The Phillies kicked off the start of their season over the weekend with games against the Toronto Blue Jays and Pittsburgh Pirates. Many of the names competing for the final few spots in the bullpen and bench played and look to make good impressions for the rest of camp.
The first two games of spring training will not tell you much how the season is going to go. It would take some scenarios no one wants to imagine for Bryse Wilson to start on opening day or for Trevor Richards to pitch in high leverage
but there are still things to take note of.
Justin Crawford’s swing
Here is a Justin Crawford swing on February 23 of last year:
And now here is a Justin Crawford swing from February 21 of this year:
I’m not a swing expert but there are two easy things to notice. His hands are a bit lower in the second clip and it’s helping him get to a more compact swing. The second thing is that his lower half is more in sync with his upper half, which might help him access more power either of the gap to gap variety or homers.
For most of Justin Crawford’s professional career, it often looked like the bat was swinging him and there were big questions about how he was going to cut down on the groundballs he hit. Matt Winkelman took a deeper look into Crawford’s season in AAA and found his groundball rate dropped over six percent from July to August that can be tied to swing adjustments he made.
Crawford is betting on those swing adjustments as he looks to solidify himself as the Phillies center fielder for 2026.
A Pair of Velocity Bumps
One pitcher fighting to make the final 26 who caught attention this weekend was left-hander Kyle Backhus. He throws from a funky, dropped-sidearm slot with over 7 feet of extension. He pitched 25.1 innings for a depleted Arizona Diamondbacks pitching staff last year. He excelled against left-handed hitters but got barreled against righties.
It seems like his strong first impression to start camp translated to Sunday’s outing. Backhus’s sinker was up a tick from 91.0 mph last season to 91.9, and he flashed 94. Any extra velocity to help him against right-handed hitters would be huge for his chances of making one of the final two bullpen spots.
The Phillies spent most of their offseason looking to bolster their right-handed reliever depth. They swapped Matt Strahm for Jonathan Bowlan and signed Brad Keller. They signed Zach Pop to a major league deal, added three right-handed arms to their 40-man roster from other organizations, and signed another 3 arms that have extensive major league experience to minor league deals.
But their only external left-handed reliever adds this off-season were the aforementioned Backhus and Génesis Cabrera on a minor league deal. With José Alvarado and Tanner Banks as the only lefties out of the bullpen on the major league roster, there is room for Backhus to make the club with a good spring.
Seth Johnson was granted a fourth minor league option this off-season and showed some flashes in 12.2 innings last season. He struck out over 31% of hitters he faced at the big league level in 2025 with a slider that generated a whiff rate north of 40%.
Johnson flashed 99 mph and sat 98.3 against the Blue Jays on Saturday. He threw noticeably more fastballs that outing, probably to work on something, because it’s February but it’s still worth paying attention to.
Among 40-man pitchers with minor league options that are expected to pitch in AAA and the majors this season, Johnson flashes the most upside because of his velocity and ability to generate whiffs. The problem with him is that he does not throw enough early count strikes and has to throw more four-seam fastballs because of it.
