I don't mind the totality of the deadline activity for the Phillies though it is unclear the team is that much better. One salient point that I love about Dombrowski is that he is mostly big picture thinking about the future and the present at the same time. Dominguez and Soto and Pache all had almost no value. Dominguez was not going to be worth his $8 million option and I am pretty sure they decided Soto was not worth a likely raise in arbitration. Pache was going to be a DFA shortly too because we needed that roster spot.
Estevez fills a need on the backend and Hays I suppose is better than what we had though not great. And we traded 3 prospects getting two back. The pitching we traded was a little better than the pitching we got back. Johnson seems very interesting, but also could very well be lost on waivers in a year because of all the time he missed (COVID plus TJ surgery). Chace is also not as good as either of the two pitching prospects we gave up. Both Klassen and Aldegheri might need all 3 of their options, but they were more valuable because of that longer clock attached. And I think they realized Bergolla is only a utility prospect. They held onto the prospects with higher ceilings that they think might be starters. Pitching is still an issue in the minors but this small step back should not hurt.
So we did not trade much and became slightly better this year while not hurting our future. That is kind of a C+ deadline score. Still wish we added a left-handed bat.
