong pieces among them.

The ability to be drafted in the 2022 MLB draft, and make your debut in 2023 before playing a full season in 2024, before even turning 24 years old, is an absolutely amazing start to a career for any player, nevermind a reliever, as the position sometimes takes longer to develop.

With a likely three-man group of José Alvarado, Kerkering, and Romano as the two setup pitchers and then closer, the Phillies are going to be a nightmare to face down the stretch of games if they can all perform near their peak.

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