Former Mariners Starter Taijuan Walker Hits Painful New Low With Phillies Release

Walker’s fall in Philadelphia became bigger than the numbers by the end.

Taijuan Walker (99) reacts against the Washington Nationals during the third inning at Citizens Bank Park. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

The Phillies are in full damage-control mode, and Taijuan Walker just became the latest piece they threw overboard. They cut Walker on Thursday after he opened 2026 with a 9.13 ERA in 22 2/3 innings, and they did it in the middle of an 8-16 start and an eight-game losing streak that has turned the whole Phillies season sour in a hurry.  

Walker isn’t a random ex-Seattle arm hanging on at the edge of a roster. He was a first-round Mariners pick, an electric young pitcher who once felt like a huge piece of the franchise’s future. He ended up playing a big part in the 2016 trade that brought Jean Segura, Mitch Haniger, and Zac Curtis to Seattle while sending Walker and Ketel Marte to Arizona. 

That deal still reads like a baseball time capsule where everybody got something, but not everybody got the same thing. Seattle got some strong years and a lot of good memories out of Haniger and useful production from Segura. Arizona eventually watched Marte become the star of the whole thing. Walker’s path, meanwhile, has turned into something much messier this season. 

Phillies have released Taijuan Walker in the final season of his four year, $72 million deal. He posted a 9.13 ERA in five games this year pic.twitter.com/O27tVbAeyR

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 23, 2026

Phillies Postseason Snub Changed Everything for Taijuan Walker

The Phillies drama is where this thing gets interesting, because Walker’s release wasn’t only about bad numbers. It’s about a team with postseason expectations now acting like a club trying to put out fires room by room. Dave Dombrowski said the Phillies had tried “everything” to make Walker work. They tinkered with his routine. They tried using an opener to help him avoid his brutal first innings. They discussed keeping him in relief. None of it held. Walker gave up 11 earned runs in first innings alone this season, and with Zack Wheeler set to return this weekend, Philadelphia decided the roster spot mattered more than the sunk cost. The Phillies still owe Walker more than $15 million, which tells you just how badly this thing had gone off the rails.  

Walker’s Phillies tenure is heavier than the final release makes it look, because this was not a partnership that started out broken. He gave Philadelphia a legitimately useful first season in 2023, making 31 starts, logging 172 2/3 innings, and winning a career-high 15 games for a club with October expectations.

But that good first year also carried the seeds of what came next. Walker was left out of the Phillies’ postseason mix, then posted that “disrespect is at an all-time high” message and liked tweets criticizing Rob Thomson. He later said the relationship was in a better place, but it was one of those moments that made clear this pairing never fully settled into something comfortable. Add in the boos, the role changes, the declining velocity, and the results getting worse instead of better, and it started to look less like a rough stretch and more like a partnership headed for a bad ending.

Walker’s release isn’t really about revisiting what Seattle lost. That debate ended years ago. It’s about the uncomfortable gap between what a player once represented here and what his career has become now. Mariners fans remember the sense that maybe this guy would anchor something real. Instead, Walker is 33, off a four-year, $72 million contract that crashed hard in Philadelphia, and suddenly available for the price of a minimum deal because his former team wanted the roster spot more than the name.