It’s been a rough go of it for the young righty.
It’s hard to deny that Orion Kerkering has not performed the way that he or the Phillies want him to so far in 2025. The 24-year-old entered Wednesday sporting a 5.14 ERA across 16 appearances. Kerkering’s 1.64 WHIP ranks among the bottom of all qualified relievers and is coupled with a below average 20% strikeout rate.
His command hasn’t been there, his stuff has looked flat, and he’s allowed a lot of base hits. We’ve already done a deeper dive on Kerkering’s struggles here and touched on them here, but the bottom line is he hasn’t been good enough.
But it’s also unfair to single him out in a bullpen that hasn’t been good enough on the whole. The Phillies’ bullpen ERA of 4.78 entered Wednesday ranked 26th in baseball, and their 1.41 WHIP ranked 23rd. There have been some slight improvements since a collective rough beginning to the season, but the group as a whole does not currently inspire much confidence.
One of the possible solutions to the bullpen problem is to start churning through the pitchers on the 40-man roster to see if anyone else can be a serviceable bullpen arm, at least for a little bit. The problem is, the Phillies don’t really have any option-able players in their bullpen that can easily be sent down to make room for someone else.
Carlos Hernández would seem to be the easiest choice to start the churn, as he has a 6.59 ERA in 13 appearances. But he is out of options and the Phillies would have to try and pass him through waivers if they want to keep him in the organization. He hasn’t had much success since coming to Philadelphia, but the Phillies like his stuff and likely would want to give him more leeway to see if he can improve under Caleb Cotham. So, it’s possible that they would not want to risk losing him on waivers even if he is the easiest choice to be churned.
Two players that do still have options remaining are Kerkering and Tanner Banks. Banks has surprisingly been quite effective with a 2.93 ERA in 14 appearances with an impressive 30.5 K%. He doesn’t have anything close to the raw stuff of Kerkering and is the third lefty in the Phillies bullpen, but Banks has objectively been the better pitcher so far this season. Plus, he has the added bonus of being an option to pitch multiple innings.
So, that leaves Kerkering as the only real option to be optioned. It’s a difficult decision, as demoting a young player for any amount of time runs the risk of destroying his confidence. But Kerkering has only appeared in two games at Triple-A, as he rose from A-ball to the Majors in 2023. Perhaps a little time in Triple-A to refine his pitches or possibly add a new one could be to his benefit, much like it was to José Alvarado in 2022.
So, should the Phillies consider a short demotion for Orion Kerkering? Or should they just move on from Hernández to start their bullpen churn?