In the winter of 2018-2019 the Phillies traded for top prospect J.P. Crawford along with the ill advised recently signed Carlos Santana to the Mariners for Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos. Ultimately, Segura would be completely solid for the Phillies and Crawford would be mostly that for the Mariners. The surrounding parts of the deal had involved a draft pick to sign Santana, having Rhys Hoskins play the outfield, and mismanaging the Crawford/Scott Kingery situation so much that the Phillies got nothing from two top prospects.
That was a POBO/GM and many iterations of the team ago, but the same basic structure holds true, but with the new twist of the current FO’s obsession with trading a specific prospect each deadline. In acquiring Luis Arraez the Phillies are fixing not signing Arraez in the first place, but also all of their other failed attempts to strength the lineup this offseason, and the failure to develop their existing core. The cost is yet another promising player out the door in an overpay.
Arraez is a divisive and weird baseball player. He has become possibly passable defensively at second base, but really this is about his bat. Arraez doesn’t walk, strike out, or hit for power. He just hits singles with a handful of doubles. He does it with a diet of line drives, ground balls, and bloop fly balls. When his BABIP is good he will have a batting average in the .315-.325 range with a OBP in the .340-.360 range. He is the table setter people who believe that the 1980s were the best time for baseball drool over. He is a perfectly fine baseball player with a WAR propped up by defensive improvements that drive skepticism. He is going to force the Phillies to make their whole defense at minimum different and possibly worse, but that analysis should wait until after the deadline.
To offset the cost of paying Marquez (more on him in a second) the Phillies are getting RHP Caleb Killian, a 29 year old reliever with 5 more years of club control. Now the club control only matters so much for a guy who is already 29 and is out of options, but you can easily squint and seem some Jonathan Bowlan signal here. Killian throws and upper 90s fastball with ride and cut that doesn’t miss bats like you would hope. He has a sinker that does a decent job of suppressing contact, a bat missing gyro slider, and a big curveball that gets chases, but should never be thrown for a strike. He is a right handed middle reliever with a touch more upside and control to get the benefit of those improvements.
The big piece going out for the Phillies is RHP Ramon Marquez. Marquez is a 20 year old starting pitcher putting up some of the most dominant stats in the minors, and the Phillies were hellbent on trading him. Now Marquez is not Seth Hernandez, but the Phillies determining that Marquez was the trade chip they needed to move is a Dave Dombrowski special and one that routinely causes deadline overpays. Marquez has his flaws, his fastball isn’t the most ideally shaped, and while now 94-97, it can get hit. He doesn’t have great feel for spin, and there is some real fear that he is never really going to develop more pitches beyond the hard slider/cutter that he improved this year. But that pitch is a good weapon that made same side batters not a problem. His command is also not perfect, and the quality of his stuff hides some location issues. The thing that makes him special is his changeup, which is at least a plus plus pitch and one of the best performing pitches in the minors. It has great velocity and vertical separation from his fastball while coming out of his identically. It is not hard to see Marquez being a mid rotation starting pitcher in a few years.
Going along with Marquez is Marty Gair, and enormous reliever with an enormous fastball. Gair comes over the top with a fastball with plenty of ride and cut, that will sit 99 and can get to 102. His velocity will fluctuate appearance to appearance and his command will come and go week to week. He has worked on a slider, curveball, and changeup, but none of yet become a truly permanent mainstay. He misses bats, but because of his delivery he can get punished if he leaves one in the zone. He could be an elite late game reliever, or never make it past AA. Also because he missed so much time to injury, he is actually Rule 5 eligible this offseason and would both be an intriguing selection by a team and not really someone the Phillies would have wanted to voluntarily spend a roster spot on.
The other trade the Phillies made could be interpreted as another failure in acquisition, but we should be honest and say all teams are looking to acquire bullpen depth at the deadline. Raley is a 38 year old LHRP who has been solid on the mound (and less so off). He is clearly in decline with his strikeout rate down this year and walk rate up, and his velocity down about half a mph across the board. He might not actually be an improvement on Mayza or Alvarado in a big spot, but he is not a liability against RHBs, making him an improvement on Kyle Backhus.
To acquire this aging lefty (in throwing arm only), the Phillies did only pay a modest price in OF John Spikerman and RHP Luke Gabrysh. Spikerman has a good arm and very good center field defense. He has also shown very little power and has had a proclivity to swing and miss that he been hidden this year by just not swinging. He has some upside, but requires an overhaul the Phillies never were able to make since taking him in the 3rd round of the 2024 draft. Gabrysh was taken in the 15th round of that same draft and had a velocity jump this past offseason. He sits in the mid 90s with a good cutter and sweeper. This has left him susceptible to left handed hitters (who has a .999 OPS against him), and means he is probably a middle reliever in the long term.
In abstract the Phillies are making deals that do improve their team, but it is a team that probably needs much more and is paying huge costs to pay for not fixing these problems before.