The Phillies went into the trade deadline with a clear need in the rotation, but Dave Dombrowski and the front office chose not to patch that spot with an outside arm.
That decision came despite Philadelphia’s brutal results from the No. 5 spot, where the club had gone 5-22 entering the deadline. Still, Dombrowski said the Phillies didn’t see a starter as a must-have move.
“I’ve said this all along: you always want to get better at every position,” Dombrowski said. “But we feel that if we can make it to the postseason, our starting rotation’s in really solid shape.
Other people are looking to add to their top three. In our situation here, that wasn’t a necessity.”
The top of the rotation is in much better shape. Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez and Jesus Luzardo give Philadelphia a postseason-caliber front three. The uncertainty sits behind them, where Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter have held down the final two spots but haven’t exactly locked anything down for the stretch run.
Dombrowski made it clear that if the Phillies were going to spend prospect capital on a starter, it had to be for someone who could move the needle.
“If we were going to do it and add somebody, they would have had to be significantly better, in our opinion, than Andrew [Painter], than just acquiring another arm.”
Painter has shown some improvement after a rough start. He posted a 7.06 ERA over his first 14 starts before going back to Triple-A, then returned to make three starts since the end of July and allowed two runs or fewer in each one.
Nola’s season has been a tougher story. He owns a 5.47 ERA with a 3-9 record in 24 starts this year, and he’s coming off a 2025 season in which his ERA was over six with a 5-10 record in 17 starts.
Philadelphia is still in the mix, sitting second in the National League East and 7.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves. The Phillies also hold the final Wild Card spot, but only by one game over the San Diego Padres.
Dombrowski framed the deadline choice as a matter of weighing the current internal options against the kind of fifth starter that would have been available.
“The choice came down to, do you end up getting a guy that’s a fifth starter that you don’t think is as good as your guy that you have now and option the guy you think has a better chance to win to help your depth,” Dombrowski said, “or, [you] do what we’re doing? And we figured we’d do what we’re doing.”
For now, the Phillies are betting that their current rotation is enough to carry them through the regular season and into October. Whether that gamble pays off is still very much up in the air.
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The shuffle gives Philadelphia another option to help manage the late innings, even if the exact role is still taking shape. To make room on the roster, the Phillies sent Alan Rangel back down, leaving the team to see whether McFarlane can turn his recent run of consistency into a meaningful boost at the big-league level. [Read more 🡒]