Philadelphia Phillies Announce Role Change for Struggling Veteran Pitcher

The Philadelphia Phillies are officially changing the role that one of their pitchers will have for the remainder of the year.

May 22, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Taijuan Walker (99) against the Texas Rangers at Citizens Bank Park / Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The storyline regarding the Philadelphia Phillies and Taijuan Walker has become the most discussed thing surrounding this team in recent weeks.

His brutal performance this season has taken some of the attention away from how poor the Phillies have played as a whole since the All-Star break.

Perhaps that has something to do with Philadelphia losing the last nine games he's started, clearly signaling he's hurting the group more than helping. But despite those on the outside knowing this, it seemed to be a mystery inside the building.

After the Phillies made a change to their pitching staff on Thursday and Walker wasn't apart of it, there was a real thought he might be making another start in this rotation.

Well, that's not the case after all.

According to Matt Gelb of The Athletic, Philadelphia will move Walker into the bullpen for the rest of the season.

"Rather than eat a club-record amount of dead money to release Taijuan Walker, the Phillies will move the underperforming starter to the bullpen for the remainder of 2024 ... He is unlikely to have a role come October for the second straight postseason," he reported.

The right-hander is in the second season of his four-year, $72 million deal, something that is looking like a compete disaster considering how he's performed after signing that contract.

Walker has not been able to get Major League hitters out at a high level this season, but they still are holding out hope he can return to being an effective starting pitcher.

"The Phillies will hide him in the bullpen with the hope of Walker returning to the rotation in 2025. It's a half-measure for a Phillies team that had to debate both the short- and long-term implications of Walker's place on the roster," Gelb adds.

The organization is certainly a whole lot more confident in this return to form than his numbers would suggest.

During his two years with the team, he has the highest ERA (4.99), WHIP (1.405), and hits per nine (9.0) of his career, which has resulted in the lowest strikeouts per nine (7.1) and ERA+ (86) he's ever produced.

All of that is a long-winded way of pointing out just how much of a struggle Walker's short tenure has been with Philadelphia.

So why would they have confidence he can become an effective part of this rotation again?

"The program that he was on to try and gain velocity, we didn't have enough time. Like, that program's a long program, and we sort of cut the program off early. I think if he has a full offseason of that program, we have a better chance of seeing some improvement," Rob Thomson told Gelb.

Hopefully that's the case, because right now this situation looks like a complete disaster.