With September looming, the Phillies are still in the mix and still in position to chase upgrades before October. That matters for a veteran club with expectations as high as Philadelphia’s. The title window is still open, and even after an active trade deadline, there’s room for the roster to get sharper.
One of the lingering issues for the Phillies has been offense depth. The top of the lineup brings plenty of star power, but when those bats don’t carry the night, the margin for error gets thin. Adding Luis Arraez helped, but he didn’t address one of the club’s clear needs: a right-handed hitter.
That’s why Eugenio Suarez suddenly looks like a name worth watching.
The Cincinnati Reds have placed the veteran slugger on waivers, opening the door for a team like Philadelphia to make a claim. Suarez was one of Cincinnati’s major winter additions, brought in to bolster the offense and help the Reds push for a second straight playoff trip.
The logic was sound at the time. Suarez had just put together a big season with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners, then followed it up in 2025 by hitting .228/.298/.526 with 49 home runs and 118 RBI.
This year has looked very different. Suarez is down to a .208/.295/.410 slash line with 19 home runs and 57 RBI in Cincinnati.
That’s a clear drop from last season’s production, but it hasn’t turned him into a non-factor. His OPS is still above .700, and he remains a proven power threat from the right side.
For the Phillies, that kind of profile still has value. He wouldn’t need to play every day to matter. Against left-handed pitching, he could give the lineup another dangerous option and add some much-needed balance to an offense that leans heavily left-handed.
Teams have 48 hours to claim Suarez, and his market will be worth tracking. He comes with a hefty remaining salary, but for a Phillies team trying to stack enough depth for October, he could be exactly the kind of shot worth taking.
In Other News...
Kirk Herbstreit Said What Many Reds Fans Have Been Feeling
Kirk Herbstreit has never been shy about his Cincinnati roots, and on ESPNs Pat McAfee Show he sounded like plenty of Reds fans who have watched the same frustrating cycle play out for years. The longtime broadcaster, who calls himself a diehard Reds fan, pointed to a lack of competitiveness and the shrinking energy around the ballpark as signs of an organization that has too often fallen short of its own expectations.
Herbstreit described the Reds as underachieving for 13 years and said the sense of pride that once surrounded the team has faded. He also drew a sharp contrast between the passion Cincinnati fans bring to NFL Sundays and the more complicated experience of backing the Reds, a reminder that for all the citys loyalty, the baseball product has been making that loyalty harder to sustain. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Top Catching Prospect Looks Too Good To Ignore Again
Alfredo Duno was back in the lineup for Double-A Chattanooga after a right hamstring strain, and he looked every bit like one of the Reds most intriguing young bats. In a 3-2 win over Columbus, the top catching prospect doubled twice and added a single, a reminder that his long season has already been loaded with production as hes moved between High-A Dayton and Chattanooga.
Dunos overall line sits at .272/.395/.519, and his 19-game stretch since the promotion has come with a .958 OPS. He has also already cleared his previous career high with 19 home runs, which helps explain why he keeps forcing his way back into the conversation as the organizations third-ranked catching prospect. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Fans Know This Lineup Problem Goes Far Beyond One Coach
The Reds offense has spent much of 2026 in a familiar and frustrating place, near the bottom of the league in slugging percentage, OPS, runs scored, batting average and on-base percentage. The strikeouts keep piling up, the launch-angle problems are still there, and the result has been a lineup that too often looks stuck between trying to do too much and not doing enough at all.
That is why the chatter around hitting coach Chris Valaika only tells part of the story. A coaching change may be the simplest move to make, but the broader concern in Cincinnati runs deeper, into roster construction and the front office decisions that shaped this group in the first place. If the Reds are going to fix an offense that has been this unproductive, the answer may have to reach well beyond one bench coach. [Read more 🡒]