The Phillies are going to make trades before the MLB trade deadline on Tuesday, July 30.
But the Phillies are going to not make many, many more trades before the MLB trade deadline on Tuesday, July 30.
They aren’t going to trade for Brent Rooker, Jazz Chisholm Jr., or Tommy Pham, according to those in the know.
They aren’t going to trade for Randy Arozarena, the dynamic and fun Rays star having a lousy season — because he just went to the Mariners for a fistful of prospects.
And they probably aren’t going to swing a deal for Mason Miller of the A’s, the fireballing closer at the top of the reliever market who recently broke his pinkie slamming his fist on a table. Sure, they didn’t seem too in to that one anyway; and sure, it was the pinkie on his non-throwing hand; and sure, his agent tried to make sure everyone knew Miller didn’t “slam” his fist in “frustration” but rather “placed it awkwardly” on the table. But there’s no better way to not get traded than to hurt yourself a few days before the deadline (though perhaps it has made the cost for Miller even lower?)
The point is, the sexiest ideas you have about who the Phillies could acquire could in fact come true, but there’s a far more likely scenario in which they don’t. There’s a lot of trades they could make, and many more they will not. An important thing to remember is that they have one of the best roster-builders to ever do it in Dave Dombrowski.
Over the past few weeks on Hittin’ Season, we’ve talked about all the names of the outfield bats and late-inning relievers who experts believe the Phillies could have gone for, from relievers like Miller, Tanner Scott, and Kyle Finnegan to outfielders like Lane Thomas, Jake McCarthy, Cedric Mullins and more. We now know that none of those outfielders will get to be Phillies (probably), because the Phillies traded for their outfield bat Friday afternoon.
Dombrowski did what he does sometimes: Acquire a player that no one had on any of their lists. This time, it was Austin Hays of the Orioles, who was traded to Philadelphia for outfielder Cristian Pache and reliever Seranthony Dominguez.
Sometimes when a deal is made, everyone is ecstatic. Sometimes, everyone is mad. The Hays trade is one about which everyone has to figure out how to react.
Not a foundation piece
The fact is, the Phillies have a roster full of stars. They aren’t performing at starry levels at the moment, but they are here. That’s not to say the Phillies would never add more of them, but they’re less likely to go Dodgers- or Padres-level nuts in a situation like this because Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Alec Bohm, and the rest of the offense aren’t “gone,” they’re just … sleeping right now.
If the Phillies were a superstar away from World Series contention, then they’d be after one. Front offices can be hard to trust, but the Phillies have established in the last few years that they are an organization with a goal to win. That sounds obvious. But I think you and I both know not every major league front office is prioritizing victories. There have been times when the Phillies were one of those front offices.
But not now! And the Phillies didn’t need a superstar, they needed an outfielder who can platoon with Brandon Marsh in left field and hit the left-handed pitchers that Marsh can’t. Hays does this. He’s one of 10 Orioles this season to have at least 70 plate appearances against left-handed pitching, and he’s got the second-highest batting average (.328) and OPS (.894) in that group. And the only Oriole he’s behind is All-Star catching stud Adley Rutschman. Hays’ numbers against righties are … not good, but as an outfielder, Hays has garnered a reputation as “sufficient.”
It’s easy, however, to understand the reticence of an acquisition like Hays. A lot of fans may not know who he is yet, at least not well, and he’ll need a big hit in a big moment to “introduce” himself. For now, all we know is that he can hit lefties, he was the Orioles’ starting left fielder when they lost 110 games in 2021, he had a hot first half in 2023 that got him an All-Star nod, and he has two more years until free agency.
This was a trade, remember, so that means somebody new is coming — and somebody we already knew is on their way out. Two somebodies in this case, in Dominguez and Pache.
Pache’s role on the Phillies roster had quickly become less and less important as the Phillies wanted to give Johan Rojas most of the center-field playing time to grow into a starter (that was the hope). Anyone who’s seen Rojas make several defensive plays out there in the last two weeks alone knows that the defense he can provide is too tantalizing to give up on his bat, as frustrating as his at-bats can be. Pache, on the other hand, is a well-liked, established major-leaguer who has never been a strong hitter and provides nothing irreplaceable defensively.
Dominguez is a little different. He’s been around for a while (the Phillies signed him in 2011, apparently the day before they were eliminated from the NLDS), he’s been through a lot, and one time, he put the Braves to sleep in the NLDS. He is a pitcher for whom there were always higher expectations, but health and recovery and timing all worked together to keep him off the field. There was always something that made Dominguez less tradeable over the years, whether it was his scalding strikeout rate or the fact that he wasn’t pitching well enough for other teams to want him. The Phillies continued to put the ball in his hand after Tommy John surgery and it paid off for them, but once more Dominguez has begun to falter, allowing 12 hits and 11 runs in his last 10 innings of work.
This trade was an exchange of change-of-scenery candidates; guys who just aren’t putting it together on one team but might be able to benefit from a fresh start. It would be easier to be sitting here now, gushing over the Phillies’ acquisition of Luis Robert, Jr. or Arozarena (who was traded to the Mariners Friday morning). But Dombrowski has a reputation for deadline deals that fit the needs of his team, not ones that necessarily change the fate of the franchise. The Phillies now have an outfielder who fits the role they are looking to fill — a right-handed outfield bat that can split time with Marsh and even play a little center if they need him to. It remains to be seen if he’ll be the player the fans wanted, too.
