The Phillies got spanked around the yard yesterday by the hapless Mets franchise, losing 2 of 3 in the series. Their AAA team broke an 11 game losing streak. Their AA and higher A ball affiliates all carry embarrassingly bad records into the end of July. The Phillies, as a franchise, are an absolute disaster. In about nine hours, another window to start changing that scenario will close.
The Phillies are 47-61 at the two-thirds of the season mark, meaning they're on 92 loss pace, which is worse than last year's 89 losses. They're terrible, and expensive. There are teams interested in taking some of those high-priced, old, no-longer winning players off of their hands. The Phillies have made zero trades though. No salary dump of Jonathan Papelbon. No moving of the suddenly wanted Antonio Bastardo. No moving of A.J. Burnett. Not even a move for Marlon Byrd and his 20 homers at $8 million for the year. No, none of these easy, expected moves, let alone moves to send Hamels, Lee, Utley, or Rollins out, and actually bring back some prospects. The Phillies clearly aren't all that motivated to sell, and even have apparently told teams they would be fine with waiting until the Winter to sell.
That's an unacceptable outcome. They have an awful line-up, mediocre pitching, still very unproven bullpen, and joke of a bench. The Phillies needed an influx of players, or at least enough free money to go out and sign those players this Winter. Nine hours out, they have none of the above. Standing pat at this deadline should be unacceptable to the fans. If David Montgomery is either causing this or not clear that this is bad, he is an even bigger problem than our seemingly lost and overmatched GM. The Phillies are just hours from disaster.
