Dodgers non-tender Evan Phillips, but could

Ahead of his remaining season under membership control, and with his 2026 wage anticipated to top more than $6 million through arbitration, reliever Evan Phillips was not tendered a contract for next 12 months by the Dodgers on Friday, but president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the group is still in re-signing him as he recovers from Tommy John surgical procedure.

“We had a number of back and forth discussions with Evan and his agent,” Friedman said via textual content. “It is challenging with him coming off surgery, so he is going to take some time and look to sign after he throws off the mound when his rehab allows. Evan has been a big part of our past success and we will continue the conversation about bringing him back. We respect that he is taking this time to decide what is best for him and his family.”

Friday’s choice — which can make Phillips a free agent — displays the uncertainty around the pitcher’s standing for next season, following the Tommy John process he had last June.

Phillips’ recovery course of is predicted to stretch at least into the early half of next 12 months. How a lot he will likely be ready to pitch in 2026 stays unclear.

Because of that, the Dodgers confronted a choice forward of MLB’s non-tender deadline Friday: Keep Phillips on the roster and pay him the $6.1 million or so that MLB Trade Rumors projected he would obtain through the arbitration course of. Or cut him unfastened and attempt to re-sign him (doubtless to a lesser wage) this offseason.

The membership picked the latter. Now, only time will inform whether or not Phillips’ productive tenure in Los Angeles will continue.

Phillips, 31, has been a key half of the Dodgers’ bullpen since the group plucked him off waivers close to the end of the 2021 season.

In 2022, he was one of the top relievers in baseball, posting a 1.14 ERA with 77 strikeouts in 63 innings. He had a 2.05 ERA and 24 saves the next season, before regressing to a 3.62 mark in 2024.

Despite that decline, the right-hander still performed a essential position in the membership’s 2024 World Series run, pitching 6⅔ scoreless innings that postseason before lacking the World Series with a shoulder injury.

That injury, which Phillips later said included a tear in the back of his rotator cuff, triggered him to miss the early weeks of this past season.

Phillips finally made his 2025 season debut on April 19, but logged only seven appearances (all of them scoreless) before going on the injured checklist in early May with forearm discomfort. At the time, Phillips’ hope was that the IL stint was only a “precautionary” measure and that he would have the ability to return later in the season.

Instead, his forearm pain lingered. And by the end of May, the full severity of his injury had change into frustratingly clear.

Phillips underwent his Tommy John process, which generally comes with a 12-18 month recovery timeline, on June 3.

“[His arm] wasn’t really responding,” common supervisor Brandon Gomes said at the time. “We felt like this could be a possibility. So as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”

Phillips did start throwing again on Nov. 5, he announced on Instagram. The Dodgers would still like for him to be half of the combination in their bid for a World Series three-peat in 2026.

Now, however, it’s going to take a new contract to get that carried out.

In addition to Phillips, the Dodgers also determined not to tender a contract to 27-year-old pitcher Nick Frasso on Friday. Frasso, a former top prospect who struggled in triple-A in his return from a shoulder surgical procedure this past season, had yet to make his MLB debut.