Grading Phillies’ performance at the MLB trade deadline

After months of build up, the MLB trade deadline has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Now that we've had some time to digest the action-packed roster shuffling frenzy, we can ask ourselves how the Philadelphia Phillies fared at this year's deadline.

The roster had some glaringly obvious needs heading into the trade market, which is somewhat surprising for a team that was the best in baseball over the first three and half months of the season. While every team can make improvements, no matter how well the season is going, the Phillies' offense was being carried by a core group of hitters in the first half, and there were still improvements that could be made in the bullpen.

Grading Phillies’ performance at the MLB trade deadline

By all accounts, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld had a successful trade deadline. The Phillies upgraded supplemental parts of the roster without sacrificing any of their Top 100 MLB Pipeline prospects. For a big blockbuster to happen for one of the premier trade chips on the market, Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller or Justin Crawford would have to have been in play.

"We have some guys I really didn't want to trade," Dombrowski told the media, per MLB.com's Todd Zolecki. "They're our upper-echelon guys."

Mission accomplished. The Phillies are playing the long game, with an eye on the future, not just this season. Although winning this season is paramount.

Phillies make under-the-radar upgrade in the outfield with Austin Hays

The outfield was the obvious need from an offensive standpoint. The outfield bats haven't been pulling their weight this season, hitting a dismal .229 with a .650 OPS in the first half.

A loud portion of the fanbase was screaming for Dombrowski to go all in, no matter the cost, and make a blockbuster trade for outfielder Luis Robert Jr. of the Chicago White Sox. That likely would have required Aidan Miller to be included in a package.

The front office added to the outfield, but instead made an under-the-radar move in its first trade, bringing in outfielder Austin Hays from the Baltimore Orioles on the Friday before the trade deadline weekend. They sent unreliable reliever Seranthony Domínguez and disappointing reserve outfielder Cristian Pache the other way.

The Phillies had tried to get Hays the previous two deadlines.

"When we’ve seen him, we’ve liked him. He can hit. He’s a gamer," Dombrowski said of acquiring Hays, per Zolecki. "He can play left field well, and we’re looking for a bit better at-bats from the right side, and he fits it."

It was a solid, if underwhelming start to the Phillies' deadline.

Phillies make impressive upgrades to the bullpen

Then, the focus shifted squarely to upgrading the bullpen. With Domínguez gone, it felt inevitable that Dombrowski would fill that void, which he did the following day, landing Los Angeles Angels closer Carlos Estévez. He gave up a pair of pitching prospects, George Klassen and Samuel Aldegheri, who had risen to prominence this season. Dombrowski was playing with found money by trading these two, managing to keep his upper-echelon prospects safe.

As the deadline neared, the prices for relief arms skyrocketed, making this one of the cheapest top bullpen moves of the deadline.

With the minutes ticking away, the Phillies made a couple of late moves, further upgrading the bullpen. They brought in lefty specialist Tanner Banks from the White Sox and, in a separate move, sent Gregory Soto to the Orioles.

Improving on one of the unreliable lefty arms was a shrewd move by Dombrowski. Banks is lethal against left-handed batters, while Soto never seemed to be comfortable with an undefined role. The tandem trades also saw the Phillies swap their No. 11 prospect, infielder William Bergolla, in the Banks trade for their new No. 10 prospect, pitcher Seth Johnson, in the Soto deal.

MLB.com's Will Leitch ranked the Phillies among the winners of the trade deadline, and rightly so. They didn't need to bring in more superstars, they have plenty to go around. They needed to fortify for the final two months of the season and a deep playoff run. They did just that.

They upgraded the outfield offense. They upgraded the bullpen. They didn't sacrifice their "untouchable" prospects.

Phillies' final trade deadline grade: A-