A Look Back at the Phillies Transactions - 2020 to 2021

2021 Topps Heritage #337

2021 Topps Heritage #442

2021 Chachi Departures #2

2021 Topps Heritage #69

2021 Topps Heritage #421

I put together this listing each year for the sake of completeness, and similar to recent years I feel the need to hit Publish and quickly move on for the good of my own mental health.

Departures - 2020-2021 Offseason

• Deolis Guerra - rhp (10/14/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the Oakland Athletics (2/2/21).
• Trevor Kelley - rhp (10/14/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the Chicago Cubs (12/14/20).
• Jose Alvarez - lhp (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the San Francisco Giants (3/6/21).
• Jake Arrieta - rhp (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the Chicago Cubs (2/17/21).
• Jay Bruce - of (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the New York Yankees (2/12/21).
• Tommy Hunter - rhp (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the New York Mets (2/14/21).
• Brandon Workman - rhp (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, signed with the Chicago Cubs (2/18/21).
• Phil Gosselin - inf (10/30/20) - Outrighted off 40-man roster, elected free agency, signed with the Los Angeles Angels (2/11/21).
• Heath Hembree - rhp (10/30/20) - Outrighted off 40-man roster, elected free agency, singed with the Cleveland Indians (2/5/21).
• Adam Morgan - lhp (10/30/20) - Outrighted off 40-man roster, elected free agency, signed with the Chicago Cubs (2/12/21).
• Blake Parker - rhp (10/30/20) - Outrighted off 40-man roster, elected free agency, signed with the Cleveland Indians (2/16/21).
• David Phelps - rhp (10/30/20) - Club option declined, elected free agency, signed with the Toronto Blue Jays (2/11/21).
• David Robertson - rhp (10/30/20) - Club option declined, elected free agency, signed with the Tampa Bay Rays (8/16/21).
• Reggie McClain - rhp (12/10/20) - Selected by the Yankees in the minor league portion of the annual rule 5 draft.
• Garrett Cleavinger - lhp (12/29/20) - Traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers with the Phillies receiving Jose Alvarado in exchange from the Tampa Bay Rays.
• Kyle Garlick - of (1/22/21) - Claimed off waivers by the Atlanta Braves.
• Victor Arano - rhp (1/22/21) - Claimed off waivers by the Atlanta Braves.
• Cole Irvin - lhp (1/30/21) - Traded to the Oakland Athletics for cash considerations.

Coming Back - 2020-2021 Offseason

• Ronald Torreyes - inf (10/15/20) - Elected free agency, re-signed with the Phillies (1/4/21).
• J.T. Realmuto - c (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, re-signed with the Phillies (1/29/21).
• Didi Gregorius - ss (10/28/20) - Elected free agency, re-signed with the Phillies (2/10/21).

2021 Choice Lehigh Valley IronPigs Update #26

2021 Choice Lehigh Valley IronPigs #11

2021 Choice Reading Fightin Phils #3

2021 Topps Allen & Ginter #29

2021 Choice Lehigh Valley IronPigs #7

New Additions - 2020-2021 Offseason

• Jose Alvarado - lhp (12/29/20) - Acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays with the Dodgers receiving Garrett Cleavinger in exchange.
• Neftail Feliz - rhp (1/4/21) - Signed as a free agent.
• Sam Coonrod - rhp (1/9/21) - Acquired from the San Francisco Giants for Carson Ragsdale.
• Archie Bradley - rhp (1/18/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Cincinnati Reds.
• David Paulino - rhp (1/18/21) - Signed as a free agent.
• Matt Moore -lhp (2/3/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.
• Chase Anderson - rhp (2/8/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Toronto Blue Jays.
• Matt Joyce - of (2/10/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Miami Marlins.
• Brandon Kintzler - rhp (2/10/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Miami Marlins.
• Travis Jankowski - of (2/12/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Cincinnati Reds.
• Brad Miller - inf (2/17/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Arrived During the 2021 Season

• Jorge Bonifacio - of (5/25/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Detroit Tigers.
• Cam Bedrosian - rhp (7/7/21) - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Oakland Athletics.
• Hans Crouse - rhp, Kyle Gibson - rhp and Ian Kennedy - rhp (7/30/21) - Acquired from the Texas Rangers with cash for Josh Gessner, Kevin Gowdy and Spencer Howard.
• Freddy Galvis - inf (7/30/21) - Acquired from the Baltimore Orioles for Tyler Burch.

