Phillies Reshape the Middle of the Bullpen

In a flurry of work before everyone goes home for the holidays the Phillies remade the middle of the bullpen in a set of three moves that really should all be packaged together.

In: RHP Brad Keller, RHP Jonathan Bowlan, LHP Kyle Backhus

Out: LHP Matt Strahm, OF Avery Owusu-Asiedu

The Phillies got about $5M more expensive in the set of transactions, did not really get less flexible, but did get younger with more team control.

We can talk about what went out in the deal first. Matt Strahm has been one of the Phillies better reliever signings and free agent signings overall, and there is a smart extension in there that ended up with 2026 being a vested option year for Strahm. He gets righties and lefties out, and has been asked to face the top lefties in the game repeatedly. The problem is that there were cracks showing in that performance. He was less steady in the postseason and during the regular season his velocity dropped from around 93 to about 92. He has always been a flyball heavy pitcher with the Phillies, but that had reached an extreme in 2025, and while his HR/FB rate remains low, his home run rate was up just on volume, and if the HR/FB rate changes at all it could be a disaster. His strikeout rate also saw a sharp dip while his walk rate nearly doubled. That meant he was just merely a very good reliever in 2025 after being great in 2024. Normally pitchers entering their age 34 season slip more and don’t see large youthful rejuvenations.

Owusu-Asiedu (headed to Arizona for Backhus) was going to rank around 30 in my offseason list with the following report:

Role: Bench Outfielder

Risk: High – There is a role for a player like Owusu-Asiedu because he has defensive utility and hits lefties very well, but he also has shown contact abilities that have gone horrendous to just now merely bad, and that is a large red flag.

Summary: Owusu-Asiedu was seen as raw coming out of the draft, but his 2024 season was particularly dreadful. The good news is that mostly all flipped in 2025. His strikeout rate went from 36.1% to 24.0%, his walk rate went from 10.4% to 13.6%, and in just his time in Clearwater his zone contact % went from 72.6% to 78.4%. He swung less overall, chased less, and saw his overall contact rate improve even after he was promoted a level. That all said, his contact rate is still concerningly low, and in particular he still struggles vs offspeed pitches. It wasn’t just the swing and miss that saw improvement though, he cut down on some of his poor contact, became a line drive machine, and used the whole field. His HR/FB rate collapsed at Jersey Shore, but there is probably some luck and ballpark effects in that sample size. He was boosted by some stark platoon splits, and the struggles vs RHP are a definite worry. This is all worth it because the underlying tools are good. He had a 90th percentile exit velocity with the Threshers of 107.3 mph which was 96th percentile in the Florida State League and was behind just Kyle Schwarber and Gabriel Rincones among players in the Phillies org with at least 100 tracked batted ball events. He played all three outfield positions, and has plus to plus plus speed and should be able to play center field in addition to both corners. His swing and miss at the plate probably dooms his major league upside without another massive leap, but there is not a ton of squinting needed to see him becoming a 4th/5th outfielder that is the short side of a platoon while giving across the outfield coverage. He has room for more than that, but it would take a lot more going right.

On the other side the Phillies add 3 more arms to the already acquired RHP Yoniel Curet and RHP Zach McCambley to give them a suddenly decent amount of depth.

Keller is going to slot into the late innings coming off of a great 2025 campaign after completely remaking himself as a pitcher. He has a 5 pitch mix that dominated righties and held lefties in check. His 2 year $22M deal is probably where Matt Strahm’s $7.5M is being allocated for next year. The Phillies probably can draw a little more in the pitch usage, but he is pretty well optimized already. Like Jhoan Duran, Keller has good strikeout numbers, but decreasing contact quality is part of his success.

Kyle Backhus is the easier of the two other pitchers to understand how he fits into the bullpen construction. With Strahm out the door, the Phillies had two very good lefties in the majors in Jose Alvarado and Tanner Banks, but almost none in the upper minors. Backhus is 2021 NDFA who was called up to the majors last year so he has all three of his option years remaining. He is a LOOGY of a different era. He dominated lefties in the majors, but was hit around by righties. He has an east-west with a sinker, changeup, and sweeper from a low arm angle and outlier extension. He is going to need to improve his changeup or add a different look to help make him not a liability vs righties.

Jonathan Bowlan is going to be tied to Strahm for the rest of his Phillies tenure, and if you just look at his baseball reference page you probably are going to be a bit disappointed. He was the Royal’s 2nd round pick in 2018 and was a sort of nondescript starter who missed most of 2021 to Tommy John surgery and didn’t move full time to the bullpen until 2025. He is a big guy who gets decent flatness on his fastball which will sit in the mid 90s, touching up to 98-99. His 4 seam fastball was hit around a bit, and he mixes in a sinker to help provide some weaker contact. He has an interesting changeup that he will mix in as a chase pitch to lefties, and then a pair of breaking balls in a big curveball and harder gyro slider. There is some pitch usage work the Phillies can do, but Bowlan has some of the same traits and looks as Brad Keller, but without the full optimization and results. It is the type of profile the Phillies have generally liked in their starting pitchers, but now are starting to prioritize in the bullpen as well. He is out of minor league options because the Royals jerked him around a bit, so he will need to make it in the middle relief innings of the bullpen.

A lot of motion for the sense of motion does not make sense, but if we keep to just the 40 man roster, here is where the Phillies depth chart stands (*cannot be optioned):

High Leverage: RHP Jhoan Duran, RHP Brad Keller, LHP Tanner Banks, LHP Jose Alvarado

Middle Relief: RHP Orion Kerkering, RHP Jonathan Bowlan*

Low Leverage/Churn: RHP Zach McCambley*, LHP Kyle Backhus

Minor League Depth: RHP Seth Johnson, RHP Yoniel Curet, RHP Seth Johnson, RHP Max Lazar, RHP Alex McFarlane

With the Phillies getting an extra option on Johnson, there is a clearer path to having good minor league depth and for now Backhus sitting in the churn spot. There is a chance McCambley is not on the opening day roster if other options are better at which point that opens room for a NRI or one of the minor league guys. Assuming health, the Phillies will have 5 good, tested relievers, and a few more competent ones after that. Overall, it is not the most big name bullpen, but it is one of the better ones since the 2023 NLDS, and assuming a starting pitching move isn’t coming it is one that can pick up some deficiencies in that unit.