Phillies Nuggets: Club should consider extending Jeremy Hellickson

By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor

After pitching just shy of 200 innings in 2016 and posting a 3.2 WAR (per FanGraphs), Philadelphia Phillies right-handed pitcher Jeremy Hellickson had about as good of an April as one can have.

Hellickson, who turned 30 on April 8, went 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 30 innings in the first month of the season.

Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported last week that the Phillies may be willing to take on some of what remains of Hellickson's $17.2 million salary at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline if it means they will get a better trade return for their Opening Day starter. While that makes sense and remains the most likely course of action for the Phillies, the club should consider extending Hellickson.

For as steady as Jerad Eickhoff is, Hellickson has also become one of the more reliable pitchers that the team has had in some time. He's not a front-of-the-line starting pitcher for a contending team, but he's someone who is going to pitch close to 200 innings each year and rarely delivers a clunker.

Even with the amount of young pitching depth that the Phillies have at the upper levels of their farm system or in the majors — Zach Eflin, Nick Pivetta, Ben Lively, Jake Thompson, Mark Appel — it's important to have at least a couple pitchers in the rotation that you are certain what you will get from them.

None of the five aforementioned pitchers have had extended success at the big league level and the duo of Vince Velasquez and Aaron Nola isn't as far along in their development as many thought they would be by this time. Velasquez posted a 6.33 ERA in April and there's many that think he would be better served pitching at the back-end of the bullpen. Aaron Nola has flashed front-of-the-rotation ability, but he had an arm injury last year and is currently on the disabled list with a lower back injury.

Certainly, the Phillies hope that some of their young pitching will live up to their potential and become sure things, but in the meantime there's an argument to be made that keeping Hellickson with Eickhoff together is important for the team.

A benchmark that the Phillies could look at is the 4-year/$50 million deal that Ricky Nolasco signed with the Minnesota Twins in November of 2013, just shy of his 31st birthday. The deal largely hasn't worked out, but both in terms of years and the average annual salary of $12 million, it might not be too far off from what it would take to sign Hellickson to a long-term deal.

Whether or not Hellickson and his agent Scott Boras would be content with signing a deal in that neighborhood (and forfeiting his chance to be on the open market) remains to be seen. Boras did get a brief chance to gauge how teams felt about Hellickson on the open market a year ago, but that was when he had a qualifying offer attached to him. As part of the new CBA, the Phillies can't extend a qualifying offer to Hellickson again this offseason, meaning that any potential free-agent suitors wouldn't have to forfeit a draft pick to sign him.

Perhaps the best course of action for general manager Matt Klentak to take would be to keep an open dialogue with Boras about a potential deal, as well as potential trade suitors. It wouldn't be all that different from how the team handled Cole Hamels' impending free-agency prior to the 2012 non-waiver trade deadline. If the Phillies are able to work out a deal with Hellickson prior to the trade deadline, that's great. If not, he's a near lock to be traded before the trade deadline because the team cannot afford to have him potentially walk in free-agency this offseason.

The Nuggets

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