August 01, 2025
Jerome Miron/Imagn Images
Outlets gave president Dave Dombrowski generally good grades for the Phillies' trade deadline moves.
Grades are in for the Phillies (and other MLB teams) now that the trade deadline has come and gone. The Phillies made some major moves, acquiring dominant closer Jhoan Duran and right-handed outfielder Harrison Bader in separate deals with the Twins. They also made a minor addition, making a deal with the Tigers to acquire 27-year-old right-handed pitcher Matt Manning, a 2016 first-round pick.
Here's how national sports outlets graded the Phillies' haul:
The Phillies made "logical" moves, wrote David Schoenfield, but not overly impactful. This is consistent with what we wrote about the splashy trade.
This fits into the "logical but low-impact" department. The Phillies rank 22nd in OPS from center field (Brandon Marsh has been OK, but Johan Rojas hasn't hit at all) and 26th in OPS from left field (mostly Max Kepler). Bader can slot into either position. He played mostly left field for the Twins with Byron Buxton in center, but he is probably a defensive upgrade over Marsh, so he could push Marsh over to left field. It's not a perfect alignment since Marsh and Kepler both bat left-handed, but Bader gives the Phillies a much-needed right-handed bat and improves the overall depth.
As Jake Mintz noted, the additions of Duran and Bader are nice and all, but really serve to masquerade the fact that Dave Dombrowski's free-agent signings – Jordan Romano and Max Kepler, in particular – are the reasons he needed to make those trades.
President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and his front office deserve credit for adding Duran, one of the more dominant relievers in the game, to a bullpen in need of reinforcements. They also deserve criticism for not properly addressing the bullpen in the offseason, when both Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estévez departed in free agency. That said, the suspension of José Alvarado was impossible to predict. The Duran move helps the Phillies now and for the next few seasons, as he’s under control through 2027. Bader is a fine addition, though a more impactful bat would’ve been nice, considering the Phils are 26th in MLB with a .677 outfield OPS.
They gave separate grades for each trade, handing the Phillies an A for the Duran deal and slightly lower grade for Bader, noting that they surrendered "just a pair of prospects" for Duran – perhaps underselling Mick Abel and Eduardo Tait there – and giving up "basically nothing" for Bader, which is more accurate.
Dave Dombrowski seized on his opportunity to get 2½ years of one of the best relievers in baseball in exchange for just a pair of prospects. It's a huge addition for the Phillies, with Duran presumably assuming the ninth-inning role and taking a ton of pressure off the club's other high-leverage guys. Philadelphia has the 27-year-old flamethrower under team control through 2027.
Philadelphia gives up basically nothing to get one of the game's better defensive center fielders, who should provide some pop for an outfield that desperately needs some. Bader has an .809 OPS in 31 career postseason games.
Not surprisingly, they felt that the Phillies did enough to make the NL East race tight.
The NL East should be good fun down the stretch, no? The Phillies did their part to keep the race against the Mets in the headlines. The big move was the addition of lockdown closer Jhoan Duran from the torn-down Twins. As well, the Phillies addressed their own center field issues by adding Harrison Bader in a deal with those very same Twins.
MLB.com didn't do report cards but named "winners" and "losers" of the deadline. Will Leitch wrote that of all the relievers moved at the deadline – and there were many – the Phils came away with the best one.
As expected, bullpen arms were sent all over the place, in all directions, at the Deadline. But none of them are better than Jhoan Duran, who has been outstanding his whole career but particularly magnificent this season. He’s 6-4 with a 2.01 ERA and 16 saves this year, with a four-seam fastball that averages 100.2 mph. He’s also going to be under contract with the Phillies at least through the 2027 season, which means the Phillies didn’t just solve a big chunk of their bullpen woes this year, but also for the next couple of years.
Unfortunately for the Phillies, Leitch also named the Mets as one of his winners.
As they say, time will tell.
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