Phillies fans need to on red alert after Dave Dombrowski's latest deadline posturing

The Phils might not be in a big hurry to improve, which is a double-edged sword.
Philadelphia Phillies Introduce Trea Turner
Philadelphia Phillies Introduce Trea Turner | Mitchell Leff/GettyImages

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. A team that thinks it's one or two players away from a World Series ring should go ahead and get those players at the trade deadline. The Philadelphia Phillies at least seem to be at that point; with needs in the bullpen and in the outfield but not really anywhere else, the Phils are already a contender, to be sure, but shoring up a few holes could lift them over that threshold.

Dave Dombrowski, the Phils President of Baseball Ops, agrees with that sentiment... maybe. In the New York Post, he recently said that, “When you get to this point, if you have a chance to win, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bunch of younger players or a bunch of older players. If you think you can win you’re trying to win within reason. But I also don’t believe this window is closing for us.”

Those last two sentences seem important. I agree that it, "Doesn't matter if you've got a bunch of younger players or a bunch of older players," but it's also noteworthy that he added the phrase "within reason," when talking about trade deadline plans.

Phillies fans might need to temper deadline expectations

The window for a championship is open for the Phillies right now. They can win a World Series with this core roster. But it also doesn't do any good to act like the window isn't closing, even if that closing is happening slowly. Everyone on the team is getting older — they're still productive, but they are aging — and not taking action now to make the window bigger would be silly.

But maybe Phillies fans should temper expectations. "Within reason" likely doesn't include someone like Eugenio Suárez, sorry to say. "Within reason" could mean marginal upgrades across the board. But sometimes reason needs to be thrown out to win a ring. Reason be damned!