The Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins are two teams with playoff aspirations after missing the 2021 postseason. Both clubs want to strengthen their rosters ahead of the MLB trade deadline. And both would benefit from adding starting pitching. According to Jon Heyman, the Phillies and Twins are interested in Cincinnati Reds right-hander Tyler Mahle.
Mahle's surface numbers don't look good. He owns a 4.48 ERA and 1.27 WHIP. But he has over 100 strikeouts in under 100 innings this season. Teams will also be interested because Mahle has pitched well as of late. He's surrendered 3 runs or fewer in each of his past 4 starts. He has worked at least 6 innings in 3 of those 4 outings. Last month, Mahle fired a complete game shutout against the Diamondbacks with 12 strikeouts.
That start alone likely caught the Phillies and Twins attention.
The Twins and Phillies have similar rotations in a sense. Both are rather top-heavy with not much depth. Philadelphia is led by Zach Wheeler and Aaron Nola, while Minnesota is led by Joe Ryan and Sonny Gray. But if they want to make deep postseason runs, adding another starting pitcher will be crucial.
It should be noted that Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle were teammates on the Reds just last year. So the Twins may have extra motivation to try and land the Reds right-hander ahead of the MLB trade deadline.
Heyman said that the Phillies and Twins are “amongst the teams” interested in Mahle. So there is no guarantee that he will be headed to Minnesota or Philadelphia later today. But they seem to be the frontrunners.
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