Opposition research: Erick Fedde

The former Phillies punching bag has been a far better pitcher since returning from Korea

It used to be that when a series against the Washington Nationals came up on the Phillies’ schedule, if Erick Fedde was one of the Nats’ starters, you could safely pencil that one in as a win for the Fightins. From 2020 to 2022, Fedde made eight starts against the Phillies and the Phillies went 6-2 in those games. And it wasn’t like Fedde was good in the two wins, giving up a total of nine runs in 8.1 innings.

It wasn’t just a Phillies thing, as Fedde wasn’t having much success against anyone. Over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he had a cumulative ERA of 5.64 and a combined -1.7 wins above replacement. He was arguably the worst starting pitcher in baseball during that span, with his only real “competition” for the title being his teammate, Patrick Corbin.

Unsurprisingly, when he reached free agency after 2022, there wasn’t a lot of interest in his services among major league teams. Instead, Fedde chose to sign with the NC Dinos of the KBO league in Korea.

Korea agreed with him, as Fedde became an ace over there, going 20-6 with a 2.00 ERA and winning the league’s MVP award. That success earned him interest with American teams, and he signed a two-year deal with the White Sox before the 2024 season.

His Korean success carried over to North America. The 2024 White Sox were a travesty, but Fedde was one of the few bright spots, going 7-4 with a 3.11 ERA. At the deadline, the Sox attempted to unload as many veteran assets as they could and send Fedde to the Cardinals as part of a three-team deal. Fedde was decent enough with his new team, although they were only 3-7 in his starts.

Fedde has been mostly good in 2025. His ERA is a bit elevated due to a couple of bad starts, but in his last outing, he faced his former team and shut the Nationals out for nine innings. It seems that Fedde 2.0 can succeed against his former friends. When he starts against the Phillies on Wednesday, we’ll see if he can have similar success against his former nemeses.

X-Men character of the series

Magik

Similar to Fedde, Illyana Rasputin was exiled to a foreign land, although Korea is probably far nicer than the Hell-like Limbo dimension to which Ilyana was sent. While in Limbo, Illyana’s powers grew, and she eventually became queen of the realm. Eventually, she made her way back to Earth where she took the codename Magik and used her newfound powers to help the X-Men.

In the mostly forgotten The New Mutants movie, Illyana was played by actress Anya Taylor-Joy. While the movie itself wasn’t good, I don’t think any comic book movie actor or actress has ever looked like the source comic character as much as Taylor-Joy.

I’m not including characters who were specifically designed to look like actors (Nick Fury). I’d say Illyana was based on Taylor-Joy if it wasn’t for the fact that the teenage version of the character first appeared in 1982, fourteen years before the actress was born.

Additional thought about the series

With the series win over the Guardians, the Phillies are on a pretty good roll.

What a difference from two and a half weeks ago, when the Phillies had lost five in a row, including a sweep at the hands of the Mets. Back then, we had no shortage of “doomers” saying that this team had no chance, and they should just break them up before it was too late. (By the way, can anyone explain why the Sunday Night Baseball crew was so intent on pushing the “Is the Phillies’ window closed?” angle last night?)

This series will be the Phillies’ first rematch of the season (a little odd that it’s not a divisional opponent) and it happens to be a rematch of a series the Phillies lost. The first Cardinals series was a lowlight for the team. In the opener, they played like a team that didn’t arrive in town until late the night before, and in the finale, they played like they couldn’t wait to get back on the plane and fly home.

Presumably, the team arrived home at a reasonable hour last night and will be fully rested for game one tonight. There’s no reason the Phillies can’t exact a bit of revenge against a good, but far from great Cardinals team.