Perseverance is quite possibly the most necessary trait for any young player that chooses to make a life in Professional baseball. Between unknown injuries to competing in the ultra competitive world of MInor League baseball, the players that have the most perseverance are the most likely to make it to the other side and end up on a Major League roster.
Once You Made It
Once a player has made the Major Leagues, that’s just the beginning of their competitive journey. There’s a saying in life that “it’s easier to get to the top than it is to stay on top” and that holds true for many, many Major League baseball players.
Once a player reaches the Big Leagues, every other player in that organization that plays their position is gunning to replace them. There are some Major Leaguers that sign for so much money that they have enough equity to hold on during the tough patches, but many Major Leaguers can’t, and for those players every day is a battle to keep their job.
Phillips Character
Evan Phillips is a guy that has shown that he has that needed trait known as perseverance, and, because of it, he’s still pitching on a Major League roster. Phillips was drafted out of Clayton High School in North Carolina in the 33rd round, but chose instead to go to college and become a UNC Wilmington Seahawk and play close to home.
College was a perfect spot for the Angular right hander as Phillips loved the campus at UNC Wilmington, and he had a plan to use his College degree as a backup in case his playing days came to an end before he wanted them to. Phillips was going to major in Business-Management, and if he didn’t make the Major Leagues on the field, he had plans to someday become a General Manager in the Front Office of a Major League team.
Baseball was in his blood and he was going to build a successful life around it one way or the other. And, living by the motto that if you fall 9 times, you have to get up 10, Phillips set his goals and was almost certainly destined to reach them.
UNC Wilmington to Pro
As a Junior at UNC Wilmington the right hander threw 51.1 innings and pitched well enough to get drafted again, but this time in the 17th Round by the Atlanta Braves, and so his professional journey had begun.
The very next Spring Phillips found himself back home in North Carolina playing A Ball for the Carolina Mudcats. 2 months later, in June of 2016, the Carolina native became a Carolina League All Star, then got promoted to AA and was assigned to the Mississippi Braves where he finished out the 2016 season.
In the next year, 2017, Phillips broke camp with the AA Mississippi Braves again, but got called up to AAA Gwinnett at the end of May where he spent the rest of the year. Well, except for a 3 day diversion with no official appearances with the Class A Florida Fire Frogs.
Then, in June of the next year, 2018, Phillips’ dreams came true as his contract was selected by Atlanta and his 3 years of options were officially on the clock. On July 3rd the former UNC Wilmington Seahawk found himself standing on the mound of Yankee stadium and staring down the barrel of the New York lineup. The North Carolina native threw 2.1 innings in his debut and his Major League career had launched.
Phillips would make 3 more appearances for Atlanta in July but then got introduced to the duties of the Front Office, a job he once studied for, as he got traded to the Baltimore Orioles. With the Orioles he made 4 appearances in August of 2018, and that’s when the reality must have sunk in of how hard pitching in the the MLB was going to be. Phillips threw a total of 3.1 innings giving up 8 runs with an ERA of 21.60 for that Month with Baltimore in the MLB, and in his 1 outing in September he gave up 3 earned runs in 2 innings pitched. So reality had surely sunk in that staying in the MLB was going to be the ultimate test of toughness.
Perseverance
In March of 2019, with 2 option years remaining, Phillips was optioned back down to Norfolk and had 1 appearance in AAA before being recalled to Baltimore again in April. The former Clayton HIgh School Comet then showed his resilience as he bounced back from the rough end to 2018 and had a good beginning of 2019 by posting a 3.60 ERA in 10 innings pitched.
Despite having a very solid April Phillips was optioned back down again on May 10th and would be optioned and recalled 9 more times the rest of 2019.
2021 saw Phillips throw 14.1 innings with Baltimore and in those appearances he had a 5.02 ERA and after 18 AAA appearances he was released by Norfolk and was looking for work. Phillips got picked up by Tampa Bay but only with a Minor League contract and he was assigned to Durham. After 2 appearances with the legendary Bulls Phillips was called up to Tampa on August 12th, pitched against Minnesota on the 13th, but was then Designated for Assignment the next day.
So, the resilient Carolina native was put on waivers which is where the Dodgers acquired him and he has been in L.A. since then. With L.A. he has thrown 10.1 innings allowing just 4 earned runs in those innings.
Phillips Stuff
Phillips is a guy that, if needed to extend longer, could be a 3 pitch pitcher. But, with the limited amount of time he has to settle in by usually only getting an inning, he has had to rely mainly on his 4 seam fastball and his slider. His split finger is a pitch that moves a lot, to the point where he has a hard time controlling it, so it seems as if it is hard for him to trust that pitch a whole lot when he knows he’s only going to get an inning or so.
As a result he has turned his slider into 3 different pitches to give the hitters enough variety to keep them off balance.. He can throw his slider as a get me over
He can throw it to lefties with more downward bite to treat it like a backfoot pitch.
Or he can simply get it to dive down and away from right handers to induce swing and miss strike outs.
Phillips also has a 4 seam fastball that is 93-96 that he uses to maximize strike efficiency.
Then he throws it up in the zone to take advantage of the spin rate of the pitch to get swing and miss strike outs
Conclusion
The Dodgers have a lot of guys that sign for a lot of money, and then they also have enough money to get guys like Turner and Scherzer at the trade deadline as well. But, it can’t be underestimated how good of a job the organization has done in finding guys like Evan Phillips, plugging them in and then finding success with them as they help the club.
Evan Phillips is a talented baseball player, else he wouldn’t have made it to the MLB. But it’s his perseverance and mental toughness that has helped him get up everytime he has gotten knocked down and now he’s standing in LA.
