An upgrade in the Phillies outfield is an ‘obvious way’ they can improve, Dave Dombrowski says

At the general managers meetings in San Antonio, the team president said the team will “leave no stone unturned” in its bid to get better.

Outfielder Austin Hays, added at the trade deadline, was plagued by injuries and illness. He batted .256 in 22 games with the Phillies.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Lochlahn March

Published Nov. 5, 2024, 8:29 p.m. ET

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The Phillies came out of their organizational meetings at the end of October with a “good priority list” for the general managers meetings this week in the Lone Star State, as well as further down the line in the offseason.

Top of that list? An upgrade in the outfield.

“I think it’s more the obvious way,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Tuesday. “Our infield, we’ve got four guys that are set. Three of them started on the All-Star team. The other one’s a good player. We’ve got a really good DH [Kyle Schwarber]. J.T. [Realmuto] is still one of the best catchers in baseball.

“So we’re in a position where, logically, that’s the one spot, positional player-wise, that you’re going to look to upgrade in that regard.”

The Phillies still need to “look further into the Austin [Hays] situation,” according to Dombrowski. Hays was brought in from Baltimore at the trade deadline to be the Phillies’ everyday left fielder, but instead dealt with a laundry list of injuries and played in only 22 games. He is arbitration-eligible this season, but his extended struggles at the plate could make Hays a non-tender candidate at the Nov. 22 deadline.

Dombrowski said he considers Nick Castellanos and Brandon Marsh as two pieces of the outfield puzzle that are “settled,” but conceded there is still room for improvement there, too.

“Is Marsh going to hit a lefty well enough?” Dombrowski said. “We think he will, but he still needs to do it.”

The biggest name in free agency this offseason happens to fit the bill of an outfield upgrade, and Juan Soto surely will be linked with the Phillies — and several other clubs — until the ink has dried on his next contract. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was surrounded by reporters for more than an hour on Tuesday, fielding questions on the World Series loss and the potential of a certain 26-year-old right fielder remaining in the Bronx.

Cashman said he met with Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, on Monday.

“Since he knows us, we are standing ready to meet with [Soto], if he feels necessary to meet with us, as he understands the landscape of opportunities that now exist for himself,” Cashman said. “He’s played, obviously, in Washington. He played in San Diego. Now he’s played here, so we are more than willing to meet as many times as he would like to meet.”

Soto told reporters last week that he is “going to be available for all 30 teams.”

Dombrowski declined to get into details regarding the Phillies’ free-agent targets, citing league rules. As far as a potential trade as another avenue for an outfield upgrade, Dombrowski said the Phillies will “leave no stone unturned.”

Those discussions started in earnest as soon as the trade market opened the day after the World Series ended. Dombrowski said he has already received more calls from clubs inquiring about Phillies players than he typically does by early December.

“We’re at the point where we’re just open-minded to a lot of different ways in which we can get better. And so we’re really more at the exploration stage of that,” he said.

Some of those talks will continue this week in San Antonio, in between the executives’ meetings about MLB issues and new rules. Typically, more movement will happen closer to the winter meetings in December.

“You’ve go out with an idea of what you would like to try to do, but then you have to see what’s the fit, who’s interested, the dollars involved,” Dombrowski said. “You look at everything and you see what’s the best player available for you, that makes you better, that fits with your club.”