Evan Phillips and the Atlanta Braves have agreed to terms on a 3 year, $35 million deal, per reports.
Phillips, a righthanded reliever, was originally signed by the Braves in 2015 after being selected in the 15th round out of the University of North Carolina. He broke into the majors in 2018 with Atlanta, making 4 appearances with an 8+ ERA before being sent to the Baltimore Orioles at the deadline for Kevin Gausman and our old friend Darren O’Day. after a couple of years as a not very good up-and-down
guy, Phillips was released by the Orioles and signed by the Rays for the 2021 season. He only had one major league appearance with the Rays before they waived him, and he was claimed by the Dodgers.
He was terrific for the Dodgers in 2022 and 2023, pretty good in 2024, and then missed of 2025 due to Tommy John surgery. After being non-tendered, he resigned with Los Angeles and put up a 3.46 ERA and 3.87 FIP in 26 innings over 31 games upon his return in 2026. In 221 innings over 232 games for L.A., he has put up a 2.36 ERA and a 2.90 FIP.
How does that compare to what the prognosticators prognosticated for him in his venture into the free agent market? Baseball America projected he would get less than $10 million guaranteed. The projections at Fangraphs from Ben Clemens said 2 years, $20 million, while the median crowdsource was 1 year, $6.8 million. Kiley McDaniel had Phillips in his “other free agents of note” category. MLB Trade Rumors had Phillips at 2 years, $24 million.
This is the first multi-year deal for a free agent of the offseason. I was going to say it was the first free agent signing of significance, but Emiliano Pagan and the Tigers agreed to a $11.5M one year deal yesterday, it was reported.
