Since Dave Dombrowski took over Phillies baseball operations in December 2020, the players the team got back in trades have produced +40.4 Baseball-Reference WAR in a Phillies uniform, and the players they sent away have produced +22.7 elsewhere. Five incoming players account for more than the entire gap, and nobody can price any of it without salaries.
Methods: Every WAR figure here is Baseball-Reference WAR (bWAR, batting plus pitching), regular season, as of Oct. 30, 2026. Our ledger counts trades made while Dombrowski ran baseball operations, starting Dec. 11, 2020. It does not separate out the deals he personally led, because the transaction records don't say who negotiated what. Incoming players count only for their time with the Phillies, departed players only for their time elsewhere, summed by season from the trade year through 2026. The ledger covers 45 deals that sent a Phillies minor leaguer or young player out and brought something back, plus 21 deals for cash, future considerations or nothing listed. It is not every Phillies trade, and the totals here do not include draft picks. Salaries, postseason games and prospect rankings are not in any number. Our 1.0-bWAR deal labels are our own rule, not a baseball standard. StatsAPI WAR, MLB's stats-feed figure, appears only where labeled.
Between Dec. 11, 2020 and Oct. 30, 2026, the Phillies made 45 trades that sent a minor leaguer or young player out and brought something back. The 52 players who came back have produced +40.4 bWAR in a Phillies uniform. The 60 who left have produced +22.7 bWAR for other teams. On that one measure the Phillies are ahead by 17.7.
Five incoming players account for +33.4 of the +40.4 bWAR: Jesús Luzardo at +10.3, Brandon Marsh at +9.2, Edmundo Sosa at +6.9, Jhoan Duran at +4.3 and José Alvarado at +2.7. The other 47 incoming rows add up to +7.0 bWAR.
Look at what went out for them. Luzardo came from Miami in December 2024 for Starlyn Caba and Emaarion Boyd, neither of whom has played an MLB game, and catcher Paul McIntosh also came back. Marsh came from the Angels in August 2022 for Logan O'Hoppe (+2.2 bWAR since). Duran came from Minnesota in July 2025 for Mick Abel (+0.0 bWAR since) and Eduardo Tait (no MLB games). Sosa came from St. Louis in July 2022 for JoJo Romero (+4.2 bWAR since). Alvarado came in a three-team deal in December 2020, and Garrett Cleavinger, who went out in it, has +3.0 bWAR since.
Group those five deals and the incoming side is +33.4 bWAR against +9.4 for the departed, a net of +24.0. Four of the five read Phillies side ahead. The Alvarado deal reads about even at -0.3 bWAR, because Cleavinger has produced +3.0 since. The other 40 deals bring in +7.0 bWAR and send out +13.3, a net of -6.3.
Each deal gets a label from the same rule. If the Phillies side beats the departed side by more than 1.0 bWAR, it reads "Phillies side ahead." If the departed side wins by more than 1.0, it reads "departed side ahead." Anything between is "about even." Across all 45 deals that's 10, 27 and 8. Among the other 40, it's 6, 26 and 8.
Opinion: that's a ledger with a few stars and a lot of filler. Some of the good rows are padded by the other side, too. The 2021 Texas deal reads +4.1 partly because Spencer Howard, who went out, is at -3.0 bWAR.
The eight deals that read "departed side ahead" add up to -18.4 bWAR. The biggest is Erik Miller, sent to San Francisco in January 2023 for Yunior Marte. Miller has +2.8 bWAR since, Marte has -1.0 in a Phillies uniform, and the net is -3.8. Opinion: that's the one I'd bring up at a bar.
TJ Rumfield and Joel Valdez went to the Yankees in November 2021 for Nick Nelson and Donny Sands. Rumfield alone has +3.5 bWAR since, against +0.3 combined for Nelson and Sands with the Phillies. Bailey Falter has +2.1 bWAR since going to Pittsburgh for Rodolfo Castro (-0.4 with the Phillies). Cole Irvin has +2.6 bWAR since the Phillies sent him to Oakland for cash in January 2021. The other four deals, Hays, Wynns, Soto to Baltimore and Lorenzen, each net between -1.1 and -1.9 bWAR.
