After a string of misfires, the Phillies can’t afford to get their next big move wrong | David Murphy

If the Phillies make a big move, they need to get it right, and there is no statute of limitations on that statement.

Whether they do it today, a week from today, or some time this offseason, Matt Klentak and his front office cannot afford another misfire. That’s a precarious position in which to find oneself, given the amount of randomness involved in separating success from failure in Major League Baseball’s labor market.

Klentak got an early introduction to this fact of life three years ago, in one of his first transactions as a general manager, when he traded an inventory-level minor-league arm to the Pirates for a 31-year-old righthander named Charlie Morton.

Morton had spent most of his career as a bottom-of-the-rotation arm with consistent but unspectacular stuff, the kind of guy a playoff team is always looking to upgrade.

The move was a sensible one, both for the Pirates, who had won 98 games the season before and were preparing for the arrival of top prospect Jameson Taillon, and for the Phillies, who were in the initial stages of what was expected to be a lengthy rebuilding process and could afford to give a guy like Morton a regular turn in the rotation.

As fate would have it, Morton ended up making just four starts for the Phillies, blowing out his hamstring in the second inning of a game against the Brewers while running to first on a bunt. He missed the rest of the 2016 season, after which the Phillies declined a $9.5 million option that was more or less a procedural move for a 33-year-old guy who was coming off injury and had a 4.74 ERA in 27 starts over the previous two seasons.

Three years later, the sequence of events is maddening to look back on.

When Morton returned to the mound the following season after signing with the Astros, he somehow transformed into a playoff-caliber starter with swing-and-miss stuff, posting a 3.36 ERA in 55 starts in 2017-18 while winning a World Series.

This year, he has been one of the best starters in baseball, going 11-3 with a 2.61 ERA and averaging 11.0 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and 0.7 HR/9 for the Rays. Put him in the Phillies rotation this season and their trade deadline philosophy might look a lot different than it is right now.

Instead, the Phillies are right where they’ve been for much of their history, looking to fortify a pitching staff that has suffered from both a dearth of homegrown talent and countless failed attempts to uncover diamonds in the rough.

The two biggest disappointments have been Jake Thompson and Vince Velasquez, two well-regarded prospects acquired in trades for Cole Hamels and Ken Giles who failed -- or, in Velasquez’s case, are still failing -- to materialize into legitimate big-league starters.

Jake Arrieta is increasingly looking like an aging pitcher who is chittychittybangbanging his way to the finish line of his career. Nick Pivetta is in the bullpen. Zach Eflin’s body feels heavy.

The Phillies’ problems in the rotation have been compounded by their problems elsewhere. After signing top-flight closer David Robertson to a big free-agent deal, they thought they would have a bullpen that could mitigate their starting pitching’s worst-case scenario. But Robertson is hurt, as are the three other relievers who were supposed to compose the back of the bullpen.

As for the lineup ...

This offseason, the Phillies opted to sign Andrew McCutchen to a three-year deal instead of Michael Brantley. Now, McCutchen is hurt, and Brantley is hitting .328 with a .913 OPS and 15 home runs for the Astros.

They traded J.P. Crawford and Carlos Santana for Jean Segura. Santana has a .405 on-base percentage, a .929 OPS, and 21 home runs, and Crawford has a better OPS than Segura (.762 to .749).

Their decision to trade catcher Jorge Alfaro and top pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez to the Marlins for J.T. Realmuto has yet to pay dividends. Realmuto has essentially been the exact same hitter for the Phillies (.270/.322/.433 with 11 home runs) as Alfaro has for the Marlins (.278/.318/.445 with 11 home runs).

In theory, much of Realmuto’s value comes from his prowess behind the plate. But this whole conversation started with the Phillies’ need to improve their pitching performance, didn’t it?

The Phillies' track record sounds a lot more damning than it probably deserves. Comb through any organization's transaction record and you can find plenty of oopsies.

Before 2016, the Astros traded Josh Hader and Domingo Santana for 486 plate appearances and a .619 OPS out of Carlos Gomez. They’ve watched Ken Giles reemerge as a dominant closer after trading him for pennies on the dollar. They wasted $16 million on Carlos Beltran.

The Cubs gave Jason Heyward eight years and $184 million. They gave Yu Darvish six years and $126 million. They won a World Series in their half season with Aroldis Chapman, but they gave up an infielder who has an .873 OPS and 19 home runs at 22 years old.

They did not win a World Series in their one season with Wade Davis, and to get him they gave up Jorge Soler, who has an .850 OPS and 27 home runs at age 27 for the Royals. And now they are back in the market for an outfielder.

To date, the Phillies do not have the big scores that the Cubs and Astros do that even out their records: Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and Morton for the Astros; Anthony Rizzo and, previously, Jake Arrieta for the Cubs.

But some of that still comes down to the stable of amateur talent that those two clubs were able to draft, sign, and develop. When a big-league roster has George Springer, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, and Yordan Alvarez, or Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Albert Amora, and Wilson Contreras, all top-to-middle-of-the-order bats playing on below-market contracts, the organization has a lot more flexibility to take chances with payroll space and trade assets.

The more chances you take, the better your odds of success, and the less pressure there is on any one of those moves to pan out. (Unless you are the Yankees, where any move you make is guaranteed to turn into gold.)

The Phillies in their present moment are not a franchise that can afford to get much more wrong, whether the culprit is faulty talent evaluation, inaccurate value appraisal, or sheer dumb luck.

That could mean trading for Matthew Boyd, or Robbie Ray, or Mike Minor, or it could mean focusing on the margins in order to concentrate their resources on the upcoming offseason. Whatever the case, with a week left to go before the major-league trade deadline, those are the stakes.

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