Cristopher Sanchez was phenomenal during Thursday’s season opener against Texas. Seeing him put up six innings of shutout baseball is more and more becoming the normal expectation for a start of his, a mark of not only an exceptional player development success, but also the work put in by Sanchez to get to that point.
The Phillies have seen this work and rewarded it, giving him an extra two years on his original deal due to his excellence the past year and a half. It continues a trend of theirs to obtain,
develop and extend starting pitchers in their organization. Sanchez, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Jesus Luzardo – all show that the team is fearless when it comes to giving starting pitchers what they as a team believe to be something important to their organization. Yet the question I asked was if it was a wise use of resources, the allocation of a significant amount of their payroll resources to the starting rotation. The results?
That’s a resounding affirmation from the fanbase that what they are doing is a good decision. While putting that much money (~$101 million) into the starting rotation would scare off a lot of teams, the Phillies have made it a pillar of their team building and it has helped them get to the postseason the past four years. We can also thank whatever training and rest/recovery regimen they have, but the pitchers are the ones that are doing the work.