The ledger lets us size the cash deals. Five named players the Phillies sent away for cash have produced +13.6 bWAR since: Tyler Phillips +3.9, Kody Clemens +3.8, Mike Vasil +2.9, Cole Irvin +2.6 and Kaleb Ort +0.4. The basis is those five against the departed production counted this way, +33.7 bWAR: the +22.7 from the trade deals, which already includes Irvin, plus the other four cash players, who sit outside it at +11.0. That makes +13.6 of +33.7 bWAR, or 40.4%. Take Vasil out, since the Phillies never kept him, and the five are at +10.7 bWAR. Of the other 17 players in the 21 deals for cash, future considerations or nothing listed, three have played in the majors since (Johan Quezada -0.1 bWAR, Michael Mariot +0.1 and Scott Kingery -0.9, for -0.9 combined) and 14 have not. On the wider ledger basis, all seven players from those deals with MLB games since plus Irvin, it is +12.7 of +32.8 bWAR, or 38.7%.
Phillips was designated for assignment on March 23, 2025 and traded to Miami on March 26. Clemens was designated on April 23, 2025 and traded to Minnesota on April 26. Ort was claimed off waivers from Miami on Feb. 13, 2024, then designated and traded to Baltimore on Feb. 19. Vasil was a Rule 5 pick from the Mets whom the Phillies flipped to Tampa Bay for cash the same day, Dec. 11, 2024. For all four of Phillips, Clemens, Ort and Vasil, the feed shows a roster decision first, and it doesn't say why. Opinion: Phillips and Clemens, who combined for +7.7 bWAR elsewhere after the Phillies designated them, are the two I'd circle.
Cole Irvin, Mickey Moniak and Ben Brown are three rows where bWAR and StatsAPI WAR split by 1.6 or more, and Brown's 2.8 is the largest gap in the ledger. StatsAPI WAR is the figure in MLB's own stats feed. The feed doesn't say whose model it is, and it is not FanGraphs WAR, which blocked our fetches. Irvin is +2.6 bWAR against +4.2 StatsAPI WAR, Moniak +1.3 against +3.0, and Brown +1.6 against +4.4.
It matters because Moniak and Brown left on the same day, Aug. 2, 2022, in separate deals for Noah Syndergaard and David Robertson. In bWAR each deal reads about even at -0.7. In StatsAPI WAR, Syndergaard has +1.1 and Robertson +0.2, which makes those deals -1.9 and -4.2 and puts both in the "departed side ahead" column.
Swap the measure across all 45 deals and eight change labels: those two move toward the departed side, Alvarado for Cleavinger moves to "Phillies side ahead" at a net of +3.1 StatsAPI WAR, and five others slide to about even. The totals keep their direction. StatsAPI WAR has the incoming side at +43.2 and the departed side at +24.8. We use bWAR for every conclusion, and it's the more flattering measure for the Phillies on the Moniak and Brown deals.
Cost is the empty column. The only contract numbers we could source are these. Luzardo's reported five-year, $135 million deal runs from 2027 through 2031, $27 million a year, with a $32.5 million club option for 2032, per MLB Trade Rumors' payroll tracker and MLB.com. Duran at $10.9 million and Marsh at $8.3 million are model projections, MLB Trade Rumors' Matt Swartz arbitration estimates for 2027 (Oct. 2, 2026), and not agreed salaries. Sosa and Alvarado are pending free agents with no 2027 contract, and they hold +9.6 of the +33.4 bWAR.
MLB Trade Rumors also lists the Phillies' 2026 competitive balance tax payroll at $322,514,883, with a luxury tax of $61,766,371, and a 2027 projection of $286,984,277, with tax of $25,235,063. The collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, so every tax number is conditional. Every other salary is unsourced here, and we make no claim about what any trade cost.
bWAR doesn't count October. NBC Sports Philadelphia called this year's team a fifth straight postseason appearance that ended without a championship, and the Phillies lost the Wild Card Series to Atlanta, 1-2. Whatever the trades bought in playoff games isn't in the ledger.
