When the Philadelphia Phillies had a somewhat quiet trade deadline, with Michael Lorenzen being the only acquisition made by the ballclub, many of the Phillies’ faithful were worried that they didn’t do enough to strengthen the team going into the stretch run. Just for comparison, all they had to do was just look at their rivals in the Miami Marlins, who grabbed four key players at the trade deadline to help boost their chances in reaching the postseason.
However, when taking a more careful look at some of the results that the trade deadline acquisitions have produced with their new teams, not all have been that rosy. Consequently, it proved that the Phillies were right in not throwing all their chips in and going “all-in” at the deadline to obtain the necessary help, because it could easily have backfired as much as it could have helped the team.
Here, we take a look at five trade deadline disasters that we are glad the Phillies weren’t a part of. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be in the firm playoff spot that they are in now, and perhaps even struggling just to make it instead, as seen from the early results of trades made by some of the other MLB contending teams.
Starting pitching help
At the trade deadline, one of the key areas the Phillies wanted to upgrade was their starting pitching. Since beyond their top three in Aaron Nola, Zach Wheeler and Taijuan Walker, there was some uncertainty in the play of both Cristopher Sánchez and Ranger Suárez on whether or not they could maintain their effectiveness down the stretch and into the postseason. In the end, the Phillies did end up grabbing a starting pitcher in the form of Lorenzen from the Detroit Tigers.
Lorenzen has provided some mixed results so far for the ballclub, having posted a 3-2 winning record including a no-hitter, but with a staggering 4.97 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, giving up 21 earned runs, 14 walks and 21 strikeouts in just 38 innings pitched at the same time. Some may be starting to believe that the trade is turning out to be a bit of a bust, but it certainly pales in comparison to some of the other ones we have on this list. Things would have been even worse for the Phillies if they acquired one of following two pitchers.