MIAMI -- In a span of 24 hours, the Marlins acquired right-hander Tyler Phillips from the Phillies for cash on Wednesday afternoon and added him to their Opening Day roster on Thursday morning. In a corresponding move, Miami designated righty Seth Martinez for assignment.
Phillips was in the pool with his son when he had to take a phone call from Philadelphia president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski about the news. The family had been staying with his partner's mother in Clearwater, Fla., which the Phillies call home during Spring Training, because their lease was up.
"Honestly, right in that moment, you feel a lot of emotions -- nerves, excitement, whatever it is -- and I had to go and find the rest of my family and tell them," Phillips said. "We're super excited to be in Miami. It's Miami. Can't really beat the city there. So we're really excited about that. Staying in Florida was awesome. I think within the hour, all of our stuff was packed already, so we just hopped in the rental car we had, and just drove over. Got in last night."
With the rotation set -- right-handers Sandy Alcantara, Connor Gillispie, Valente Bellozo, Max Meyer and Cal Quantrill -- Phillips will provide manager Clayton McCullough with another bullpen arm capable of pitching multiple innings.
"Tyler is someone that can give us some length," McCullough said. "He's got some starter history in the past, threw like 150 innings last year. Deep repertoire. Another addition to our bullpen that can give us some length, if needed."
It was a tale of two pitchers for Phillips in 2024.
After striking out seven batters and allowing just one run over four relief innings in his Major League debut on July 7, Phillips went on to start seven games for the Phillies.
The 27-year-old posted a 1.71 ERA and a .194 average against through his first three starts, which included shutting out the Guardians on July 27, before compiling a 17.74 ERA and a .444 average against over his final four starts.
That carried over into Grapefruit League play, where Phillips surrendered earned runs in each of his first four outings and allowed multiple runs in three of them. But Phillips righted the ship, giving up just one run over his final three appearances. Across four frames, he struck out seven and walked none.
Philadelphia had designated Phillips for assignment on Sunday.
"My live BPs to start off spring were great, then I got into games, and I think I was trying to prevent the ultimate thing that happened in the end, being DFA'd," Phillips said. "[I] was trying to pitch for results, put a lot of weight on that."