Other than the signing of former Toronto Blue Jays reliever Jordan Romano, the Philadelphia Phillies have had a quiet start to the winter.
This has been tough for many fans of the club as they watched rumored trade targets such as Garrett Crochet and Kyle Tucker be traded and the Phillies walk away with nothing.
What is important to remember is that the Major League Baseball offseason is a marathon, not a sprint and the Phillies are performing a balancing act between their short and long-term projections.
Phillies find themselves stuck between balancing present and future this offseason
The Phillies are in a "win-now" window. The organization needs to balance the large contracts of players such as Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Zack Wheeler, their age, and the timetable in which they see themselves as viable World Series contenders.
As the market for premier players continues to rise, building a team of superstars is almost impossible, yet the Phillies have found themselves a bit ahead of the curve in that regard.
The signing of Harper to his 13-year, $330 million deal back in the spring of 2019 now seems like a bargain in the wake of Juan Soto's astronomical $765 million contract.
Teams just simply cannot afford to hand out vast numbers of contracts worth over $300 million and not face the penalties of the luxury tax, loss of draft picks, and loss of international signing money if they don't want to mortgage their future.
That is the bind that the Phillies find themselves in this winter. With high-value prospects such as Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller and Justin Crawford, the club has some close-to-ready minor league talent waiting in the wings. Sure, they could trade them all and improve the 2025 roster, but will that definitively prevent the offense from running cold in October? No one can say for sure.
What president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and company want to avoid is a scenario in which the roster is laden with aging players on large contracts that prevent wiggle room to maintain this current run of success.
Dombrowski explained this after Crochet was traded to the Boston Red Sox last week, as Corey Seidman of NBC Sports Philadelphia reported earlier this week.
"To give up that type of talent ... we really rode out the development of our farm system over the last few years and we're just getting to the point of having the impact of those guys," Dombrowski said, per Seidman. "It's not quite here but we're on the verge of having some really good young, homegrown players. And there's two years of service. You could sign the player long-term but there's only two years. I've done that before so I'm not knocking it, I just don't think it's the right time for us to do that."
While it is frustrating to miss out on a high-quality pitcher like Crochet, the Phillies front office seems to be aware of their situation. They need affordable, quality players who can make an impact to defray the cost of some of their veteran contracts.
It is a long offseason, and the Phillies will likely make more moves. Dombrowski is an experienced front office executive. He is waiting for the right deal to come along in which the organization doesn't become cash-strapped or forfeit its future.
Let's remember that the Phillies won 95 games and won their first division title since 2011 last season. While there is a need to shuffle some things around, the Phillies do not require a dramatic overhaul to be successful in 2025 and beyond. The moves will come and, barring significant injuries, the team should find themselves in a position to make another postseason run next season.