Departed During the 2021 Season

• David Hale - rhp (6/27/21) - Granted free agency.
• Neftali Feliz - rhp (7/3/21) - Granted free agency, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers (7/5/21).
• Spencer Howard - rhp (7/30/21) - Traded to the Texas Rangers with Josh Gessner and Kevin Gowdy for Hans Crouse, Kyle Gibson, Ian Kennedy and cash.
• Brandon Kintzler - rhp (8/2/21) - Released.
• Chase Anderson - rhp (8/27/21) - Released, signed with the Texas Rangers (8/31/21).
• Vince Velasquez - rhp (9/12/21) - Released, signed with the San Diego Padres (9/15/21).
• Enyel De Los Santos - rhp (9/13/21) - Selected off waivers by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• Matt Joyce - of (9/26/21) - Released.

2020 Chachi #20 Jose Alvarez

#52
Jose Ricardo Alvarez
Relief Pitcher

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  195
Opening Day Age:  31
Born:  May 6, 1989, Barcelona, VZ
How Obtained:  Acquired from the Los Angeles Angels for Luis Garcia, December 6, 2018
Contract Status:  Signed through 2020
Major League Teams:  Detroit Tigers 2013; Los Angeles Angels 2014-2018; Philadelphia Phillies 2019-

First Phillies Card:  2019 Phillies Team Issue #52
First Phillies Minor League Card:  N/A
First Phillies Team Issued Card:  2019 Phillies Team Issue #52
Labels
Newest Card Added:  2019 Topps Total #183

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (2):  2013, 2015

3 - Alvarez baseball cards in my collection per The Phillies Room Checklist as of 8/11/20.

Complete Chachi Checklist
2019 Chachi New Additions #4
2019 Chachi #18
2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #9
2020 Chachi #20

Jose Alvarez has quietly performed as one of the Phillies best and most reliable relievers over the past two seasons.  His 67 appearances last season fell one short of the team lead as Hector Neris appeared in 68 games.

Despite pitching in parts of eight big league seasons so far, Alvarez's baseball card appearances are sparse which is the fate of most non-closing relievers.  He appeared in the 2013 and 2015 Topps Update sets and received his first, and only to date, mainstream Phillies card in last year's Topps Total set.  He also appeared in both the first and second team-issued photo card sets last season.

2020 Virtual Phillies Wall / 2020 Season Summary Index / 2020 Chachi Set Checklist

Game 101 - 2019 Topps Total #183 Jose Alvarez

Phillies 3, Tigers 2 (15)
Game 101 - Tuesday Night, July 23rd in Detroit
Record - 53-48, 3rd place, 6 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  The Phillies outlasted the Tigers in this contest as Rhys Hoskins singled home Scott Kingery with the winning run in the 15th inning.

What It Means:  The Tigers aren't a good team, and my hope coming into this quick two-game series was that the Phillies would easily handle them.  Fortunately, they prevailed after 15 innings and having left 11 runners on base.

What Happened:  Roman Quinn started the scoring with a surprising two-run home run (1) in the second.  The offense would pretty much shut down until Kingery tripled to start the 15th and Hoskins brought him home.  Aaron Nola pitched seven innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits while striking out seven.  The Phillies bullpen allowed only three hits in eight shutout innings.

Brad Miller made the defensive play of the game, retiring Nicholas Castellanos at home in the 14th with a great throw and an even better tag from catcher J.T. Realmuto.

Featured Card:  Jose Alvarez earned the win, his first with the Phillies, pitching the final two scoreless innings.  In his 41 appearances so far this season, he's allowed runs to score in only 10 of those outings.  He's been one of the most reliable and durable relievers for the Phillies this season, and this is his only mainstream Phillies card to date, found within Topps Total.  Players like Alvarez are the reason why Topps Total exists, as otherwise he'd be a longshot for inclusion in any other Topps releases.

Highlights from the 2019 Phillies Phestival (Part 1) #StrikeOutALS

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #1

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #19

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #16

On Thursday afternoon, we attended the annual Phillies Phestival, which raises money in the fight against ALS.  One of my collecting regrets (and a regret as a lifelong Phillies fan) is that we never even considered going to this event until three years ago.  As rookies in 2017, we meandered through the ballpark using our pre-assigned autograph tickets and paying cash for autographs when the lines died down.  In 2018, I attended the event on behalf of my employer, which unbeknownst to me, had been a long-time sponsor of the Phestival.  I became involved with the Philadelphia ALS Chapter over the past few years partly in tribute to our friend Bob who passed away in January 2019 after a courageous battle with the disease.  I'm looking forward to continuing (and increasing) my involvement in the coming years.

