How did the Phillies’ NL East rivals fare at the trade deadline?

Atlanta Braves

Being the division leaders of the NL East by a wide and comfortable margin, the Atlanta Braves really believed in the team they had already constructed was more than enough to be strong contenders for the playoffs. As a result, they did minimal work at the trade deadline, as they just acquired bullpen reinforcements in Brad Hand and Pierce Johnson from the Colorado Rockies and Taylor Hearn from the Texas Rangers, and then flipping Hearn to nab 2B Nicky Lopez from the Kansas City Royals.

Both Hand and Johnson will serve as pitching depth for their back end of the bullpen, despite their stats for 2023 not being at all that spectacular. However, both have had valuable postseason experience in the past, so they could definitely come in handy come playoff time. For the case of Lopez, he will serve as the infield backup depth for the ballclub. So from the looks of it, the Braves were basically filling up minor gaps in their 26-man roster in preparation for the postseason, as barring a complete collapse in the final two months of the season, they have the division title all but sewn up already and could use the remaining regular season time to gear up for the playoffs.

The Phillies definitely won’t be catching the Braves, unless they suddenly go on some crazy run, so it is probably in their best interest to make sure they just focus on getting into the playoffs by nabbing one of the three Wild Card spots by season’s end. At the same time, they will need some of their current players to step up their game in order to have a successful run down the stretch. Hopefully, together with the under-the-radar addition of Lorenzen, it will be sufficient enough to give the Phillies that needed boost to make it back to the postseason for the second consecutive season.