Philadelphia Phillies: 3 players who shouldn’t be on the playoff roster
By Tim Boyle
The Philadelphia Phillies and MLB playoff baseball go together like cats and dogs—occasionally they can join forces. This year’s Phillies team is a shot at making it to the playoffs. If they can secure themselves a wild card spot, going deep will depend partly on roster construction.
Philadelphia has little flexibility in terms of who should start for the team on the mound, in the field, and in the DH spot. There are those who are locked to join the club in any postseason run they may attempt to make.
Then there are those players on the fringe of seeing some non-regular season October baseball. It’s these three players whom Philadelphia should leave behind after the regular season is over.
1) The Philadelphia Phillies should not bring Nick Nelson with them into the postseason
Nick Nelson has tossed a lot of innings for the Phillies this year. Thank you! While not horrific all of the time, he just doesn’t fit in all that well with what the team should look to have in the postseason.
The Phillies should have enough available arms to get through any postseason grind without including Nelson there. With the knowledge that their first fight will be in a best of three series, the team will only need a trio of starting pitchers. This would allow some of the starters not getting the nod to do their thing to fall back and become multi-inning options for Rob Thomson.
Nelson has served the Phillies well at times this year even if control has been an issue. He doesn’t give up home runs and the ability to get more than three outs at a time is pretty valuable.
It’s the way baseball is played in the playoffs that makes him more expendable. The Phillies will need only their best pitchers. Nelson is not one of them.