The comparison also isn't settled. Thirty-nine of the 52 incoming players have played for the Phillies, and 30 of the 60 departed players have not yet played an MLB game. A lot of that +22.7 bWAR could still be written, and we've listed what would change our mind below.
The team also did win. The Phillies started 2026 at 9-19 under Rob Thomson, finished 88-74, and went 79-55 under Don Mattingly, who is signed through 2028. Opinion: a roster that does that after a 9-19 start wasn't built entirely wrong, and no trade table can say how much of the turnaround belongs to which move. NBC's account of Dombrowski's Oct. 15 press conference says the club has spent prospects on the big-league roster the whole time he's been here. That's the strategy this audit is testing.
Last, "Dombrowski trades" here means trades made while he ran baseball operations. We can't tell you which ones he led.
Each test names a measure, a group and a line. The lines are ours, and all of them use bWAR, regular season.
The teenagers. Six players were 19 or younger when they were traded and have no MLB games: William Bergolla Jr., Starlyn Caba, Eduardo Tait, Geremy Villoria, Josueth Quinonez and Francisco Loreto. If three or more reach +2.0 career bWAR since their trades by the end of 2030, or the group reaches +10.0 combined, about the size of the Luzardo deal's +10.3, the deals that sent them out need a second look.
The prospects closer to the majors. Emaarion Boyd, Enrique Segura, Hendry Mendez, Avery Owusu-Asiedu, Dylan Campbell, John Spikerman, Luke Gabrysh, Marty Gair and Ramon Marquez were 20 to 23 when traded in 2024 or later and have no MLB games. Hao-Yu Lee (+1.0 bWAR since) and Mick Abel (+0.0) have MLB time. If two or more of those 11 post a +2.0 bWAR season in any year through 2028, our reading of the departed side gets a lot weaker.
The fade and the bill. Luzardo, Marsh and Duran, the three the Phillies control for 2027, had +10.3 combined bWAR in 2026 (Luzardo +6.5, Marsh +0.4, Duran +3.4). If they combine for under +5.0 bWAR in 2027, the incoming side's lead is shakier than +17.7 suggests. Once salaries are sourced, a "Phillies side ahead" deal drops to "about even" or worse if the incoming player's 2027 bWAR is under +2.0 while his 2027 salary is over $10 million. Only Luzardo and Duran can be tested on that, and 2027 hasn't been played.
The departed MLB players. Rumfield (+3.5 bWAR), Matt Vierling (+3.1), Miller (+2.8) and O'Hoppe (+2.2) have +11.6 combined since their trades, +2.4 of it in 2026. If their combined 2027 bWAR, counting only their non-Phillies teams, beats what Marsh and Duran give the Phillies in 2027 (+3.8 together in 2026), the Marsh and Duran deals stop being the lead rows.
The measure. If a FanGraphs WAR rerun of all 45 deals erases the incoming side's lead, the +17.7 depends on the measure. We could not pull FanGraphs, but the same test with StatsAPI WAR (+43.2 vs +24.8, labeled StatsAPI WAR) keeps the incoming side ahead.
The attribution. If reporting shows Dombrowski did not lead specific deals, "Dombrowski trades" has to become "Phillies front office trades" everywhere it appears.
Bob Boone has died at 78, confirmed by his son Bret. He caught Tug McGraw's series-ending strikeout of Willie Wilson in Game 6 of the 1980 World Series, and he hit .412 in that Series, 7-for-17, with no strikeouts. A Philadelphia remembrance of the catcher behind that last pitch, the first title, and a three-generation baseball family.
Turner has $190.9 million left and a full no-trade clause. Marsh is the only one who can actually move.
Ken Rosenthal reported the only condition under which Harper would waive his no-trade clause: a new team extending him past 2031, into his forties. Five straight playoff exits have this town dreaming big. The math has other ideas.
Jhoan Duran threw a 1.82 ERA with 33 saves for the Phillies in 2026. Baseball-Reference has him free-agent eligible after 2027. That's one arbitration season of club control left, and every multi-year pitch sits under a Dec. 1 CBA clock.
Comments
Loading comments...