Over this past off-season, new Phillies general manager Matt Klentak knew that he was going to need a couple of veteran starting pitchers to help bridge the team from the innings provided a year ago by veterans such as Aaron Harang and Jerome Williams to the bevy of strong pitching prospects still developing in the minor league system.
To that end, he went out and obtained both 28-year old, 6-year veteran Jeremy Hellickson and 32-year old, 8-year veteran Charlie Morton. Now comes the announcement that Hellickson will become the club’s Opening Day starter in Cincinnati.