Phillies rumors: Dave Dombrowski still has an eye on RHP Anibal Sanchez

During this past offseason, there was quite a bit of smoke surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies and their interest in veteran RHP Anibal Sanchez. Dave Dombrowski put an emphasis on starting pitching depth upon being hired as president (Chase Anderson, Matt Moore), and Sanchez was someone who he had a strong relationship with from their time together in Detroit.

Despite the low asking price that Anibal likely would’ve requested, the Phillies ultimately passed on signing the 37 year old starter. They were feeling pretty confident in Anderson and Moore to hold down the back of the rotation, and they had some pitching flexibility by way of Vince Velasquez and Spencer Howard already on the roster.

Less than a month into the season, and it looks like the Phillies interest in Anibal has started to pick back up again. According to MLB insider Jon Heyman, the Phillies were one of six teams to attend a recent throwing session hosted by Anibal:

While this could just be some good old fashioned “due diligence” from the Phillies new-look front office, news like this is worth a closer look when you take into account just how bad Matt Moore has been for the team through his first couple of starts. The veteran lefty has a 9.82 ERA and a 2.364 WHIP through 11.0 innings pitched.

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Even if Anibal is 37 years old, it’s hard to imagine him pitching any worse than what Moore has been doing as of late.

The Phillies are still checking in on free agent RHP Anibal Sanchez.

While Dombrowski is well known around the MLB for his hyper aggressiveness when it comes to addressing roster holes, I wouldn’t expect any sort of Anibal transaction to take place anytime soon. Heyman’s tweet mentioned that the veteran right-hander isn’t 100% ready quite yet, and the Phillies likely want to see Moore pitch one or two more times before fully bailing on that experiment.

It’s also worth mentioning that Vince Velasquez is getting a stab at a starting job tonight against Colorado. As much as fans may dislike him, Vince sliding into that #5 starter role would save Dombrowski (and John Middleton) some cash.

When news first broke during the offseason that the Phillies were interested in Anibal Sanchez, I was notably very against the idea. He pitched poorly in 2020 (6.62 ERA), and his productive 2018 and 2019 seasons look like anomalies when you taken into account his higher-than-average FIP numbers.

While Sanchez has never been much of a power arm, his low 90s velocity was also something that I didn’t particularly want to see in the Phils’ rotation.

With that said, after watching Moore single-handily pitch the Phillies out of a ballgame this past weekend, I’m pretty open to experimenting with that fifth rotation spot. I don’t see a ton of harm in giving Anibal a bit of a “tryout” at the job, should he want to sign for his old president here in Philadelphia.

Anibal also took down some big innings for the Nationals during their improbable 2019 World Series run, if that sways you one way or the other in regards to his current ability.