The Philadelphia Phillies have been trade deadline buyers each year since 2018. You’d never know it if you looked at the playoff bracket. The team has been void of the postseason for more than a decade now. A big reason for it is how majorly they have missed at the trade deadline.
The trade deadline is a team’s opportunity to fill in any gaps they may have left open in the offseason. It’s an opportunity to make up for the absence of an injured player or even upgrade an underperformer.
Many years have gone by since the Phillies have actually had a major impact trade deadline acquisition. The last to really help change the team was Hunter Pence in 2011. Those five players acquired by the club at more recent trade deadlines weren’t nearly as beloved or productive as him.
6. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Justin Bour.
Who doesn’t remember the Justin Bour tenure in Philadelphia? A last-minute entrant to this list, he came over from the Miami Marlins in mid-2018 to provide the Phillies with some pop off the bench. He was hitting .227/.347/.412 with the Marlins at the time of the trade. Expectations were set for him to do something similar.
Unfortunately, Bour was not the same power hitter he was in Miami once he joined Philadelphia. In 54 plate appearances, he hit a single home run while slashing .224/.296/.347. It was an underwhelming short stint with the Phillies that left us all puzzled. Where did his home run stroke go?
The answer might be Bour’s placement as a part-time player. He was every day first baseman for Miami. Moving to the bench and coming off of it for frequent pinch-hitting duties wasn’t his style. He just couldn’t get any power going for the Phillies.
Luckily, all the trade cost them was McKenzie Mills—a pitcher who has yet to see big league action and is now in the Independent League.
5. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Asdrubal Cabrera.
The Phillies actually made two trades with the rival New York Mets in the middle of the 2018 season. One brought them veteran slugger Jose Bautista for a more part-time role. The other added Asdrubal Cabrera to the roster.
Cabrera was having a really good year in New York at the time of the trade. He boasted a .277/.329/.488 slash line with 18 home runs in 407 trips to the plate. He couldn’t have been much different in Philadelphia. In those 185 plate appearances, Cabrera batted .228/.286/.392 with 5 home runs.
The weak bat went slightly unnoticed because of a much bigger issue. At age 32, Cabrera was no longer someone capable of playing a quality shortstop. The Phillies, in the way they seem to do things these days, forced him into the position when he was far better suited to play second base or third base. He was a far below-average player at the position with some of the worst range imaginable at the position.
This was the same season where the Phillies tried Scott Kingery at the position for the majority of the year. It didn’t seem to matter who they put there. The Phillies got barely any offense out of the position and other than the games when J.P. Crawford played there, defense was a problem, too.
Fortunately, all Cabrera cost the Phillies was prospect Franklyn Kilome who has never made a big impact in the major leagues.
4. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Ian Kennedy.
Desperate for a closer, the 2021 Phillies brought in starting pitcher Kyle Gibson and relief pitcher Ian Kennedy from the Texas Rangers in 2021 to help fortify their staff. Gibson was an All-Star for the Rangers and quickly descended into his below-average self once he did join the Phillies. But with an extra year of control left and prospect Hans Crouse coming over in the deal as well, it wasn’t a complete bust.
What was a bust was the performance from Kennedy. Although the 3-1 record and 4.13 ERA don’t really look better, there are other far more frightening numbers. Kennedy had a 6.21 FIP with the Phillies which basically suggests he should have had a much worse ERA. The cause of this are the abundance of home runs he allowed. In only 24 innings for Philadelphia, Kennedy served up 7 meatballs to opposing hitters. That translates to a rate of 2.6 per nine innings.
Kennedy was clearly not the answer the Phillies bullpen was looking for in 2021. It was an easy decision to let the veteran walk in free agency.
Because of how recent the trade took place and some of those involved, we can’t yet classify this as a win or loss for either club. Everyone can agree, however, that Kennedy was a bad trade deadline addition.
3. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Jason Vargas.
It’s kind of amazing how many trade deadline deals the Phillies and Mets have made in recent seasons. As bad as Cabrera was, Jason Vargas was far worse.
This might be because Vargas already showed signs of weakness while in New York. During the 2018 season, he was 7-9 with a 5.77 ERA. He turned things around in 2019, going 6-5 with a 4.01 ERA through 94.1 innings. Those are the numbers he drove down to Philadelphia with when he joined up with the Phillies for another late-season collapse under Gabe Kapler.
Vargas made 11 starts for the Phillies and gave them a 1-4 record and 5.37 ERA. It felt much worse than that. They never really had much of a chance whenever he did start games. Vargas was not a strikeout pitcher nor was he one that could throw enough regular strikes. Batters took advantage of his age catching up with him. In a lot of ways, he was a Trojan Horse for the Mets to ensure the Phillies wouldn’t make the playoffs.
At the cost of Austin Bossart, another prospect with no major league experience, the Phillies can at least be glad they didn’t trade away anything special for Vargas. Otherwise, this could have felt the same way New Yorkers do about Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell for Juan Samuel.
2. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Brandon Workman.
Nothing about 2020 was normal. The season started late due to the pandemic and the trade deadline’s position at the end of August meant just about any team could have justified buying. This is where the Phillies found themselves when they made an epically bad trade with the Boston Red Sox.
One of the players the Phillies acquired from Boston was Brandon Workman. A very good reliever in past years for Boston, Workman had a 4.05 ERA for them when he was traded to Philadelphia. It was too small of a sample size to think he was cooked. After all, this was a guy who had a 10-1 record the previous season with a 1.88 ERA and 16 saves.
Unfortunately, Workman was cooked. Burnt, in fact. He tossed 13 innings for the Phillies, went 1-4, and had a 6.92 ERA. He averaged 6.2 walks per nine innings and gave up 4 home runs in those baker’s dozen frames he completed.
This Red Sox trade was an especially big miss for the Phillies because it went deeper than just Workman’s lousy performance. They acquired another relief pitcher in the deal as well and gave up what would become a pretty good piece. Let’s dive a little deeper with the biggest recent trade deadline miss of all.
1. Philadelphia Phillies trade deadline miss: Heath Hembree.
Heath Hembree was so bad that he made Brandon Workman look like 2008 Brad Lidge. A very mediocre pitcher during his time with Boston, it wasn’t a bad thought to try and acquire him midseason. However, he did join the Phillies with a 5.59 ERA in 9.2 innings with the Red Sox. They were hopeful he could turn things around.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. Hembree pitched 9.1 innings for Philadelphia and had a 12.54 ERA. He gave up 7 home runs in barely over a full game’s worth of innings. It was tremendously ugly for Hembree whose career since has put him into journeyman status.
This is the biggest miss of all for the Phillies because of one of the players they gave up on to acquire these two relievers. Along with Connor Seabold, Nick Pivetta was sent to Boston. The Phillies had grown frustrated with him. How could they not? He was 19-30 with a 5.50 ERA in almost 400 innings of work.
Immediately after arriving in Boston, Pivetta turned things around. He had a 1.80 ERA in two starts for the 2020 Red Sox and remained in their rotation in 2021 where he was very “meh.” However, in 2022, he looks like a late-bloomer who is beginning to piece things together. Pivetta is a big reason for the success the Red Sox are experiencing in 2022. Although far from an ace, his success is something Phillies fans can look on in envy.