Preseason Outlook
Role: Late Inning Reliever
Risk: Medium – There isn’t a huge sample size of McFarlane as a full time reliever, but the stuff is there to get outs, you just need to make some leaps of faith about his command.
Season Stats
| Team (LVL) | G | W-L | IP | ERA | HR/9 | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REA (AA) | 32 | 1-1 | 35.0 | 2.06 | 0.5 | 12.6% | 32.9% |
| LHV (AAA) | 4 | 0-1 | 4.1 | 0.00 | 0.0 | 11.8% | 47.1% |
| PHI (MLB) | 19 | 4-1 | 19.0 | 2.84 | 1.0 | 8.9% | 25.3% |
Season Review
As predicted, the Phillies sent McFarlane to Reading to open the year. He was dominant enough over the first two months of the year that there were many questions about why they were keeping him down (they did call him for a day and did not use him in April). He had a blip of a June before returning back to dominance. He received a brief call up, and an actual game, in late July, but did not fully arrive in the majors until August 11 after Caleb Kilian was injured.
After showing a velocity jump late in the 2025 season in the bullpen, McFarlane’s velocity was up early, but he actually saw some growth as the year went on to average 99 with his fastballs and touching 102 in the majors. He added what the Phillies tend to call a “baby sweeper” to go with his slider, but scrapped it in September in the majors.
On pure movement and velocity, McFarlane’s stuff rates out as elite, it is the command that has struggled. He did miss less bats in the majors, and some of that is somewhat by design. He throws two different fastballs with about 5 inches of vertical and 7 inches of horizontal separation between the two, but with the same velocity. His 4-seam fastball generates a solid amount of swings and misses, but his prone to getting hard when contact is made. His sinker does not miss many bats (88.5% z-con in the majors), but hitters struggle to actually do damage against it. This allows him to throw a pitch in the zone without it being a liability. He has great spin rate on his slider which has two plane depth and suffers from some of the same problems as his 4-seamer in that it misses bats, but can get hit in the zone. He throws it as more of a chase pitch than the fastballs. When he was throwing it, McFarlane’s sweeper was a pure chase pitch, with 9 inches more horizontal break than his slider, and a 31 inch separation from his sinker. He likely scrapped it because he could not throw it for a strike enough in the majors to get chases.
The sweeper, or better use of the slider is probably the next big step for McFarlane to be a real late inning weapon. Against lefties he just uses his 4-seamer and slider, and is able to have great success in limiting contact (1 walk and 12 strikeouts in 36 PAs) and damage. Against righties he was mostly reliant on the sinker then followed by the 4-seam and breaking balls. He struggled with walks and missing bats against these same side hitters. There is real synergy with the sweeper and sinker if he can actually pair them together. Alternatively, he will need to show a second quadrant of location on the slider against righties for chases. There are usual notes about cleaning up command, but it is unlikely McFarlane is going to actually be able to really dot his pitches, but he could do to cut down on his number of wasted pitches.
Future Outlook
This is a slightly better version of the pitcher we were waiting to arrive, but this is mostly what the vision was for McFarlane prior to them trying to make him a starter, and prior to the injury, and really prior to them finally just putting him in the bullpen. Some of it was due to ineffectiveness around him, but he quickly jumped into high leverage for the Phillies down the stretch and in the postseason. There are enough warts to worry that he may just end up an infuriating 7th inning reliever for as long as his arm holds up. However, the raw stuff is good enough that he could continue to pitch in the highest leverage situations going forward, he has certainly shown the aptitude and demeanor for it.