Philadelphia Phillies: 3 early trade deadline predictions
By Tim Boyle
2. Phillies trade deadline prediction: A flier on a struggling pitcher or an overachiever.
The Phillies are going to add a starting pitcher. They’d be foolish not to. Exactly which pitcher is a bit hard to predict. We can narrow it down into two categories which appear to match what we should expect them to spend.
One is finding this year’s Kyle Gibson. An overachiever on a team out of contention would make a lot of sense for the Phillies. Players like this tend to be affordable. Whether or not he’s a free agent after this season is a different question. Likely, the Phillies would be more in the market for a rental than someone under team control next season. The team doesn’t have enough to trade away for someone they can benefit from adding next year.
The second category is for the Phillies to trade for a pitcher having a not-so-great year when expectations were much higher for him. Someone like Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs might become available although he might not be much of an upgrade. A better strategy could be to simply try and capitalize on the overachiever rather than try to fix someone underperforming.
Jose Quintana of the Pittsburgh Pirates feels exactly like the type of pitcher the Phillies would trade for. Jordan Lyles of the Baltimore Orioles is another name to keep an eye on.