Philadelphia Phillies very likely to trade young players

All right, let’s assume the Philadelphia Phillies will have a baseball schedule to actually play sometime next year. This, of course, would be an advantageous document for a team with a half-dozen good players solidly in the middle of their prime years. What should team president Dave Dombrowski be thinking about this holiday season?

One need go no further than the nearest street corner in the City of Brotherly Love to ask random passers-by. The answer will be: The Philadelphia Phillies need to win now. Some of those folks may add expletives. Do not be alarmed.

So, let’s assume a new collective bargaining agreement gives MLB teams at least a few weeks to act sensibly on reaching their various goals.

The Philadelphia Phillies must seriously consider trading some of their young players.

Winning now for the Phillies must first look like appropriately patching holes in their current, hibernating lineup. This will involve signing, minimally, one important free agent outfielder (read, Nick Castellanos over Kyle Schwarber, and the luxury tax be damned), as well as trading for or signing at least one starter, some relievers, and perhaps another backup catching candidate.

This means some people will likely be traded. Maybe not many, but probably a few. So, some people have begun to think about the Phillies some other team might be persuaded to love.

In a recent article, Scott Lauber basically nominated three players, but actually threw in a couple of others. The highlighted players with any MLB playing time were catcher Rafael Marchan, outfielder Mickey Moniak, and infielder Alec Bohm. The throw-ins to the discussion were outfielder Adam Haseley and MiLB catcher Logan O’Hoppe.

A couple of other MiLB players were mentioned and could be throw-ins in any deal involving one or more of the five players above.

But what makes sense, considering Lauber’s expertise and the notion that any sports writer needs to hear an argument beginning, “Now hold on…”?

By that, I mean even though it was five years ago, the Phillies are not likely to give up yet on a first overall pick, meaning Moniak stays. I can hear the discussion – we haven’t given him a real chance, he’s packed on all that muscle, he doesn’t really look overmatched – um, anymore.

And the analytics guy will surely come up with something – a launch-angle average, exit velocity on sliders from left-handers, whatever….

Or Dombrowski could do the right thing.

But, again, betting he won’t, I posted a poll on a social media site about which Phillies player to trade that almost got more votes than the one about how many times a year the voter eats lobster. Still, the leader among Marchan, Haseley, and Bohm was the former Rookie of the Year runner-up, Bohm, who got exactly half of the votes.

This was not a statistically significant poll in terms of sample size, but weirdly, those who voted got this decision right. Two points: Bohm’s 2020 ROY second-place vote was the result of his playing in only 44 games in the first COVID year, and the young third baseman spent way too much time stomping around the Phillies dugout last season like a petulant 14-year-old.

Who knows what the problem actually was? Give him a new venue. Phillies management couldn’t fix him, but he might be fixed by someone else, and he probably has more value than Marchan and Haseley.

In truth, all three – no, four – could be traded. Were it not for Haseley’s mysterious leave of absence last season, one could argue that he should be kept, but….

If one can be kept, make it Marchan. That’s what the polled Phillies fans said – only 13.6 percent favored trading him.