2. The Phillies trade for under-the-radar targets who end up being negligible
The last thing the Phillies should do is just trade for under-the-radar targets to fill their roster needs. If they need a lesson to be learned, just rewind back to last season. When the Phillies had the chance to make a huge splash at the 2023 trade deadline, they ended up with Michael Lorenzen and Rodolfo Castro as their two main pickups.
Sure, Lorenzen was an All-Star last year and produced a dazzling no-hitter in just his second start with the Phillies. However, he ended up struggling for the remainder of the season and became more of an afterthought when all was said and done. The team had so much doubt in him that he made just two postseason appearances and never really played a role in affecting the overall outcome.
Castro was expected to fill the utilityman role off the bench when Josh Harrison was designated for assignment at last year’s deadline. However, he turned out to be even worse than Lorenzen, as he appeared in just 14 games and posted a .100 batting average, .256 OPS, two runs scored, two RBI and 12 strikeouts. And without a question, he was nowhere close to the Phillies’ 2023 playoff run.
Overall, both deadline players ended up providing negligible value to the Phillies. The worst part of it all was the fact that the Phillies also sacrificed a promising top-5 prospect Hao-Yu Lee in the process.
So the moral of the story is they need to go after pieces that could at least be potential difference-makers for the ballclub. If the focus is just to fill in holes with just serviceable candidates, then they might as well just go with what they already have and save the prospects for the future. So whatever the Phillies end up doing, they should avoid repeating the strategy from last season in just going for the lesser targets.