The trade deadline is looming and the Philadelphia Phillies are shopping around, looking to solidify their best-in-baseball roster. Outfield and bullpen are the areas of focus for the front office, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.
We’ve heard plenty of rumored trade targets from players the Phillies are confirmed to be scouting or inquiring about, but what we don’t know is which prospects the organization deems to be movable at the deadline. All we can do is guess what kinds of prospect packages Dave Dombrowski and company are offering potential trade partners.
Phillies trying to prop up struggling prospect's trade value
One prospect the Phillies could be discussing with other teams is pitcher Mick Abel. But if the Phillies want to use the right-hander as trade bait, they might need to do some PR to prop up his perceived value. That's what it sounded like Phillies general manager Sam Fuld might have been doing during his recent appearance on MLB Network Radio, courtesy of Phillies Tailgate on X (formerly Twitter).
Fuld first discussed Abel's struggles. The right-hander started the season as the Phillies No. 2 prospect and overall No. 49 in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 rankings. The problem is that he has struggled so much in Triple-A that he was recntly dropped to No. 93. He dropped right out of Baseball America’s Top 100 rankings. That’s how poorly his season has gone.
"I think everybody would admit, Mick himself, that it's been a challenging season," Fuld said during his spot. "He saw some of his stuff decline a bit as he's tried to get in the strike zone, and he just hasn't been able to string together a lot of consecutive good quality starts."
In 15 starts for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Abel is running a 6.88 ERA and 1.85 WHIP with a career-low 8.47 K/9 and career-high 7.01 BB/9.
Phillies say they are seeing positive developments with Mick Abel
Despite Abel's ongoing struggles, Fuld says there are positive developments.
"The stuff is ticking back up, we're excited about that," Fuld said. "He's 22 years old. It's easy to lose sight of that sometimes because it does feel like he's been in the organization for a while now, and there's a lot of expectations for him to pitch well, but he's 22.
"He's in Triple-A, which is a really difficult environment to pitch in these days, especially with the ABS system and the run environment there is really hitter-friendly it seems."
The Phillies aren't giving up on the young hurler, nor should they. As Fuld points out, Abel is still just 22, which is young for a pitcher in Triple-A — he's over five years younger than the average age for that level.
“He’s going through some adversity right now," Fuld concluded. "But we have a lot of confidence in the kid, and we have a lot of confidence that he’s going to come out of it.”
If Abel can figure things out and get back on track, he has a chance to become a big part of the Phillies’ future rotation plans. That is unless the Phillies package him up at the deadline in a deal to solidify the current roster for a World Series run.