Phillies: Could a discounted Jake Odorizzi be an answer?

What is the proper price for a 31-year-old, mid-rotation right-hander moving into the second COVID season for Major League Baseball? This is the question undoubtedly on the minds of hurler Jake Odorizzi and those teams still in search of reasonably professional starters.

Philadelphia Phillies pitchers and catchers report Feb. 17, according to reports, and most observers consider Philly not quite ideally set up with starting pitchers.

However, the team is unlikely to match Odorizzi’s 2020 on-paper contract, which called for $17.8 million. And neither are the Minnesota Twins, his last team.

Is Jake Odorizzi’s price tag a hurdle for the Phillies?

After making $9.5 million in 2019 with the Twins, Odorizzi was granted free agency, but then quickly re-signed with Minnesota for ’20 and a huge increase that was undercut by the pandemic and injuries, leaving Odorizzi with far less money than anticipated and only four appearances.

The huge increase in Odorizzi’s salary between 2019 and ’20 made some sense, however, as the pitcher delivered a career-best performance for the Twins in MLB’s last full season. He went 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA, and as Fangraphs notes, posted his best-ever FIP figure, 3.36. His strikeout rate jumped five percent, and he reversed a trend of declining velocity on his four-seamer.

This was attributed to a new training regimen and strategic approach after Odorizzi spent ten weeks at the Florida Baseball Ranch with coach Randy Sullivan.

So, in November of 2019, when the Twins signed him, they surely saw a hurler with a new commitment to extending his career, and therefore, overpaid him, some would say by a lot.

And then 2020 happened. COVID struck, as did a blister problem and a batted ball that struck the pitcher in the abdomen. The air seemed to come out of the new and improved Jake Odorizzi.

And so, within two weeks of spring training the right-hander has been linked by rumor and leaks to several teams, but not the Phillies. This is a guy who had been ranked between 20 and 30 in several spots among available free agents this winter despite his stumbling short season.

Should the Phillies consider him? A de facto consensus seems to be building in Philly that Matt Moore will win the fourth slot in the rotation, and that at least three pitchers will compete for the fifth slot, including young Spencer Howard.

But couldn’t Phillies GM Sam Fuld pick up the phone and call Jake Odorizzi’s agents, Excel Sports Management? He could at least start a conversation like this: “Listen, if he can get his head around not getting another $17.8 million contract, we really like Jake.”

Could that call have been made already?

Make it again.