The Philadelphia Phillies have come out of the trade deadline red hot, surging to a five-game lead in the NL East. There's still plenty of baseball left, but the Phillies look the part of a contender on most nights. If the Phillies can nail the waiver wire and add more talent for dirt cheap, even better.
This team still has clear-cut weaknesses. The big one is that outfield depth chart, which refuses to crystalize into a consistently productive trio. Rob Thomson refuses to deploy Harrison Bader full-time, which is a confounding decision. Instead Philly will bank on sustained improvement from Max Kepler. And then there is Nick Castellanos, who seems to be coasting on reputation a bit. He is statistically the worst defensive right fielder in MLB right now and he's enjoying a sub-.300 OBP season at the plate.
If Dombrowski can add another serviceable bat with an above-average glove in the outfield, it would do a lot of good. Of all the realistic waiver candidates around the league, few better fit that description than Chicago White Sox veteran Michael A. Taylor.
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Phillies could find missing piece with White Sox OF Michael A. Taylor
On an expiring contract with the White Sox, it's hard to find a reason for Taylor to stick around the South Side of Chicago. That is a historically bad team yet again and the 34-year-old is running out of time to add to his postseason résumé. He won the World Series with Washington in 2019 and is a former Gold Glove winner out in centerfield, although he figures to operate more at the corners in Philadelphia.
Taylor isn't the elite catch-all force he once was, but he's still a meaningfully better defender than either Kepler or Castellanos. Moreover, he's a perfectly adequate platoon-type hitter off the bench — .704 OPS with a 92 wRC+, lapping Kepler in both categories and not far behind Castellanos.
He strikes out a lot and doesn't produce very consistent results offensively, but Taylor has produced a healthy 46.2 percent hard-hit rate this season. There's enough pop to justify consistent reps, especially when he's such a substantial defensive upgrade over either of Philly's current corner outfielders.
What is the ideal Phillies outfield depth chart with Michael A. Taylor?
How can the Phillies maximize an increasingly crowded outfield, should Taylor wind up in the City of Brotherly Love? Well, it starts with accepting a few hard truths. Kepler, while consistently maddening at the plate all season, is still enjoying a meaningfully more impactful all-around season than Castellanos. If you're looking for the weakest link to replace in the Philly outfield right now, sentiment be damned, it's Casty. Straight up.
That said, the Phillies would probably benefit from elevating Harrison Bader — the best hitter and best defender of their current outfield crop — to a full-time role before Taylor. And while yes, Kepler has been a rather cumbersome force in the lineup all season long, I'm not convinced he isn't still better than Taylor. Not to parrot Rob Thomson, but Kepler has been very unlucky this season, with his expected average (.245) and slugging (.433) far exceeding his actual splits (.206/.366).
So we're probably looking at something like this.
LF | CF | RF |
|---|---|---|
Brandon Marsh | Harrison Bader | Max Kepler |
Michael A. Taylor | Nick Castellanos |
Even if he's not an everyday starter, Taylor will receive plenty of ABs — especially against lefties, against whom he has a .772 OPS this season. He probably is be viewed as a platoon with Kepler or Marsh, depending on your confidence in either batting lefty-on-lefty.
There is also a case for calling up one of Johan Rojas or Justin Crawford from Triple-A Lehigh Valley — both of whom are significant defensive upgrades over the current batch of Phillies outfields — but as is, this is probably how Philly's outfield depth chart shakes out with a hypothetical Taylor signing. Well, how it should shake out. Castellanos probably doesn't get benched with $20 million left on his contract in 2026.