PHILADELPHIA -- President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski still needed to see every move that every National League team made before Thursday’s Trade Deadline, but he knows the Phillies are among a handful of teams trying to win the World Series.
He believes they improved their chances.
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They got Twins closer Jhoan Duran on Wednesday for MLB Pipeline Top 100 prospects Mick Abel (No. 91) and Eduardo Tait (No. 56). Philadelphia then acquired Twins outfielder Harrison Bader on Thursday for Hendry Mendez (now Twins No. 20 prospect) and Geremy Villoria. Duran’s acquisition was a bold move to help a beleaguered bullpen. Bader was a complementary piece to help an inconsistent lineup.
“There was no stone unturned, but we felt good with our club,” Dombrowski said Thursday night. “We didn’t have a lot of gaping holes. Again, our offensive improvement is going to have to come internally. We think it can.”
TRADE DETAILS
Phillies receive: OF Harrison Bader
Twins receive: RHP Geremy Villoria and OF Hendry Mendez
Bader, 31, has a $10 million mutual option for 2026, which likely makes him a rental. But while he is here, the Phils hope he can help an outfield that ranks among the worst in baseball, and the worst in Philly in more than 30 years. Phillies outfielders have a combined .677 OPS, which ranks 26th in the league. They haven’t had worse production in the outfield since 1992 (.668 OPS).
Bader is batting .258 with 12 home runs, 38 RBIs, a .778 OPS and a 111 OPS+, which makes this one of the best seasons of his nine-year career. He has a career .706 OPS and 94 OPS+.
Bader, who hits right-handed, has similar splits this season against righties (.779 OPS) and lefties (.774 OPS).
“He’s done it,” Dombrowski said. “He’s been doing it this year, so we think he can continue to do it.”
Bader is an excellent defender. He has played 77 games this year in left field, 33 games in center and five games in right. He is +5 Outs Above Average, which ranks 19th out of 103 qualified outfielders. Other Phillies outfielders, by comparison: Johan Rojas (+6), Max Kepler (0), Brandon Marsh (-1) and Nick Castellanos (-11).
It is unclear where Bader will play and how much.
“He’s going to play a lot,” Dombrowski said.
Bader’s arrival, however, seems to have slowed Triple-A outfielder Justin Crawford’s (Phillies’ No. 3 prospect) timeline to the big leagues.
“We think he’s ready to play at the big league level,” Dombrowski said. “We could bring him up. If we do bring him up, he needs to play a lot. I'm not sure that we're in a position to do that at this point today, but he's not somebody that we would hesitate to bring up if we decided that was the right thing to do.
“He, like [Andrew] Painter, like a lot of those youngsters, they can use more development time. It will never hurt them.”
Dombrowski reiterated that Max Kepler, who has disappointed with a .654 OPS and 80 OPS+, will continue to play in left.
“He’s actually been swinging the bat a little bit better, particularly vs. right-handed pitching,” Dombrowski said. “But he’s part of our roster at this time.”
The Phillies DFA’d right-hander Brett de Geus to make room for Bader on the 40-man roster. Dombrowski said they will make a move to place Bader on the 26-man roster on Friday. They have right-handed hitters with options like Rojas, Weston Wilson and Otto Kemp.
The Phillies this week got plenty of offers for Painter, who is their No. 1 prospect and the No. 8 prospect in baseball. Dombrowski said they would not trade him because they believe he can be an ace one day.
It doesn’t sound like a promotion is imminent.
“Will we see him?” Dombrowski said. “I’m not really sure what’s going to happen. We’re in a position where it’s a possibility, but I don’t want to say anything more than that because we really haven’t made that decision ourselves.”
The Phillies held onto other top prospects, including Aidan Miller (No. 2) and Crawford. They could have used one or both to acquire a bigger bat. In recent days and weeks, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber expressed a willingness to move to the outfield to bolster the lineup.
Eugenio Suárez was the most obvious choice for either to make a position change, but Arizona traded him to Seattle.
“You dip your toes in everything,” Dombrowski said. “Both players would be willing to do that, but our preference is to keep them at first and [DH]. Bryce has become a good first baseman. We like him there. Schwarbs is a tremendous DH. … We’ve talked about it here. We get this guy from an offensive perspective, how does our defense look? How good of a defensive club are we, or do we suffer in that regard? We talked about [it]. They were open about it. But internally that wasn’t our preference.”
The Phillies think the bats they already have will have to step up in October if they want to win. They had greater concerns about the bullpen, which is why they got Duran and David Robertson in recent weeks. They will get José Alvarado back on Aug. 19. Aaron Nola could rejoin the rotation in mid-August.
They should be better, but it’s not guaranteed.
“Now it comes to playing better on the field,” Dombrowski said.