To be clear, I am certainly not saying that Utley was handled correctly or that the earlier Bell signing was a good one. Or that they shouldn't have moved on from Bell (or Polanco) earlier to get Utley into the lineup regularly.
And there are other reasons why it might have made more sense to move Bell than Polanco (Bell is a few years older, for one). But at the time of the trade, the Phillies had what seemed to be an excess of good infielders, and it was not clear which one they should move (except of course that moving Utley would have been very bad!).
