Odúbel Herrera re-signs (yuck). Zack Wheeler might be hurt (yikes). Same old Phillies (sigh) | Marcus Hayes

With $40 million to spend, they're watching the rest of baseball get better while their best pitcher recovers from soreness and they pursue a despised player they paid $2.5 million to go away.

Odubel Herrera, who lost 85 games to a domestic abuse suspension in 2019, might be a Phillie again.Read moreJOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer

by Marcus Hayes | Columnist

Published Mar. 14, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

The local nine this weekend added two meh players with domestic violence violations in their past, including the least popular player since Scott Rolen. They opened camp with lots of money to spend but with no new talent. And they discovered that their horse might be so lame that he’s staying in the barn.

New season. Same old Phillies.

From the Stupid Money franchise that brought you “If we don’t, we don’t,” the Phillies ended the 99-day lockout and resumed 100% business as usual: tone-deaf, careless, their checkbook nowhere to be found.

Seriously, guys?

In case you didn’t get the message that the Phillies don’t really care about domestic violence issues when they let Odúbel Herrera play with the major-league club last season — he was suspended for 85 games in 2019 — they’ve agreed to bring him back again this season, according to a league source. He agreed to terms Monday morning. This, after they paid him a $2.5 million buyout to go away.

In case you still didn’t get the hint, they’ve already signed former Mets reliever Jeurys Familia, who was suspended 15 games in 2017 for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy.

Adding to the insult here is, neither Familia nor Herrera materially makes the Phillies much better on the field.

Zack Wheeler, on the other hand, does.

He’s the first real ace the team has had since Roy Halladay, circa 2011. But Wheeler won’t be earning his whole $26 million this season. He’s not ready, either by design, by injury, or both. The distinction was not made completely clear.

You can’t make it up

On Sunday morning, Phillies president Dave Dombrowski revealed Wheeler had not yet thrown off the mound. Sunday was March 13, about four weeks after spring training was supposed to start, so Wheeler should have been ready to throw off the mound a month ago. Dombrowski claimed Sunday morning that the Phillies always planned on letting Wheeler delay his preseason preparations. In 2021, he threw 213⅓ innings, a career-high and the most in the major leagues.

(Of course, since the Phillies missed the playoffs for the 10th consecutive year, Wheeler didn’t pitch past late September. By this logic, if the Phils had gone to the World Series, then Wheeler wouldn’t have begun 2022 until May. That, of course, is perfect Phillies logic.)

Dombrowski said Sunday morning that “everything is fine from a health perspective,” regarding Wheeler.

Really?

On Sunday afternoon, Wheeler told reporters that he felt shoulder soreness when he began his offseason routine in December. That prompted him to stop throwing, and that’s what delayed his preparation for camp.

So, either Dombrowski didn’t know on Sunday morning that Wheeler’s shoulder hurt in December, or Dombrowski willfully misled reporters about why Wheeler is not on schedule — omitting the injury information, telling a convenient half-truth.

Sadly, the former is more likely. And the latter is much worse.

At least in Wheeler, the Phils can expect sound results and solid citizenship.

The accused and suspended domestic abusers ? Not so much.

Worth it?

Will it be worth the bad optics to add two low-return players? Clearly, the Phillies don’t care.

Familia, 32, spent all but 30 of his last 252 games with the Mets. Over those 252 games, he has defined mediocrity: a 4.15 ERA and 25 saves since 2016, when he had 51 saves and was an All-Star.

Herrera, 30, was on that All-Star team with Familia. Since then, he has been an erratic outfielder, a streaky hitter, and an inconsistent, flighty presence on the bases. In the past five years (he spent the COVID-shortened 2020 season in the minors), he’s batted .262 with a .313 on-base percentage and a .736 OPS, numbers that mirror his 2021 effort over 124 games.

Also, he throttled his girlfriend; the police report said the man knowns as The Little Bull left “hand print markings on his girlfriend’s neck.” She didn’t pursue charges, so El Torito walked, but that doesn’t diminish the horrific nature of the incident. Now, he’s back.

Unbelievable.

As a person, I don’t care if he’s changed, or reformed, or whatever. As player, he is what he is, and that ain’t much. If he’s the best left-handed platoon option Dombrowski could find, then the Phillies should just rehire Matt Klentak.

There’s a chance Dombrowski could be saving his war chest — he’s about $40 million or so below the projected $230 million luxury-tax threshold — to make a monumental splash, the way the Phillies splurged on Bryce Harper in 2019, Wheeler in 2020, and J.T. Realmuto in 2021. Blue-chippers like Kris Bryant, Michael Conforto, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos remain unemployed at the moment.

In this moment, though, the Phillies look ridiculous. Again.

As usual?

This is, after all, a team so full of selfish, misinformed goobers that it spent most of the 2021 season below a 50% vaccination rate and it didn’t reach the vaccination threshold of 85% until mid-September, which meant they suffered under onerous protocols long after almost every other team had returned to normalcy. This is a team that had not one, but two, nimrods blame their injuries on getting the vaccine. Ron White said it best: You can’t fix stupid.

Apparently, you can’t fix the Phillies, either.