Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Klentak trades for ‘likable’ Vargas
One of the dumpster-fire highlights of the latest comical New York Mets’ season has metastasized down the pike to Philadelphia, as pitcher Jason Vargas, last heard from getting into a confrontation with a team beat reporter last month yet still maintaining a slow burn on the mound, was traded to the Phillies Monday.
In return, the Phillies had to part with minor league catcher Austin Bossart, who made a name for himself as a team captain at Penn a few years ago, but at 26 was struggling to hit Double-A pitching with Reading.
Known as a defense-first catcher, Bossart, a 14thround pick in 2015, was only hitting .195 with a .638 OPS with the Fightin Phils through 63 games. The Phillies also received cash considerations, but will cover $2 million of Vargas’ $8 million salary hit.
Not that the veteran lefthander hasn’t been earning his money.
Vargas has gone 6-5 with a 4.01 ERA this season. He’s been up and down but that ERA is 3.34 over his last dozen outings.
“Jason Vargas is obviously battle-tested and he’s been a relatively effective major league pitcher for the better part of a decade now,” Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said Monday in a conference call. “We know it takes more than 25 guys to win a championship, we know that it’s going to be hard to make acquisitions over the next two months and we believe that Jason Vargas is going to give us a chance to win every time he takes the ball. That’s what he does – he keeps his team in the game.”
But Vargas wasn’t playing around when he intervened in a clubhouse incident in Chicago on June 23, with Mets manager Mickey Callahan jawing at Newsday reporter Tim Healey, reportedly after Healey bid Callahan a goodbye and said he’d see him in Philadelphia the next day.
Callahan, saying the reporter should understand a tough loss meant he didn’t want to hear such things, reportedly cursed the reporter out. Then bystander Vargas got involved and first threatened Healey, then charged him and was held back according to eyewitness accounts.
It all blew over with a Mets statement the next day at Citizens Bank Park, though Vargas was grilled about a so-so “apology” he offered up publicly then.
Klentak said he was confused by the whole thing, since he knew Vargas from 2013, when both worked for the Angels.
“When that initially happened my first thought was that was so out of character for Jason Vargas to be caught up in anything like that,” Klentak said. “The guy that I knew in Anaheim, it’s just not who he is. He’s not an overbearing personality at all like that. He’s very popular in the clubhouse with everybody. Very likable. On the mound, he’s a very hard worker and a good teammate. It just didn’t add up.”
As a result, Klentak said, he did his homework about Vargas and that incident before going through with the trade.
“You really can’t find anybody to say a bad word about this guy,” Klentak said. “I think that was an isolated episode that obviously created a lot of buzz ... but I don’t think that was a reflection of Jason Vargas at all. I think this guy is going to be a big plus for our clubhouse.”
As for what he’ll do on the mound, that remains to be seen. Vargas, 98-95 and a 4.35 ERA through all or parts of 14 seasons with six clubs, will likely have his first Phillies start either Friday or Saturday against the White Sox at home. He’s the second left-handed starter acquired by Klentak in recent days, as he signed Drew Smyly 10 days earlier.
Smyly, who had started nine of 13 games he appeared in this season with Texas, made one start for the Phillies July 21 and impressed by allowing just one run through six innings in Pittsburgh. He is scheduled to make another start Tuesday at home against San Francisco.
It was unclear whether the Vargas acquisition will result in Smyly moving to the bullpen, though it would seem struggling Zach Eflin would be a candidate to either go there or be demoted to the IronPigs.
Anyway, Klentak says he’s eager to see what Vargas can add to the starting staff.
“I like the fact that it’s a different look than what we currently have in our rotation,” Klentak said. “He’s a soft-tossing lefty; we have a lot of hard throwing righties. I think he’s a very good compliment to our pitching staff.”
In addition to Vargas and Smyly, the Phillies added relief pitcher Mike Morin last week, to go with recent acquisitions Jose Pirela (an outfielder sent him to the ‘Pigs), utility man Brad Miller and earlier this season Jay Bruce.
But after listing his transaction accomplishments, Klentak said that isn’t necessarily the whole list ahead of the Wednesday trade deadline. The non-waiver deadline takes on added significance this year as the August “waiver” deadline is no more. So as far as getting more outside major league help, it’s Wednesday or bust.
“Until the clock strikes 4 o’clock on Wednesday we’re going to keep the phone lines open and we’re going to keep having dialogue,” Klentak said. “It was really important for us to add a starter, partially because of the inconsistency we’ve had in our rotation for the first four months of the year but also because of the limited opportunity to add anything after Wednesday. So that was a priority for us.”
••• NOTES >> With Vargas joining up, Yacksel Rios was DFA’d to make room on the 40 man roster . ... Asked about that David Robertson guy, the free agent setup reliever who went out in August and is blowing his anticipated July return date badly, Klentak said, “We’re still hopeful that he may return sometime in August, but with each passing day it’s becoming less and less encouraging.” Then Klentak talked about Nick Pivetta filling that role going forward, which means it’ll be a surprise to see David Robertson at all.