Recently the Phillies have placed a creative emphasis on getting young, athletic and overall better. They've been creative in completing these tasks through both the obvious and less obvious processes. The obviously are: Free Agency (not the place to go to accomplish this), trades (more of the place to go), and international signings (the very obvious, and easy route to do this). The uncommon routes are: claiming players through waivers, small trades through waivers (both can be through the designated player process), Rule 5 Draft, etc. If the Phils are going to hold true to their word, and really are going to re-create the roster of this team for the betterment of the future, then they need to continue exploring not only common ways of acquiring young talent, but also the uncommon processes. A player the Phils should easily spot on their radar through a creative lense, is Eury De La Rosa. Eury De La Rosa is the epitome of young (24), talented, and valuable. He is also under team control through 2021, when he becomes a free agent. Currently, De La Rosa is designated for assignment, meaning he's definitely available for the Phillies if they so choose. When people first look at De La Rosa they think he's a small-man, I dare say. And, there is some truth to that (he is 5'9"; 165 pounds), but the way he pitches certainly re-directs your mind back to what really matters: Performance on the baseball diamond. De La Rosa certainly didn't disappoint when he first debuted on July 14th, 2013 as he pitched 2 innings, allowing no walks, hits, or runs, and striking out 3. Although his debut was great, his first taste of the majors wasn't. He pitched to a 7.36 ERA in 19 games (14.2 innings), and a FIP and WHIP of 6.32, and 1.227. Though the numbers are not good, they are a bit bloated due to the small sample size. He still struck out near 10 batters (9.8 to be exact) per 9 innings, and allowed only 8 hits per 9 innings despite that. These numbers are underwhelming, so lets look past the rookie adjustment period, and look at his first legit season under the "Now MLB player" tag. In 2014, De La Rosa pitched to a 2-0 record, 2.95 ERA and 128 ERA+ (a mighty 28 points above league average), 3.49 FIP (a clear improvement of 2.83), and although his WHIP jumped up a tad bit to 1.391, his home runs per 9 innings were a meager .5, and his hits per 9 innings was good at 9.1. So, in other words, the stats say that overall Eury De La Rosa improved his 2nd year in the bigs, in his first real taste of major league action. This improvement shows that De La Rosa can pitch with the big boys, and-at times-better than them. This, combined with his age and athleticism, are exactly why I believe he is worthy of being claimed or traded for to be a nice #4 or #5 starter for the Phillies (possibly #3 starter later down the road). The question is simply whether De La Rosa is on the Phils "creative radar".