Midweek musings: Dombrowski hints at more Phillies moves - good, because they need them

Dave Dombrowski met with the small pool of reporters who made the trip to Chicago to see the Phillies flounder against the lowly White Sox. 

He was made available to talk about the trade for Jhoan Duran, a coup of a deal by a surefire Hall of Fame baseball executive. 

Tim had a detailed breakdown of what Dombrowski said about the trade, which may seem like it was a small price to many in Philadelphia, but trading two Top 100 prospects for a closer is still a significant price, even if that closer is under team control through 2027. 

That's not what I want to talk about though. There'll be plenty of time and energy spent over the next three months talking about Duran and the bullpen. 

No, I want to talk about something else Dombrowski said in that interview. 

Dave Dombrowski on Jhoan Duran pic.twitter.com/zlxT0bFhRu

— cam ! (@aokstott) July 31, 2025

"We're not done," he said. "We're not done talking. The deadline's not over and we'll just see what ends up happening."

That's the most important line of the interview by far, because if you watch the Phillies game-in and game-out, it's blatantly apparent that this lineup just isn't good enough as currently constructed. 

It's better right now than it's been for most of the season. That's because Bryce Harper is healthy, J.T. Realmuto no longer looks washed and Brandon Marsh has figured something out. 

But it lacks power beyond Kyle Schwarber and Harper. It lacks consistency. It really lacks a reliable right-handed bat, and that's even with Trea Turner leading the league in hits. 

I had a friend text me on Wednesday saying the Phillies would be better if four regulars weren't in the lineup anymore. He was referring to Max Kepler, Bryson Stott, Alec Bohm and Nick Castellanos. 

I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but his sentiment is definitely heard and understood. 

All four guys are varying degrees of underwhelming. I'm stunned Kepler is even still here. Stott has shown some faint signs of life in the past week, but nothing that instills confidence, just a sliver of hope. Bohm is injured, but his season has been mostly below the bar, and while Castellanos has been consistently decent offensively for the Phillies for more than a year, his below average defense has cratered even further, which hurts his value all by itself, but it becomes even more of a black mark on the team when he drops into a prolonged slump.

On June 9th, Castellanos had three hits in an extra-inning victory over the Chicago Cubs. In 40 games since then, he is slashing .231/.273/.444 for a .727 OPS. Those numbers are buoyed by eight home runs in those 40 games, otherwise that OPS would be in the .600s. 

And this is a guy batting cleanup or fifth most nights.

So, there's no doubt the Phillies need some help offensively. Yeah, it's easy to pin Wednesday's loss on a horrendous relief outing by Max Lazar. It's easy to lean into excuses like a nearly four-hour rain delay on Wednesday or getting into Chicago super late prior to the loss Monday after a ground stop on flights leaving New York the day before. 

In a season where these types of offensive woes are sporadic, those excuses are acceptable. But in a season when watching the offense is akin to trying to pull both digits out of a Chinese finger trap simultaneously, they don't matter. They don't pass the smell test. 

The Phillies lineup is not championship-caliber as currently situated. 

Now, I would tell my friend that you aren't replacing half your lineup at the trade deadline. In fact, the Phillies are likely only looking to add one bat.

That one bat will probably be right-handed.

"I can't say it needs to be (right-handed)," Dombrowski said. "But that's more of our preference."

That bat should do one of two things - either hit a lot of homers, or be a good contact bat and get on base. 

The former sounds a lot like Eugenio Suarez, although he doesn't exactly fit like a glove on the current roster because of a log jam of hit now, play defense later - if ever - kind of guys.

(Editor's note: Suarez was traded to the Seattle Mariners after this post was written).

The latter sounds a lot like Steven Kwan, who is left-handed and because of his years of control, may cost a boatload. 

The middle ground could be Luis Robert Jr.

You just watched him. He's looking a lot more like himself lately, proving that he may be a smart change-of-scenery type gamble. 

"If you're telling me I'm making a two month bet on a guy's upside, give me someone with that skillset..."

- Rick Hahn on Luis Robert Jr. pic.twitter.com/E9Vgu6mNoD

— MLB Now (@MLBNow) July 30, 2025

Yes his overall numbers are subpar, but since June 10 - that same time frame as I used to talk about Castellanos earlier, Robert is slashing .289/.369/.527 for an .896 OPS. He also plays very good defense in centerfield, steals bases, and hits right-handed. 

