Everything Should Be On the Table For The Phillies This Deadline

This Phillies core is out of time. If they don't win it this year, things are going to get broken up. Once that happens, there is no guarantee this team will be as dangerous as it has been in past seasons. Ranger Suarez will likely be gone. Kyle Schwarber might be gone. JT Realmuto could leave, and he is quickly deteriorating anyway. Other names could be traded. The Phillies might look very different in 2026.

It is not just 2026. Zack Wheeler is still pitching like the best pitcher in baseball, but he is 35, and said he will retire after this contract is up. Bryce Harper is in his 30s, as is Trea Turner. Aaron Nola has already deteriorated. And the young guys in the Phillies lineup have yet to live up to their potential.

Their best chance to win is right now—specifically, this season. We have no clue what the lineup will look like next season. They need to take advantage of this version of Zack Wheeler, and having Ranger Suarez and Kyle Schwarber in the clubhouse. What does taking advantage of this roster mean? It means making every prospect available to trade at the deadline.

The Phillies have 3 big prospects. Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller, and Justin Crawford. They also have Mick Abel and Single-A Catcher Eduardo Tait. There are people who say you need to protect those 5 players. But none of them, except for maybe Crawford, are equipped to help the team this season.

Painter is struggling a bit in his return from Tommy John. The stuff is there, but the control is not. Even if he finds it, what value does he offer the Phillies this season? With his pitch limit and complete lack of experience, he is not going to start for them in October.

The same can be said for Abel, who is also struggling with control. He has pitched well in AAA, but MLB teams quickly started taking advantage of him. He also has no clear role on the team, even after this season.

Tait is 19 and nowhere near making his debut. The Phillies have a clear need at catcher, with JT Realmuto's future being murky at best, but catchers take longer than most players to develop. He is still in Single-A. A 3-year timetable is being generous. They will likely need JT Realmuto's replacement long before Tait is ready.

Meanwhile, Miller is at least a year away. He has big power potential, but that power is clearly still developing. With his upside, you do not want to give him up. He and Painter are the guys you try to protect because they have true superstar upside. But if either is the difference between getting a player who helps you now or not getting a player, you move them.

Crawford is different. He is currently playing great in AAA, and even Dave Dombrowski said he thinks Crawford is ready. Yet they have not called him up yet? Why? Is it because Marsh has played well since his return from the IL, so they don't feel the pressure to call him up? Maybe. They might also be concerned about his very high ground ball rate. They could also be planning to trade him, and feel like AAA is the best place to keep his value high.

But except for maybe Crawford, none of those prospects help the Phillies' chances to win this season. So all of them should be on the table. Even with Crawford, an established MLB player would help you more right now than a rookie whose ground ball rate would be top 5 in the league.

Think back to the untouchable prospects of this century for the Phillies. How many panned out? Imagine if the Phillies refused to make the Roy Halladay trade because Kyle Drabek was such a good prospect. We talked about being concerned about moving Sixto Sanchez, and it was clearly the right move with hindsight.

Then think about the guys they kept. Dom Brown, Spencer Howard, Scott Kingery, Maikel Franco... very few Phillies prospects this century panned out. There are the obvious examples like Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins Cole Hamels, and more recently, Aaron Nola. But all of them came up in a period where the Phillies were in rebuild mode. A handful of prospects in the best 25-30 years is a really poor success rate.

How many trades do we regret from this quarter century? The Cliff Lee trade, though it seemed like a massive haul at the time, turned out to be fantastic. The Roy Halladay trade was an obvious win. Hunter Pence didn't pan out here, but no one regrets giving up Jon Singleton or Jarred Cosart, even though both were big prospects at the time. Nor does anyone regret giving up Jonathan Villar or Anthony Gose for Roy Oswalt.

The reality is that most prospects, even highly regarded ones, do not pan out. They can pan out. There have been a few trades the Phillies regretted, but seller's remorse is incredibly rare.

What we may regret is not making enough moves this deadline, and seeing the team with this rotation come up short again. They need a bat, and they need multiple relievers. If they don't add enough talent, take this rotation into the playoffs, and then do down like they did in 2011 with the Four Aces, that will be a massive regret.

That does not mean you make trades for the sake of it. You do not give one of these prospects away. But if you can add a player that makes this team better, you need to do it, no matter the cost.

Prospects are great for a team whose future is brighter than its present. A team barely on the cusp of making the playoffs should not sacrifice its future for short-term gains. We saw the Flyers do that for years, and it cost them. But if you have a chance to win it all, you need to push the chips in. This team has a chance to win it all; they just need help.

This rotation could beat anyone in baseball. Line up Wheeler, Suarez, Sanchez, and Luzardo, and you can have the pitching advantage in every single game of a 7-game series. Few teams in baseball have 3 solid playoff starters; the Phillies have 4, without even taking Aaron Nola into account. This team can win, but they need help.

They need a bullpen, so the starters' great work does not get ruined late in the game. They also need another bat to make sure the starters have leads to play with.

The rotation is great, but we have seen that a great rotation is not enough. Do not waste the rotation like they did last year, like they did in 2023, or like they did in 2011. Get the players you need to push this team over the top, no matter the cost.