This year, we again attended as sponsors and it's the first year we were fully prepared to collect autographs as efficiently as possible while still having fun.  Sponsors are given a button to wear, which allows us to stand in any autograph line.  Within the sponsors packet were explicit instructions informing us we couldn't go to the front of any line, which makes complete sense, and that we couldn't go to the Bryce Harper photo booth.

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #2

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #5

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #7

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #8

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #14

Similar to the past two years, I created a special set of Chachi cards to commemorate our day and the autographs we hunted down.  Here's a summary of what and how we did:

• The sponsors assemble in the Diamond Club and my company's name was called around 2:45.  We made our way down to the field to meet with Phil Gosselin and Jay Bruce who would be signing autographs at our designated station.  I let Bruce know it was great not to boo him this season, and my son Doug talked to Gosselin about their mutual history with the All-Star Baseball Academy.  Gosselin is an alumni and Doug is currently on one of their travel teams.

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #3

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #4

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #6

• We had a plan.  Doug and I took the left side of the ballpark while Jenna and Ben took the right side.  Doug and I started in the Hall of Fame Club, where the lines were very short to start and some of the tables had no lines.  We walked right into the suite where Gabe Kapler was signing and had two people in front of us.  Kapler's a fascinating guy.  Very intense, very polite, very engaging and he made his hat work.

• Jenna and Ben made Aaron Nola their first target, so they had a longer wait to get started.  Doug and I had cleared four tables by the time they were getting Nola's autographs.

• All the players were engaging and friendly, and even though there was a loose "no posed photographs" policy in place this year, pretty much everyone stopped to look and smile while we were taking pictures.  Rhys Hoskins said he remembered being in our Christmas card, although he may have just been being polite.

• Ben's highlight was getting Maikel Franco to sign the back of his favorite Franco t-shirt.  He also talked to the broadcast team for awhile.  When he asked why they didn't have any cards to sign, Scott Franzke said it was because the Phillies couldn't get them all together at the same time.  He was then invited by Ben Davis to sign their table cloth, and he obliged.

• Larry Andersen had run out of photo cards by the time we got to his station (with John Kruk and Mickey Morandini) so he offered Doug a cookie instead of an autograph.  Doug took him up on the offer.

• I was bummed that none of the newer Phillies players had any photo cards produced for them to sign.  I had come prepared with a list of potential exclusive photo cards - Bruce, Edgar Garcia, JD Hammer, Adam Haseley and Ranger Suarez - but there were no new cards to be had.  Bruce and Gosselin had what looked like regular paper at their station with their names printed at the top.

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #9

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #10

2019 Chachi Phillies Phestival #11

• When the autograph session time expired, we had visited all but three tables - J.T. Realmuto (by choice since we had already received his autographs in May), Charlie Manual (since we forgot to bring anything for him to sign) and Pat Neshek/Jim Gott.  The Neshek/Gott omission was a symptom of simply running out of time.  The only table we doubled up on was Scott Kingery's as we both had time to visit with him as the clock was ticking down.

• We met up with fellow collector Steve and his son in time to stand in line for our mystery grab bags.  Our five bag haul was decent, with baseballs signed by Roman Quinn (two), Nick Pivetta, and Hector Neris.  We received a pair of Raul Ibanez bobble heads, three solar Liberty Bells, a Jimmy Rollins World Series ring and Jenna got her Mother's Day fleece she had wanted from the May giveaway.

We had a blast, the Phillies raised over $768,000 to aid in the fight against ALS, and we're already making our plans for next year's Phestival!  I've share Part 2 with the rest of the cards from the event in a post coming soon.

The almost completed checklist

Our grab bag haul

Phillies Phestival Memory Lane

2017 Part 1 and Part 2

2018 Part 1 and Part 2
2019 Part 1 and Part 2

Game 58 - 2019 Phillies Team Issue 2 #52 Jose Alvarez

Dodgers 4, Phillies 3
Game 58 - Late Saturday Night, June 1st in Los Angeles
Record - 33-25, 1st place, 2 games ahead of the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  With the score tied in the ninth, Will Smith hit his first career home run off Hector Neris to send the Dodgers to a 4-3 victory.

What It Means:  The Phillies have lost three in a row, and they'll try to avoid a season-worst four in a row losin streak in the series finale Sunday afternoon.

What Happened:  Bryce Harper dramatically tied the score at 3-3 with an eighth inning home run off Julio Urias.  Prior to that, the Phillies had managed only a run and six hits against Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw.

Featured Card:  The Phillies, for the first time I'm aware of, employed the strategy of an "opener" electing to have reliever Jose Alvarez pitch the first two innings of this game.  The lefty Alvarez then yielded to righty relievers Juan Nicasio and Cole Irvin in the third.  The strategy paid off as Alvarez held the Dodgers scoreless in his two innings of work.  It was Alvarez's first career start in his seven-year career, which had included 306 relief appearances prior to Saturday night.

