It is the beginning of July which means that it is about time for non contending ball clubs to “blow” up their teams. There have been a few moves made as the Miami Marlins and Chicago Cubs have already made some minor moves. One of the more interesting teams that has to decide whether they want to start moving some pieces is the Philadelphia Phillies. This ball club has been treading water all season but has recently went on a little hot streak. They took two out of three from the first place Atlanta Braves and beat the Washington Nationals on Monday night.
They took a big blow to their chances as slugger Ryan Howard has been placed on the 15 day DL as he needs surgery on his knee. Meanwhile the Phillies sit in third place in the NL East with a record of 44-46 which puts them 7.5 games out of first place. This is not a huge amount of games behind the division but it is enough to be worried about the second half of the season.
If they do start moving pieces around one of the first pieces you could see go is second basemen Chase Utley who would likely wind up in any division but the NL East. The main straw that broke the camels back has definitely been Howard. If he would have stayed healthy you might have seen this team try and make a run but with one of the main players on their team hurt, the chances of them making the playoffs is lowering by the day.
Another move that could be made was first reported by Jayson Stark who heard news that Michael Young and Carlos Ruiz could potentially become New York Yankees. This makes complete sense as the Yankees ballclub is struggling to get any offense going.
Either way the Phillies need to make some moves as their chances of even having a winning record are not likely. We shall see what happens very soon as we have learned that a lot of moves are made right around the All Star break. As we have seen in the last few years, a lot of players are being traded after the deadline due to waiver claims. You could call this the calm before the storm... If you are a Phillies fan just hope that they don’t get rid of surging home run hitter Domonic Brown.