Ahead of his final season under club control, and with his 2026 salary expected to top more than $6 million through arbitration, reliever Evan Phillips was not tendered a contract for next year by the Dodgers on Friday, but president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the team is still interested in re-signing him as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
“We had a number of back and forth discussions with Evan and his agent,” Friedman said via text. “It is challenging with him coming off surgery, so he is going to take some time and look to sign after he throws off the mound when his rehab allows. Evan has been a big part of our past success and we will continue the conversation about bringing him back. We respect that he is taking this time to decide what is best for him and his family.”
Friday’s decision — which will make Phillips a free agent — reflects the uncertainty around the pitcher’s status for next season, following the Tommy John procedure he had last June.
Phillips’ recovery process is expected to stretch at least into the early part of next year. How much he will be able to pitch in 2026 remains unclear.
Because of that, the Dodgers faced a decision ahead of MLB’s non-tender deadline Friday: Keep Phillips on the roster and pay him the $6.1 million or so that MLB Trade Rumors projected he would receive through the arbitration process. Or cut him loose and attempt to re-sign him (likely to a lesser salary) this offseason.
The club picked the latter. Now, only time will tell whether Phillips’ productive tenure in Los Angeles will continue.
Phillips, 31, has been a key part of the Dodgers’ bullpen since the team plucked him off waivers near the end of the 2021 season.
In 2022, he was one of the top relievers in baseball, posting a 1.14 ERA with 77 strikeouts in 63 innings. He had a 2.05 ERA and 24 saves the following season, before regressing to a 3.62 mark in 2024.
Despite that decline, the right-hander still played a crucial role in the club’s 2024 World Series run, pitching 6⅔ scoreless innings that postseason before missing the World Series with a shoulder injury.
That injury, which Phillips later said included a tear in the back of his rotator cuff, caused him to miss the early weeks of this past season.
Phillips eventually made his 2025 season debut on April 19, but logged only seven appearances (all of them scoreless) before going on the injured list in early May with forearm discomfort. At the time, Phillips’ hope was that the IL stint was only a “precautionary” measure and that he would be able to return later in the season.
Instead, his forearm pain lingered. And by the end of May, the full severity of his injury had become frustratingly clear.
Phillips underwent his Tommy John procedure, which typically comes with a 12-18 month recovery timeline, on June 3.
“[His arm] wasn’t really responding,” general manager Brandon Gomes said at the time. “We felt like this could be a possibility. So as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”
Phillips did begin throwing again on Nov. 5, he announced on Instagram. The Dodgers would still like for him to be part of the mix in their bid for a World Series three-peat in 2026.
Now, however, it will take a new contract to get that done.
In addition to Phillips, the Dodgers also decided not to tender a contract to 27-year-old pitcher Nick Frasso on Friday. Frasso, a former top prospect who struggled in triple-A in his return from a shoulder surgery this past season, had yet to make his MLB debut.
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