2019 Chachi #18 Jose Alvarez

#52
Jose Ricardo Alvarez
Relief Pitcher

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  190
Opening Day Age:  29
Born:  May 6, 1989, Barcelona, VZ
Signed:  Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent, July 2, 2005
Teams:  Detroit Tigers 2013; Los Angeles Angels 2014-2018; Phillies 2019
Acquired:  Acquired from the Los Angeles Angels for Luis Garcia, December 6, 2018
Contract Status:  Arbitration eligible in 2020, free agency eligible in 2021

2013 Topps Update #US278

First Topps Flagship Base Card:  2013 Topps Update #US278
First Phillies Card:  2019 Phillies Team Issue #52
First Phillies Team Issued Card:  2019 Phillies Team Issue #52
Newest Card Added:  2019 Phillies Team Issue #52

2019 Phillies Team Issue #52

1 - Alvarez baseball card in my collection per The Phillies Room Checklist as of 4/26/19.

Complete Chachi Checklist
2019 Chachi New Additions #4
2019 Chachi #18

2019 Chachi Set Checklist
Virtual Phillies Wall - Featuring Current Active Roster

Garcia Swapped to Angels for Alvarez

2019 Chachi New Additions #4

2019 Chachi Departures #3

Late Thursday night, the Phillies traded long-time reliever Luis Garcia to the Angels for lefty Jose Alvarez.  Alvarez becomes the third newest member of the suddenly rebuilt Phillies bullpen, joining Juan Nicasio and James Pazos who were acquired from the Mariners on Monday.  The team is still in the hunt for a closer.

Alvarez is a six-year veteran, with all but his first season spent with the Angels.  He made his debut with the Tigers in 2013 and since then he's appeared in 284 games and pitched to a respectable 3.69 ERA.  As in the case with most middle relievers, Alvarez's baseball card appearances have been scarce.  According to the Beckett database, he's had cards in three mainstream sets to date - 2010 Topps Pro Debut, 2013 Topps Update and 2015 Topps Update.

Prior to the trade, Garcia had been the second longest tenured Phillies player behind Cesar Hernandez as both made their debuts with the club in 2013.  In parts of six seasons with the Phillies, Garcia was the very definition of hit or miss, appearing in 251 games and owning an ERA of 4.12.  One of the team's more reliable relievers in 2017, he was at times infuriating to watch last season as evidenced by his 2018 ERA of 6.07.  I have 15 Garcia baseball cards in my Phillies collection, 7 of which come from the team-issued photo card sets.

Garcia Complete Chachi Checklist
2013 Chachi #49
2014 Chachi #37
2015 Chachi #21
2016 Chachi #38
2016 Chachi Fan Appreciation Day #2
2017 Chachi #35
2017 Chachi Photo Night #12
2018 Chachi #24
2018 Chachi Phillies Phestival #4 (with Victor Arano and Austin Davis)
2019 Chachi Departures #3

Moving On - 2018-2019 Offseason

• Trevor Plouffe - inf (10/4/18) - Elected free agency.
• Jose Bautista - of (10/29/18) - Elected free agency.
• Asdrubal Cabrera - inf (10/29/18) - Elected free agency.
• Aaron Loup - lhp (10/29/18) - Elected free agency.
• Wilson Ramos - c (10/29/18) - Elected free agency.
• Pedro Beato - rhp (11/2/18) - Elected free agency.
• Jesmuel Valentin - inf (11/2/18) - Elected free agency.
• Pedro Florimon - inf/of (11/3/18) - Outrighted off 40-man roster and elected free agency.
• Luis Avilan - lhp (11/30/18) - Non-tendered, becoming a free agent.
• Justin Bour - 1b (11/30/18) - Non-tendered, becoming a free agent.
• Carlos Santana - 1b and J.P. Crawford - ss (12/3/18) - Traded to the Seattle Mariners for James Pazos, Juan Nicasio and Jean Segura.
• Luis Garcia - rhp (12/6/18) - Traded to the Los Angeles Angels for Jose Alvarez.

New Arrivals - 2018-2019 Offseason

• James Pazos - lhp, Juan Nicasio - rhp and Jean Segura - ss (12/3/18) - Acquired from the Seattle Mariners for J.P. Crawford and Carlos Santana.
• Jose Alvarez - lhp (12/6/18) - Acquired from the Los Angeles Angels for Luis Garcia.

You can find the updated Virtual Phillies Wall here, showing the team's updated 40-man roster.