It’s July 21st. The Phillies are 56-43. They have a half game lead over the Mets in the NL East. Things are really not bad. One could argue that if nothing happens in the next ten days, they are still highly likely to make the playoffs. They have the best starting pitching rotation in Major League Baseball, and they have depth. Their fate literally may come down to whether their pitching and maybe Harper and Schwarber are hot when the playoffs start. There is no rhyme or reason to picking who wins the World Series, it’s usually just whoever can get on a run for a month.

It doesn’t feel like the Phillies are going to win though. Sure, it didn’t feel that way for most of 2008, or in 2022, but feelings are not as irrelevant as advanced metrics can make them feel. Were you 100% confident in Craig Kimbrel in 2023? No, but he did have a pretty good year until the NLCS. In 2024 the Phillies felt literally unbeatable until June, then they limped to the division title and lost right away in October. The Phillies are back in first and that’s great, but the season to this point feels more like last year from June on than the early portion. The bullpen is a mess. The lineup really isn’t that bad statistically, but it’s wildly inconsistent. They’re really not a great team on the road. They have lost series against current playoff contenders San Diego, San Francisco, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and New York this season (they’ve beaten some of them too). Sure, they absolutely can beat Los Angeles or Chicago in a playoff series. They have to get there to even have that conversation though.

If all I did was write down that they need bullpen help, there would be no point to me writing this. Orion Kerkering, Tanner Banks, and Matt Strahm can’t really be all they use in a playoff series. I like signing David Robertson yesterday, but that doesn’t fix their bullpen problem on it’s own. If we’re being realistic, the Phillies probably need two more relief arms at the deadline, but might get away with one good one because they’ll shift a starter or two into their bullpen for the postseason. Again though, everyone knows this. They desperately could use some help internally, but their AAA bullpen might be worse than the big league one.

The bigger problem here is that the Phillies could probably use a bat too, and there aren’t really many of them available. Center field is a black hole, left field might somehow be worse, second base has been very disappointing, and a number of other spots in the lineup have been fine, but inconsistent. Without even getting into the potential future without Kyle Schwarber, or even to a much lesser extent J.T. Realmuto, the Phillies offense needs a re-tool. They’re no longer the feared group they were in the 2022 World Series run. The problem is, there’s not a lot of difference makers on the market. In fact, the solution may be sitting in AAA, with Justin Crawford hitting .325, with an .830 OPS as of this morning. The solution to the offense could simply be slotting him in center, full-time platooning Marsh and Otto Kemp in left, and maybe finding a bench bat on the trade market that kills left handers. Of course there’s a major problem with that thought process though- how do you get the kind of relief arm the Phillies need without moving a Crawford in a trade? Especially if you correctly don’t want to trade Andrew Painter for a reliever? If you’re keeping Painter off the market, it’s hard to hold onto Crawford and Aidan Miller, your best two offensive prospects. Mick Abel has recovered a lot of value this season, but he still won’t land you a Mason Miller or Emmanuel Clase on his own. And if you trade Crawford? You still have two glaring holes in your outfield to fill.

I’m not saying I don’t want Miller or Clase, but I am saying that I haven’t gone into the fully crazy fan mode where I’m willing to move Painter or the whole system to get them. The Phillies have multiple needs right now, and the problem they face is that the solution to one is the cost of the other. I would not be upset if they find a team who is willing to move them multiple relief arms, or a relief arm and a right-handed bat, instead of making the biggest splash for the biggest reliever. This team is obviously not a bad team, but it is conceivable that quantity is as important as quality for them. The 2008 Phillies got players like Joe Blanton and Matt Stairs to load up for the postseason. The 2009 Phillies got Cliff Lee. The 2008 team won. Again, I’d love seeing Miller or Clase in South Philadelphia this Fall, but I hope the front office isn’t so in love with them that they throw all caution to the wind- because I don’t think they alone will be enough.

With all of that said, I think the worst outcome of all would be nothing. The Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Brewers, and Padres are the current other playoff teams, and while they’re all good, that’s hardly terrifying when you have the best rotation of the group. The Phillies absolutely need to make moves in the plural and go for this thing. A set up man or an Austin Hays level bat won’t do it. Dave Dombrowski is known as an aggressive executive, one who goes for the World Series every chance he gets, and gets there a lot. The Phillies need him to live up to that billing over the next week or so. You just can’t waste opportunities like this.