{"id":57258,"date":"2022-12-23T20:44:25","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T01:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=57258"},"modified":"2022-12-23T20:44:25","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T01:44:25","slug":"craig-kimbrel-signed-phillies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/12\/23\/craig-kimbrel-signed-phillies\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Kimbrel Signed by Phillies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/phillies\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> signed former All-Star reliever Craig Kimbrel on Friday. The deal, first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, is for one year and $10 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Free-agent reliever Craig Kimbrel in agreement with Phillies, source tells <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheAthletic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TheAthletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/1606435986875064322?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 23, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Kimbrel ranks seventh all-time with 394 career saves. The 34-year-old righty got his start with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/braves\/\" target=\"_self\">Atlanta Braves<\/a>, pitching his first five seasons with them. Since then, he has bounced around to several teams, notably winning a championship in 2018 with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/redsox\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Red Sox<\/a>. He joins a Phillies club fresh off a World Series appearance, thanks in large part to a strong bullpen.<\/p>\n<h2>Craig Kimbrel&#8217;s All-Star Career<\/h2>\n<p>Kimbrel burst onto the scene with Atlanta, quickly establishing himself as a premier closer. He was effective in 2010, the year of his debut, but saw limited action in middle relief. He was the 2011 NL Rookie of the Year, amassing a rookie record of 46 saves with a 2.10 ERA. Kimbrel followed up that honor with three more All-Star campaigns in a row. In all of these seasons, he posted an ERA of 1.61 or lower and either shared or held outright the league lead in saves, including a career-high 50 saves in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>After a one-year stint with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/padres\/\" target=\"_self\">San Diego Padres<\/a> following a blockbuster trade, Kimbrel enjoyed three All-Star years in Boston, capped by a World Series title in 2018. Earlier that year, he became the youngest pitcher to amass 300 career saves. After spending parts of three seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/cubs\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Cubs<\/a>, Kimbrel was traded to the crosstown rival <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/whitesox\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago White Sox<\/a>, where he spent the latter part of 2021. In 2022, he pitched for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/dodgers\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>. With his last two clubs, Kimbrel saw a slight dip in effectiveness but remained highly used. For his career, he has eight All-Star nods, five top 10 Cy Young finishes, 1,098 strikeouts, and a 2.31 ERA.<\/p>\n<h2>Phillies Sign Kimbrel<\/h2>\n<p>Philadelphia made an unlikely run to the National League pennant last season, sneaking in as the lowest seed in the league and defeating three favored opponents. A major reason they did so is that for once, their bullpen was an asset rather than a liability. For years, the Phils struggled to hold late-inning leads, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory much too regularly. But late in 2022, they caught lightning in a bottle with the pen. On the strength of such pitchers as Corey Knebel, Jose Alvarado, Seranthony Dominguez, and David Robertson (<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/12\/09\/mets-re-sign-nimmo-add-robertson\/\" target=\"_self\">no longer with the team<\/a>), they held onto leads more often than not in October.<\/p>\n<p>Now that they&#8217;ve signed Kimbrel, the Phillies are looking to recreate that dynamic. It is unknown exactly what role Kimbrel will play at first. But given his pedigree as a closer, if he proves effective early in 2023, he could quickly find himself in high-leverage spots, perhaps even his niche in the ninth every now and then.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"Ll-YbqSsQ7dWvhFstPfoCw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1423825480\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Ll-YbqSsQ7dWvhFstPfoCw',sig:'am9xf4AV3dLbwTeLB1hvtdUk5qkfngX3gxv4PT9OCY0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1423825480',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Players mentioned:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kimbrcr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2022-12-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craig Kimbrel<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/knebeco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2022-12-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Corey Knebel<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/alvarjo03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2022-12-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Alvarado<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dominse01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2022-12-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seranthony Dominguez<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/roberda08.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2022-12-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Robertson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia Phillies signed former All-Star reliever Craig Kimbrel on Friday. The deal, first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, is for one year and $10 million. Kimbrel ranks seventh all-time with 394 career saves. The 34-year-old righty got his start with the Atlanta Braves, pitching his first five seasons with them. Since then, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3931,"featured_media":57261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,2,1071,35],"tags":[48,323,1275,2347,92,2262,268,93,5885],"class_list":["post-57258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-featured","category-mlb","category-news","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-david-robertson","tag-jose-alvarado","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-seranthony-dominguez"],"modified_by":"Troy Brock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}