At the trade deadline coming up, the Phillies are going to make a move. That is all but a guarantee at this point being as how, under Dave Dombrowski, they have made a move at each deadline under his control. This year, there are some pretty striking needs the team has that are probably going to be upgraded from the outside as opposed to bringing someone up from the minor leagues.
What the priority order is for those positions can be debated rather thoroughly. The offense has been quite uneven on the season, meaning a bat, preferably a right handed one, should top the wishlist of the team, but an argument can be made for each of these other two. There is no order done here that shows which position is most in need of an upgrade. It’s just some hopes and dreams at three spots on the roster.
Left handed reliever
Dream target: Aroldis Chapman
Jose Alvarado has been shaky, at best. Tanner Banks has been bitten by the BABIP gods far too often and looks simply unreliable. Kyle Backhus was looking decent prior to his injury, but it’s still Kyle Backhus. The team needs a reliable, lockdown left handed reliever and the one best suited to their needs is Chapman. While he’s no longer the dominant force he was before, he’s still one of the premier left handed relievers in the game. His 34.6% strikeout rate is ninth among all relievers with at least 20 innings pitched, his whiff rate of 32.7% still in the top percentiles.
Break it down further, his sinker, among those that have thrown the pitch at least 100 times, has the second best whiff rate in the game, his slider, among those that have thrown it at least 50 times, 14th best in the game at generating swings and misses. He still possesses swing and miss stuff, something that is particularly useful during the postseason. In a still more granular level, Chapman has seen left handed batters 22 times this year and has allowed a .167 slugging percentage. He’s pretty much exactly what the team needs from a left handed pitcher.
The asking price on his services is likely to be high. The Red Sox, if they decide to sell, will have an asset in Chapman that they will want to cash in on. Relievers are always in high demand, particularly those who have Chapman’s skillset. In a bidding war, the team may not have the pieces needed to entice the Red Sox in a trade.
Realistic targets: Jojo Romero, Stephen Okert, Andrew Nardi, Erik Miller
All four pitchers listed here are something of the same: they’re playing on teams that are probably going to sell at the deadline and they’re kind of iffy against left handed hitting. The only one to have a slight quibble with is Romero, who is pitching for the Cardinals, a team in surprising contention in the National League, but they have made no bones about their desire to continue rebuilding, so we’ll throw him in here.
Usually when acquiring a left handed pitcher, one looks to see how well he fares against same sided hitting. These four are surprisingly not that great.
|
Name/Stats vs. LHH |
TBF |
ERA |
K% |
BB% |
OPS |
Hard% |
|
Erik Miller |
41 |
3.00 |
29.3% |
9.8% |
.798 |
20.0% |
|
Steven Okert |
58 |
1.72 |
19.0% |
5.2% |
.442 |
28.6% |
|
Jojo Romero |
53 |
3.46 |
30.2% |
5.7% |
.787 |
39.4% |
|
Andrew Nardi |
48 |
3.38 |
29.2% |
12.5% |
.812 |
44.4% |
These aren’t numbers that blow anyone off the page when considering how well they’d do at their primary job, which would be to get left handed hitters out. The biggest tests in the postseason would come from the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Christian Yelich, et al., so seeing that they haven’t been that good can be a bit disconcerting. These same numbers against right handed hitters are more or less the same, giving a “what you see is what you get” feel.
Yet as with anything, their market they can shop in will be limited thanks to their lack of impact talent they can offer back in a trade. How much team control they have might work in the Phillies favor for a few. Romero is a free agent after this season, Okert has one year of team control left, Nardi two years of control, Miller three. You can basically see how the price would change for each pitcher as their control goes up.
Starting pitcher
Dream target: Tarik Skubal
I mean, this is everyone’s top target. Skubal is the best trade piece on the market no matter the position. The Tigers have more or less faded from the playoff picture, even if Skubal helps them win every fifth day. Their future is best served by moving him and he will command a high asking price.
But consider the fit.
A rotation of Cristopher Sanchez, Zack Wheeler, Tarik Skubal and Jesus Luzardo is instantly, without a doubt, the best rotation in the game. You could pick the Phanatic to pitch as the fifth starter and it would still be the best. Any playoff game that would be started by that quartet, they should be the favorite. They would have to score runs for them, something this offense feels allergic to, but they’d also allow few, if any, runs themselves.
It truly would be the best possible trade they could make.
What would have to go in return? Andrew Painter? Sure, send him on. Painter plus Aidan Miller? Hey, does David Wright 2.0 need help packing? If there is a package that the Phillies could create to make a move for Skubal, they should be entertaining it.
Realistic targets: Michael Lorenzen
It’s not the most desirable outcome for the team as simply keeping the status quo is probably more desirable than trading for someone like Lorenzen, but he is the aisle the team would probably be shopping in considering the quality of their prospects to trade away. Lorenzen had this insane desire to actually want to pitch in Colorado this year and as his numbers suggest, he’s kind of gotten what he’s asked for. He’d be someone to come in and give the team innings, something that maybe they could use if they decided to head to a six-man rotation in August, but he’s not someone they’d pitch in the playoffs at all. That’s something of a benchmark for making trades for a team like the Phillies.
Right handed starting outfielder
Dream target: Byron Buxton
Alright, here me out.
Buxton has for years been the über-talented, oft injured center fielder for the Twins, one that always seemed to put up great numbers in half the time. He is putting together yet another fantastic season, hitting .276/.335/.606 with 23 home runs at the plate, his defense in center field once again sublime and his contract more than palatable to absorb. For a team that is starved for any kind of production from the right side, Buxton would be the perfect salve for what ails them.
The issues?
Price tag and desire.
Buxton has already once refused to be traded from his humble abode in Minnesota. Understandable. Being traded from the organization that drafted, developed, played and ultimately extended you has to be something that would create massive upheaval in one’s life. Maybe Buxton was simply so comfortable with his surroundings last year, he didn’t wish to move. There haven’t been any more whispers of his waiving that no-trade clause he has in his contract, but one can never know exactly what would happen.
The other issue would be the price tag. Trading Buxton would be franchise altering for the Twins. They’d be moving someone that has grown with them into a star, someone who is quite productive and someone who has a contract that isn’t particularly burdensome. It would take a handsome price to pay for the Phillies to be able to pry him loose, likely detonating the top half of their prospect lists to facilitate a move.
Is that worth it?
Realistic targets: Jo Adell? Seiya Suzuki?
I suppose we have to identify these two as the ones the team should be pursuing the most as they have been named already as the targets the Phillies have already been asking about. Both are flawed, but possess something the Phillies have little of: right handed power.
Adell hit 37 home runs last year, yet managed an OPS below .800. That’s difficult to do. He has followed that up with a slugging percentage closer to .375 than .450, something of a problem. To say he struggles on defense would be an undersell, those home run robberies notwithstanding. He would fill that particular need on the Phillies, but would he do it well?
Suzuki is a pending free agent on a team that is looking to add for a postseason run, not really give players away. The Cubs are looking for starting pitching, something the Phillies are also looking to add a dash of themselves. He’s been good with his bad, made a surprisingly good recovery on defense in right field and would be playing regularly in an outfield that is currently without his type of profile.
Yet the Cubs are playing better and are going to need all the offensive help they can get for their own playoff push. Is there really even a match to be made here?
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