The Philadelphia Phillies released right-handed pitcher Taijuan Walker, and it’s not hard to understand why. The Phillies, the two-time defending NL East champions and one of the preseason favorites for the National League pennant, are down two engines and spiraling rapidly toward an uncontrollable crash site. They need to throw everything off the hook, and unfortunately for Walker, he is.
The 33-year-old right-hander has lost two of the Phillies’ eight straight, and if his 9.13 ERA is due to a better lineup and luck, it wouldn’t be too far off. Walker’s xERA is 7.04 and his FIP is 7.82. In 22 2/3 innings, he struck out 17 batters while allowing 36 hits (including eight home runs) and 11 walks.
After his last outing in Phillies colors, Jayson Stark posted a statistical phenomenon so terrible, it’s almost unkind to note: Opponents hit .353/.417/.657 against Walker this season. In 1941, the year of his 56-game hitting streak, Joe DiMaggio hit .357/.440/.643.
Walker’s four-year, $72 million contract will go down as a loss for the Phillies, although not historically bad. After all, this is the franchise that gave Ryan Howard the infamous five-year, R125 billion extension of Ryan Howard’s relegation phase, and signed Danny Tartabull to a one-year, $2.3 million contract (which was the norm for this team in 1997), only to watch him break his toe and retire three games into the season.
In three years and change in Philadelphia, Walker threw 402 2/3 innings, most of which weren’t that bad. He averaged 1.2 WAR in that span, thanks in large part to a stellar 2023 campaign in which he won 15 games and threw 172 2/3 innings, both career highs. He was again useful, if not spectacular, in 2025. He suffered no career- or life-altering injuries, made the playoffs every year, and — including the rebound — made $72 million.
It tells the whole story that the way I react to his treatment is a great sensitivity or sympathy for the man himself. Getting stinking rich playing for a really good team doesn’t sound like much fun.
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When Walker signed with the Phillies in the 2022 Winter Meetings, he was coming off a breakout year with the Mets, but even then no one expected him to be a great player. The Phillies had just won the pennant behind the front three of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Ranger Suarez – the rotation was already strong.
But it was very difficult. Zach Eflin had just moved into the bullpen due to injury, and was on his way out of town as a free agent. In the playoffs, the Phillies went by the seat of their pants with the number. 4 spot in the rotation: Bailey Falter and the empty carapace in Noah Syndergaard’s usual situation.
What they needed was a set-and-forget no. 4 starter, someone who can throw five or six forgettable innings 30 times a year. At $18 million a year, I don’t think anyone ever considered Walker a money signing, but in 2023 he got the job done.
The thing is, that kind of pitcher doesn’t matter much in the playoffs, and in 2023, the Phillies had an unexpectedly large crop of developmental success. Christopher Sánchez first established himself as a major league quality starter; Matt Strahm has gone from an innings-eater to an elite weapon; and the emergence of Orion Kerkering and the awakening of Jeff Hoffman gave the Phillies the depth of the bullpen to play matchups for every game of the postseason, which they did in Atlanta in Game 1 of the NLDS.
The Phillies didn’t need a no. 4 starters in their two-game Wild Card series sweep of Miami, or in the NLDS, where an extra day off between Games 1 and 2 allowed them to bring Suarez back on full rest for Game 4. And when Game 4 of the NLCS rolled around, Sánchez started, not Walker. He did his job, and despite being healthy and effective all year, he didn’t throw a pitch in the playoffs.
Walker would never work that way again, and even if he had, the Phillies kept finding pitchers to jump the rotation. Sánchez rebounded and became Philadelphia’s most valuable starter. There were exciting sparks from Spencer Turnbull, Mick Abel, and Tyler Phillips in 2024 and 2025. Jesús Luzardo arrived in 2025 and gave the Phillies a no. 2 first level operation without number. 4 spot in the rotation, and top prospect Andrew Painter finally made his long-awaited debut this spring.
Now, with Wheeler coming back from thoracic outlet compression this weekend, the rotation goes like this: Sánchez, Wheeler, Luzardo, Nola, Painter. There is no room for a guy with a 9.13 ERA. Regardless, the Phillies have reached a point where it’s probably time to see if Alan Rangel or Bryse Wilson can give them an ERA under 7.00 for a change.
Releasing Walker is a blindingly obvious move by a team that can no longer be sensitive. He’s gotten his shot, and whatever sympathy one might have for him, he’s not treating him well. That’s life in showbiz.
Still, it would be surprising to see the Phillies cut Walker loose in April. They don’t do this kind of thing very often.
It’s hard to argue with the record of the Phillies’ front office. Under Dave Dombrowski and Sam Fuld or Preston Mattingly, the Phillies made the playoffs four times in five seasons and won two division titles and a pennant. If Sam Alito didn’t show up during the 2022 World Series and hurt the vibes, we’d be talking about this as the best run in franchise history.
However, I have a strong hold on this front office. The complete lack of production from the farm system — especially on the hitter development side — has forced Dombrowski and his lieutenants to rely on free agents to fill holes in the roster. The Phillies have enough cash to make that plan work, and if possible, they buy at the very top of the market, which is where the value is.
The most dangerous sector of the free market is the second stage. For every bargain, there are five ticking time bombs. My concern is not that the Phillies tend to buy here – this is where they get not only Wheeler (who signed Andy MacPhail-Matt Klentak, but the point stands), but also Kyle Schwarber. Those two are among the best free agent signings in franchise history. If they get burned by Walker, or Nick Castellanos, or Max Kepler and Adolis García, that’s fine.
My concern is that Dombrowski has an unhealthy high tolerance for throwing good money after bad. It took at least a year too long to remove Castellanos from the middle of the list, for example, let alone release him. Whit Merrifield got half a season to prove he couldn’t hit .200.
It’s different with Walker. He was so bad in 2024 that his contract went from underwater to completely submerged in an instant. The Phillies were never going to get the money they were due in 2025 or 2026 in a trade, let alone a prospect or utility player. Therefore they may keep him; maybe he wouldn’t live up to the deal he signed, but he’d certainly be as good as any low-wage agent they could replace him with.
It was so in 2025, but not now. Perhaps this is a sign of a new urgency for a Phillies team that has been steady, and perhaps unproductive, calm for the past three years. Or maybe Walker just ran out of opportunities.
