Matt Higgins
The Philadelphia Phillies need to overhaul their beleaguered bullpen at the trade deadline if they want to have any chance at winning their first World Series championship since 2008. There will be several high-leverage relievers available, but who will the Phillies ultimately end up with?
Philadelphia’s bullpen ranks 25th in baseball in ERA at 4.39 and 24th in batting average allowed at .256. Jose Alvarado is currently serving an 80-game PED suspension and is prohibited from pitching in the postseason if the Phillies make it that far. Their top free-agent reliever acquisition, Jordan Romano, has a 7.44 ERA and minus-1.0 bWAR in 36 appearances, including giving up a walk-off inside-the-park three-run home run to San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey in a 4-3 Phillies loss on Tuesday.
Because owner John Middleton and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski failed to adequately upgrade a bullpen that lost two premier relievers in Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estevez, they will have to part with a top prospect or two to solidify the Phillies’ bullpen.
That’s why ESPN MLB reporter Jeff Passan proposes the Phillies should trade for Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase.
“This bullpen is not suited to win a playoff series, much less the World Series,” notes Passan. “The consequence of bad relief pitching manifested itself in the postseason last year, when the New York Mets filleted Phillies relievers for 17 runs in 12⅔ innings. No other bullpen gave up more than nine runs in the division series. Clase (or Jhoan Durán or any shutdown reliever, really) is just a start. An on-the-fly overhaul is what this team needs — and deserves.”
The Phillies are also in the market for an outfield bat, so it wouldn’t surprise Passan if Dombrowski would try to pry two-time All-Star Steven Kwan away from the Guardians as well.
“Maybe it would take Andrew Painter. Maybe Aidan Miller. Maybe Justin Crawford. Regardless, the Phillies’ window is closing, and getting both club control (Clase is under contract through 2028 and Kwan through 2027) and cost certainty (Clase is due $26 million for the next three years and Kwan less than $20 million for two) would make dealing high-end prospects significantly more palatable,” states Passan.
Clase, a three-time All-Star, had a rough start to the season, sporting a 6.75 ERA at the end of April, but he’s returned to form. Since then his ERAs by month: 0.84 in May, 1.54 in June and 1.93 in July. Clase has led all of baseball in saves the past three seasons and has 19 so far this year, but he has postseason demons to contend with. In seven games against the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees last October, he posted a 9.00 ERA, allowing 12 hits and three home runs in eight innings of work.
As for the left-handed hitting Kwan, he was just named to his second All-Star team as he’s slashing .292/.350/.408 with six home runs, 20 doubles and a 112 OPS+. Even though the Phillies would prefer a right-handed outfield bat, Kwan would be an instant upgrade over current left fielder Max Kepler, who has a .685 OPS and 89 OPS+.
