Philadelphia Phillies Season in Review: Zach Eflin

Though Zach Eflin's 2022 wasn't that much different from his 2021 or 2020 on the stat sheet. The Philadelphia Phillies second longest tenured player proved his mettle.

Zach Eflin has been a member of the Philadelphia Phillies organization since 2015. He's as much a part of the rebuild-era Phillies as Maikel Franco, Tommy Joseph or Vince Velasquez.

And now, he's gone, his legacy in Philadelphia has come to an end.

After struggling for years with knee injuries, inconsistency and heavy body syndrome — whatever that is — Eflin finally got a chance to pitch on baseball's biggest stage, and clinch a postseason berth for the only Major League organization he's ever known.

Only a very small percentage of players ever get to participate in the Fall Classic, the Phillies gave that opportunity to Eflin as a parting gift, and he didn't squander his chance.

Across 6.1 innings in the NLCS and World Series, Eflin struck out seven, walked one and prevented even a single earned run from scoring. After spending his whole career as a starter, the Orlando-native proved himself as a dominant relief force.

But the season didn't start that way for Eflin, he was supposed to be the Phillies fourth starter, and through mid-June, it looked like he might be one of the best back-end rotations pieces in the National League.

Despite a disaster outing at the end of May which saw him surrender seven earned runs in one outing to the New York Mets, his ERA was 3.76 on June 9, his FIP was an even more impressive 3.40.

As it has always been throughout almost all of Eflin's career, he was burned by bad luck, with his ERA towering over his FIP. Since 2019 his 4.08 ERA matches up with a 3.57 FIP, and that trend continued in 2022.

But the thought that Eflin might continue to improve was a mirage.

Knee injuries caught up with him again mid-season, not for the first time, and probably not for the last time. Eflin was coming off an off-season knee surgery, and even though this specific injury wasn't season ending, any re-aggravation of his knee  was serious.

Thus Eflin was shut down July 25, the same day Bryce Harper took a Blake Snell fastball to the thumb. And for almost two months, Eflin sat on the bench biding his time for a comeback, while the rest of Philadelphia counted him out for the season.

That comeback came on Sept. 14, though the Phillies were clear he'd be used as a reliever, a starter no longer. Immediately, Eflin impressed.

In 7.2 regular season innings he walked no batters and allowed only one earned run, closing out the regular season's penultimate game to clinch the Phillies a wildcard berth.

Across all of his relief outings, both regular- and post-season, Eflin had a 2.45 ERA in 18.1 innings.

Final Grade: B

When everyone had counted him out, Eflin proved he still had something left in the tank, and the three-year, $40 million contract he signed with the Tampa Bay Rays shows that others see it too.

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