The trade deadline is a time of wonder and curiosity. Teams are on the lookout for ways to improve themselves when the options they have internally are no longer good enough. We have been blessed to have relative blockbusters go down in the past few trade deadlines, making the news exciting to cover. Talking about trades is always fun, which is why I included a post in The Feed.
You were kind enough to respond with a lot of great and thoughtful responses, so let’s talk about some of them.
It still is quite strange that Alex McFarlane remains in Reading. His season has been a successful transition from being a starter to a full-time reliever. The stuff he is showing is big league ready, followed up by results that match. And yet, at Double-A he remains. He has yet to throw the major league baseball that is used in Lehigh Valley, meaning there might have to be some kind of adjustment to the ball whenever he does get a promotion somewhere. Maybe he becomes the 2026 version of Orion Kerkering, maybe he just is getting ready for 2027.
Yet the idea of including him in the big league bullpen and expecting instant success might be a little far fetched. As mentioned, the actual baseball is going to be different in the two leagues, so adjustment must be accounted for. Then there is the natural adjustment pitchers go through in their jump to the majors. Put that all together with his being included in a pennant race and the ingredients are there for a less than successful move.
As far as the idea of trading Andrew Painter and Gage Wood for Aroldis Chapman and Sonny Gray, that’s something I just cannot get on board with. I’ve been pretty critical of Painter lately, not really impressed by his latest start in Lehigh Valley despite the on box score results he had. Chapman is a rental only and Painter does still possess tantalizing upside if he can figure out how to tap into it.
There is always a flaw in thinking that a team has an excess of anything – pitching, infield, whatever position it is on the field. We have seen in the past the Phillies believe they have a lot of something only to find themselves left empty handed when the time is near. Remember the Baby Aces?
However, yes, there are some infield prospects to move in potential deals. Escobar has been the biggest name the team has had based on past reputation, yet his season this year has been disappointing. Rincon has taken a leap a bit this year, but probably isn’t one that would lead any kind of trade, instead finding himself as more of a secondary piece than anything. In the outfield, Nori would probably have fetched something decent based somewhat on the improvement he showed in the WBC and at the beginning of the season, but a recent injury that the team has been quite mum about clouds any trade value he had.
Agreed that these are some of the names the Phillies could look to move in a deal, but a combination of injury and regression has hurt a few of them.
Alirio Ferrebus is a name that I would expect to come up quite a bit in trade talks. He has had an outstanding season, rocking a 132 wRC+ in Clearwater as a 20 year old catcher. There are some things to worry about in his profile (the whole “catcher” thing, swinging a lot), but he hits the ball hard and doesn’t strike out much at all. If he can improve as an actual catcher, that’s a valuable commodity to have so long as the bat continues to improve. Is that something that would lead a trade package? Obviously would depend on what it is the team is trading for. If we’re talking about an impact bat, then probably not. If a team is going to move that impact bat, they would probably want something more of a high upside arm (re: Gage Wood) or a similarly high upside bat that plays somewhere else on the diamond.
The issue that is continuing to become obvious is lack of those high upside players the team has that they would be willing to dangle in a trade. The injury to Aidan Miller, the slight regression of Andrew Painter and the big league promotion of Justin Crawford has left them with a system that has precious little other teams would covet in a deal. Maybe there is a pop-up prospect that teams would like to take (Juan Villavicencio, Ramon Marquez to name two), maybe there is someone other teams might feel they can do more with than what the Phillies have done.
They will get a deal done and when they do, we’ll probably sit back and say “That’s it?” when it happens. It’s usually the case. But, we can continue debating here in the comments until the deadline hits. Go Phillies.
COVERS INTEL: Zac Gallen has been one of the league's worst pitchers, 
