Dave Dombrowski met with the media after the Phillies announced they had traded for Angels’ closer Carlos Estevez.
Was this enough?
The Phillies' two clearest areas to improve were the outfield and bullpen and they addressed both, but were the acquisitions of Austin Hays, Carlos Estevez and Tanner Banks sufficient for a team that will see anything other than a World Series trophy in 2024 as a disappointment?
"I feel very good about it," president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. "I like our ballclub. We set out with a goal of getting a right-handed bat, which is Austin Hays. We wanted to get another back-end type guy and got that in Estevez. We really like him. Someone who could close games or pitch in high-leverage situations. And bringing in Banks is an arm we like, so overall I like what we've done."
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Estevez was one of the best relievers on the market, maybe the best. He made his Phillies debut in the ninth inning with the team down by a run and went 1-2-3 through Aaron Judge, Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm Jr. His presence should have a ripple effect of improvement on the entire bullpen, upgrading manager Rob Thomson's options in each of the final three innings of games.
Banks replaces Gregory Soto, traded to Baltimore for two prospects, as the third left-hander in the Phillies' bullpen. Banks has struck out 55 batters in 48 innings this season and has the stamina to go multiple innings. He's recorded more than three outs in 16 of his 41 appearances and gone two innings eight times.
It is uncommon for a contending team to trade two relievers who had been high-leverage arms for them at many points like Soto and Seranthony Dominguez, but Soto never reached the level of consistency they'd hoped for.
Hays was 2-for-12 with five strikeouts in his first three games but had a huge night on Tuesday, hitting a three-run homer in the second inning and a game-tying RBI single in the bottom of the 11th. He's been a much better hitter against lefties than righties this season and for his career but the Phillies are giving him a chance, at least initially, to show he can be an everyday player for them. As such, Hays has faced a right-hander in 14 of his 17 plate appearances. In the three against lefties, he's flied out to center, popped up to first base and struck out.
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The bullpen was addressed and the Phillies have at least a handful of relievers they feel good about in Estevez, Jeff Hoffman, Orion Kerkering, Matt Strahm, Jose Alvarado and Banks, even if Alvarado and Kerkering are going through rougher patches than usual.
The outfield is a different story. The Phillies haven't been able to find the right mix offensively. Brandon Marsh hasn't hit lefties but neither has Johan Rojas, nor Whit Merrifield and Cristian Pache before the Phillies parted ways. By adding Hays, the Phillies at least gave themselves a more viable option in left field against lefties, but they still have one weak spot offensively in the outfield against lefties (Marsh or Rojas) and righties (Hays, unless he proves otherwise).
Depth matters, even in the playoffs when the backups play sparingly. Last October, Jake Cave made the final out in Game 4 of the NLCS, a one-run loss, and the penultimate out of Game 7, a two-run loss. Circumstances or matchups will sometimes dictate that a reserve finds himself up in a prominent spot in the postseason but those are certainly not ideal situations for the 26th player on the roster.
That's the bigger picture to all of this — the "superstars gotta show up" — as Bryce Harper said Sunday afternoon after the Phillies lost their fourth consecutive series.
Harper is riding a 1-for-25, Trea Turner a 2-for-23, and Alec Bohm has driven in two runs in 21 games since July 4. Zack Wheeler was tuned up by the Yankees for seven runs on Monday night, Ranger Suarez is on the injured list and Alvarado has given up 12 runs in his last 15⅓ innings.
They're all key pieces to the puzzle, and if the big guns don't produce in October, it's probably not going to matter if Hays goes 0-for-3 out of the nine-hole against a right-handed pitcher.
"I'm happy with this club," Thomson said Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before the deadline. "I love this club. I love the group. The talent's here. The makeup's here. I love everything about it."
Asking prices were high in a clear seller's market. Estevez cost the Phillies "probably a little bit more than you'd like to give up for a rental," Dave Dombrowski said Saturday night in explaining the cost of doing business. The Padres spent even more prospect capital for Tanner Scott. The Astros and Orioles paid surprisingly steep prices for struggling lefties Yusei Kikuchi and Trevor Rogers.
Randy Arozarena would have been a good fit for the Phillies; he cost the Mariners two ascending outfield prospects. The Phils might have had to part with one of their top two position player prospects in a deal for him, a difficult pill to swallow and the kind of present vs. future debate that can be argued either way in any war room.
"We had some guys we really didn't want to trade, our upper echelon guys," Dombrowski said. "So naturally, we're thrilled that we made the moves we made. I know we gave up some talent. But we also have some other guys we're really high on. So I think we have a really good ballclub and our farm system continues to get better."
The Phillies' 10 losses in 14 games might be exaggerating the importance of the roster's weakest spots, and we won't know until the postseason ends whether Dombrowski, Sam Fuld and co. did enough to bolster and fortify the Phillies' roster. It would have been understandable if they were kicking themselves last winter for not adding more at the deadline than Michael Lorenzen and Rodolfo Castro. But again, if the Phillies' top players performed in the NLCS, the year might have ended the way the clubhouse and fans had dreamed regardless of that deadline duo's minimal postseason impact.
Superstars gotta show up, Harper said. None were added at the deadline so it's on the superstars already in that room.
