Phillies' Cristopher Sanchez: Working on cutter

Sanchez is introducing a cutter to his repertoire this spring, Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports.

Sanchez debuted back in 2021 but got his first extended run in the rotation in 2023, finishing with a 3.44 ERA and 1.05 WHIP in 18 starts and one relief appearance. Backing up those marks was a strong set of peripherals, as his strikeout rate (24.2 percent), walk rate (4.0 percent) and groundball rate (57.0 percent) all beat league average by a wide margin in the latter two cases. He lines up as the Phillies' fifth starter (barring a potential late free-agent addition) and will look to maintain or improve on those numbers of a full-season workload. Given that he threw only three pitches (sinker, changeup and slider) last season, the addition of a fourth weapon could help him do just that, particularly as it could make the Phillies more comfortable asking him to go deeper into games.