He has control on is contract, but control that could give some teams pause - as he has team options for each of the next two seasons at $20 million each year. That's a lot of cheddar for a guy who hasn't looked like he's looked the last seven weeks over a full season since 2023 and is frequently injured. 

So, the price for him may not be as steep as it was at this time last year. But, he could also have been unmotivated playing for the worst team in baseball in 2024 and the second-worst team in 2025. Maybe this past seven weeks is him putting together a run to entice teams to take a chance on him so he can get the heck out of Dodge and be an All-Star caliber player again for a contender. 

Maybe that's the best path forward for the Phillies. He doesn't have Suarez's power. He doesn't have Kwan's contact ability or Gold Glove defense, but he's got a little bit of both, and he is right-handed and has flashed some sensational stuff in the past. 

That might be the best direction to go on the trade market. 

Do that, call up Justin Crawford, DFA Kepler and option Johan Rojas back down, and now all of the sudden that lineup is looking a little better. It still wouldn't be ideal, but if the Phillies come away from the deadline with David Robertson, Duran and Robert and then get Aaron Nola back in a couple weeks, and even finally call up prospects like Crawford and Andrew Painter, that's as many as six different players from what the team has had in the past two months in which they've played .500 baseball (25-25). That's changing nearly a quarter of your roster. 

And it just may be enough to accomplish your ultimate goal.

Time to Yell at Clouds

In keeping with the spirit of this being the weekly "old man column" I have a few things that perturbed me this week. I've written a lot already, so I'll make these some quick (quicker?) hitters:

• Darryl Morey needs to just not speak about things he has no business speaking about. Yes, we all know that championships won in 2020 in sports were a bit fugazi. The pandemic ruined sports that year and the fact that we were able to even have a modicum of competition during that time should be a win for us all. the Lakers winning that title in the Disney bubble was equally as weak as the Dodgers winning the World Series after a 60-game season and an expanded playoff, or the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup - against the Canadiens because the NHL had to create an all-Canadian Division because of international travel restrictions. It all sucked, to be frank. But for Morey, who has never won a thing, ever, to say that there should be an asterisk next to the Lakers name in the record books and that people in the league don't view the championship as all that legitimate is cringeworthy. Dude, win a title yourself before you can dictate how others should feel about someone else winning a title under less than ideal circumstances. 

This is the full quote by Sixers executive Daryl Morey on the Lakers’ 2020 NBA title. pic.twitter.com/RiPlKz3FzH

— Tony Jones (@Tjonesonthenba) July 30, 2025

• People pining for the players who were acquitted of sexual assault last week in Canada to be allowed back into the NHL right away as if nothing happened bother me. I know people - and not just sports fans - often conflate being found not guilty with outright innocence, and that's dangerous. One is completely different than the other, and the actions of those Team Canada hockey players were not just boys being boys. It was gross what they did to that girl. I'm not a fan of Gary Bettman as a commissioner, but if he wants to dig his heels in and hand out supplementary discipline to prove that point, I'm with him. I can't imagine how I would feel if this were my daughter. Or my sister. I can't imagine how women who have been not believed before or who didn't get justice based on interpretations of the law or possible loopholes in the laws of the land feel about this. Just letting these players resume their careers as if nothing happened at all would be an affront to all of those women and their families. I'm not saying these players shouldn't some day have a second chance to earn a living. I'm saying it can't be right away, or even just after a handful of early-season games. There needs to be acknowledgment that what happened that night in 2018 was not O.K. There needs to be remorse. And there needs to be positive reconciliation for their actions. That all needs to come first before everyone just picks up where they left off.
• Enough with stats from NFL training camps, or descriptions of plays from practice. Enough. They don't matter. And people either don't care, or only care for a hot minute. Instead, tell us some good stories from camp that have nothing to do with numbers. We'll have enough numbers that matter when the games matter. The ones that occur in seven-on-seven drills while running around in shorts are utterly useless, not to mention, likely inaccurate. 
• Two Cleveland Guardians pitchers, Luis Garcia and Emmanuel Clase, are on paid leave related to a sports betting investigation. Reports are out there that more players may ultimately be involved. All you sports leagues who got into bed with sports books to line your pockets, I have one question for you - what the hell did you expect? You brought this on yourselves.