2019 Phillies in Review: Jason Vargas

The numbers

Overall: 7-9, 4.51 ERA, 149.2 IP, 124 K, 63 BB, 1.363 WHIP, 1.2 WAR

With the Phillies: 1-4, 5.37 ERA, 55.1 IP, 43 K, 24 BB, 1.518 WHIP, -0.4 WAR

The good:

He wasn’t Jerad Eickhoff or Nick Pivetta? Those are pretty much one of the only good things I can say about Vargas this season.

At least they didn’t give up much to get him. In exchange for Vargas, the Phillies sent catcher Austin Bossart to the Mets. In 63 games with Reading this season Bossart slashed .195/.303/.335. He fared similarly with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, slashing .200/.300/.300 over 19 games, which wasn’t good enough for the loss to matter. This was pretty much the inverse of the “Sixto Sanchez for J.T. Realmuto” trade, where the Phillies gave up a good prospect to get a good player.

Oh, and another good thing: The Phillies got two wins against him when he was with the Mets on April 24 and June 26.

The bad:

Vargas didn’t get his first win until his tenth appearance with the Phillies, in late September. By that point the playoff push was over and it didn’t matter anyway. In 11 starts between August and September, he got pulled before the fifth inning four times, and before the sixth inning an additional three times. His longest outing for the Phils was 6.2 innings. For a guy that was brought in as a supposed “innings eater” to solve the mid-rotational crisis and provide stability to an overall depleted starting rotation, only lasting past the fifth inning four times wasn’t good enough.

The future:

The Phillies declined the club option on Vargas for 2020, so he will not be back.