The Philadelphia Phillies' offseason hasn't exactly knocked anyone's socks off yet. Now a month in, nothing much has happened in Philadelphia. To be fair, nothing much has happened around the majority of Major League Baseball, save for a smattering of free agent deals and minor trades.
After the way the Phillies' 2024 season ended, fans are clamoring for some kind of shakeup. The cries will only get louder until president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski obliges.
The news on Wednesday that the Phillies were never in on Juan Soto was tough to hear, even if it wasn't all that surprising. But that raises the question: What the heck has the Phillies front office been doing for the last month?
How worried should fans be about Dave Dombrowski's confusing comments about Phillies' offseason?
According to MLB.com's Todd Zolecki, Dombrowski is sticking to his guns this offseason, but that doesn't mean we should be expecting significant roster changes.
“We have the freedom to do some things that we need to do,” Dombrowski said this week, per Zolecki. “But I’m not sure what’s going to happen at this point. The reality is when you look at where we are, a lot of clubs have had very little movement overall, but you can see it starting to break a little bit.
"But you just never know about these things. It’s not like we’re on the verge of doing something, but we’ve had a lot of conversations.”
Good. They're working on things. They've had a lot of conversations but aren't close to making a move. The offseason goals haven't changed, at least. Dombrowski still wants to add an outfielder, fill the hole at the back of the bullpen and add another starter, per Zolecki.
The more concerning comment came later, with Dombrowski possibly walking back how much of a shakeup the team intends to make this winter. After the season-ending press conference, we all got the impression that a roster shakeup was imminent.
Now it doesn't sound like such a sure thing.
“Now, we’re open-minded to things. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on that, because it’s apparent that people have taken that and kind of run with it," Dombrowski said, per Zolecki. "But yeah, you’re always open-minded. And so, the reality is we’re open-minded. We’re talking to people. But we have a good club. If we take the same club back that we had last year and we make a tweak here and a tweak there, I think we’ll compete to win the division and be in a position where we’ll be definite postseason contenders.”
A tweak here and a tweak there? Here come the flashbacks to last spring when the Phillies' big external move was signing free agent veteran Whit Merrifield as a bench piece — as about as "tweaky" as a move can be. It made sense at the time, in theory. In practice, it was a complete disaster that didn't help the team.
Now Dombrowski is talking about how good the team is again. It's true, the Phillies are still a good team, but with obvious flaws that need to be addressed. The good news is that we're nowhere close to panic mode yet. This could all just be Dombrowski posturing publicly. After all, we're still more than two months away from training camp.
We know they've been shopping third baseman Alec Bohm, as well as right fielder Nick Castellanos and starting pitcher Ranger Suárez. They're reportedly trying to make a Garrett Crochet trade happen. But until something big happens, Phillies fans will be on the edge of their seats.
As every offseason goes, we won't really know how to feel until February when spring training rolls around, and we see how many "tweaks" the Phillies make this winter.