The Philadelphia Phillies’ offseason was supposed to have one last big moment.
Sep 20, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen (23) pitches against the Philadelphia Phillies during the third inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images
One more splash. One more headline. One more move that made the rest of the National League feel uncomfortable.
Instead, it stalled.
After their swing-and-miss attempt at shortstop Bo Bichette, the Phillies’ winter has gone quiet — almost abruptly — like the front office hit pause and decided to stop feeding the rumor machine.
But quiet doesn’t mean finished.
And with spring training less than two weeks away, the Phillies may have stumbled into the kind of opportunity that only appears when the market gets weird, the clock gets loud, and a player’s price starts to soften.
That opportunity has a name:
Zac Gallen.
According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, the Phillies are still seriously considering starting pitching help, and that opens the door for a late-offseason addition that would’ve sounded impossible a month ago.
Gallen — the former Arizona Diamondbacks starter — is still on the market. And heading into February, there’s been surprisingly little public momentum around his free agency.
Maybe the market exists behind the scenes.
Maybe teams are circling quietly.
But for now, he’s still available — and that’s exactly why the Phillies should be paying attention.
The Phillies’ rotation isn’t broken… but it’s not bulletproof anymore
For the last few seasons, the Phillies have had something rare: a rotation that felt dependable. Not perfect, but sturdy. A group that didn’t require constant patchwork.
That feeling is changing.
Ranger Suárez is gone, signing with the Boston Red Sox. And while Philadelphia still has high-end arms, there are new questions that weren’t there before — especially regarding timing, health, and depth.
Zack Wheeler’s status has become a looming storyline. Even if he returns, the uncertainty creates a hole the Phillies can’t ignore. They can talk themselves into internal solutions, but contenders don’t like “talking themselves into” anything.
They like certainty.
And right now, the Phillies’ rotation has too many “ifs” floating around.
Zac Gallen: the perfect buy-low… or the perfect trap
Gallen’s 2025 season wasn’t exactly a sales pitch.
He finished 13–15 with a 4.83 ERA, a 1.26 WHIP, and 175 strikeouts in 192 innings. He made 33 starts — durability is still there — but the damage was louder than ever. He allowed a career-high 31 home runs, the fourth-most in MLB.
That stat alone is enough to make teams hesitate.
But it’s also the reason he might be attainable.
Because this isn’t a pitcher who forgot how to throw.
Gallen has a career 3.58 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP across seven MLB seasons. The résumé still holds weight. The question is whether the Phillies believe his 2025 was a real decline… or just a brutal walk-year dip that can be corrected with the right adjustments.
And there’s one more layer that makes this feel almost too perfect:
Gallen is local.
He grew up in Somerdale, New Jersey. If the Phillies sign him, it’s not just a roster move — it’s a storyline. The hometown arm coming home at the exact moment the rotation needs reinforcement.
Those narratives don’t win games, but they do matter in a city like Philadelphia. And they matter even more if the player starts winning.
How he fits — and why the Phillies might need him more than they admit
If the Phillies added Gallen, he could slide into a rotation alongside Cristopher Sánchez, Aaron Nola, Jesús Luzardo, and (hopefully) Andrew Painter. That’s a group that suddenly looks deeper, tougher, and more October-ready.
It also gives the Phillies breathing room.
Because yes, Taijuan Walker is still on the roster, and he can provide depth. But “depth” and “dependable starter you trust in a playoff race” are not the same thing.
The Phillies still don’t know exactly how they want to deploy Walker, and that uncertainty is exactly why another arm could matter.
The roadblock: Boras and the price of signing him
Of course, this isn’t a clean decision.
Gallen is represented by Scott Boras, and Boras clients rarely come cheap — even when the market is slow.
That might actually be part of the reason Gallen is still available this late. If the asking price is high, teams wait. If the penalty is steep, teams hesitate.
And Gallen comes with a qualifying offer complication.
After declining Arizona’s $22.025 million qualifying offer, any team that signs him must pay the price. For the Phillies, that would mean surrendering two draft picks and $1 million in international bonus pool money.
That’s not nothing.
That’s the kind of cost that forces a front office to decide whether it’s buying a bounce-back ace… or paying premium tax for a mid-rotation arm.
Why the timing feels dangerous — in a good way
This is the part that makes the Phillies’ moment so interesting:
The closer spring training gets, the more leverage shifts.
If Gallen’s market hasn’t developed the way he hoped, the deal might drop into “too good to ignore” territory. And if that happens, the Phillies could suddenly land a starter with real upside without paying peak value.
It would still be a gamble.
But it might be the gamble that keeps their season from becoming one.
Because after losing Suárez and facing Wheeler uncertainty, the Phillies don’t just need another arm.
They need to stop pretending the hole isn’t there.
And Zac Gallen might be the last chance to fill it before the season starts asking harder questions. ⚡
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