By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The Philadelphia Phillies — we know — were very interested in Dee Gordon in 2015. Whether that interest has carried over into a new regime and across two calendars is less clear.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported earlier this month that the Phillies were among a handful of teams showing 'sincere interest' in the Miami Marlins second baseman. However, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports, who was the one that reported in 2015 that the Phillies had tried to trade for Gordon two different times, subtly cast doubt on that report Thursday:
Teams linked: Angels, Royals, Blue Jays, Phillies (though that one’s questionable).
There's a school of thought that says it never made sense for the Phillies to be interested in a second baseman, so perhaps someone close to the Marlins fed Nightengale the initial information, hoping to lay the ground work for a future trade between the two teams that would also involve Christian Yelich and/or Giancarlo Stanton. It's also possible that the Phillies, who Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports said may be willing to take on "bad money" to land Yelich, did poke around on Gordon, but because they were seeing if taking on part of his contract could help them to land Yelich. Heyman, perhaps by someone in the Phillies organization or a more honest person with the Fish, may have been tipped off that the interest either wasn't true or was only in the context of taking on Gordon's contract to complete a larger deal.
It's also possible that the two national reporters just heard different information. Or maybe in the couple weeks between their reports, things changed. Heyman wrote in a seperate piece that it's 'very possible' that talks for Gordon to any team seem to be dead because of an unwillingness by the Marlins to take on a large chunk of the $38 million that he's still owed after 2018. Regardless, it doesn't seem like Gordon is headed to the Phillies anytime soon.
The thing we are left to wonder is why Heyman reported last week that the Phillies were among four teams 'looking' at second baseman. Gordon specifically doesn't make sense for a variety of reasons — his contract and regression among them — but also because the last area of need for the Phillies is middle infielders.
Related: Taking on Stanton contract isn't comparable to signing Harper or Machado
The organization loves Freddy Galvis, despite his flaws as a hitter. J.P. Crawford is still one of the organization's top overall prospects and is in the midst of a red-hot month of July. Cesar Hernandez is a year removed from a 4.4 WAR season and Jim Salisbury of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia reported this past offseason that while the Phillies didn't hang up the phone on interested teams, they had a 'very steep price' on the 27-year-old. The only reason they are willing to listen on Hernandez is because Scott Kingery, currently with the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs, is having the best all-around season of any player in the organization. And while Jesmuel Valetin figures to be a bench piece, he wasn't far off from making the team this year and, assuming health, should be ready to replace Andres Blanco a year from now.
In Heyman's report last week he noted that the team wasn't interested in a rental piece like Brandon Phillips. He's now also cast doubt on someone like Gordon. Perhaps I'm simply reading too far into this, but it still feels like there's a lot of dots that we are left trying to connect.
What we appear to know now is that at least in the context of an individual trade — and probably even if the teams got serious about discussions for Yelich and/or Stanton — the Phillies probably aren't especially interested in Gordon.
