Luis Arraez is neither an outfielder nor a right-handed hitter. But he is the Phillies’ solution for scoring more runs.
Even though it puts Bryce Harper back in right field.
Welcome to the Phillies’ brave new world.
Amid an underwhelming market for righty-swinging outfielders, Dave Dombrowski made a trade-deadline splash Monday, acquiring Arraez — a lefty-hitting second baseman — and reliever Caleb Kilian from the Giants for two minor leaguers, including breakout pitching prospect Ramon Marquez — and in the process, uprooting three-quarters of the infield and transplanting Harper to the outfield for the first time since April 2022.
Then, in an almost concurrent trade, the Phillies picked up veteran lefty reliever Brooks Raley from the Mets for minor-league outfielder John Spikerman and right-hander Luke Gabrysh.
“Obviously,” Harper said, “it’s been a good deadline. I think [Dombrowski]’s done a great job.”
Harper said he didn’t know the Phillies were talking to the Giants about Arraez when he texted Dombrowski on Sunday night, after a conversation over the weekend in Baltimore with manager Don Mattingly. In both cases, he reiterated what he has said for years: For another productive hitter who played in the infield, he would make a short-term move back to right field.
With Harper clearing the way, the Phillies pivoted to Arraez, a contact-hitting savant and three-time batting champion with a bead on a fourth. He’s leading the National League with a .324 average and has struck out only 21 times in 464 plate appearances.
In short, he’s like almost no other modern hitter.
Luis Arraez has more walks (25) than strikeouts (21). Gregory Bull
“He’s kind of like the modern day like Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs,” said Mattingly, who played with both. “The guy just hits. He’s always hit, [won] batting titles, and just continues to do it. Obviously a huge addition to the lineup.”
But in pivoting to a hitter whom they believe will have a bigger impact than any of the righty-hitting outfielders they were scouting, the Phillies threw into flux an infield that already ranks among the worst defensive groups in the majors.
Arraez wants to stay at second base, where he improved defensively this season under Giants infield coach Ron Washington. Mattingly said the Phillies “wouldn’t have made the trade if we weren’t going to put him at second,” but really, they had little choice. The out-of-contention Giants assured Arraez they would only trade him to a team that would use him there.
Effective Tuesday night, then, when Arraez joins the Phillies, second baseman Bryson Stott will move to third base, third baseman Alec Bohm will go to first, and yes, Harper will shift back to the grass.
“The key for me is Harp,” Mattingly said. “Harp moving to the outfield is really the key to this.”
Said Harper: “I’ve said it in years past — I mean, I know everybody thinks it’s crap when I say it, but it’s not. Any chance that we have an opportunity to win, I’d do anything for this organization. And they know that.”
In the weeks leading up to the deadline, the Phillies focused on three areas: a right-handed bat, a late-inning reliever, and a starting pitcher. With so many needs and few assets in the farm system, it seemed like a challenge for Dombrowski to get everything.
As a team, the Phillies entered the week tied for 28th in the majors in on-base percentage (.304). In particular, they have gotten less production than any team from the right side of the plate, with a worst-in-the-majors .280 on-base percentage and .644 OPS.
But neither Mike Trout nor Byron Buxton has signaled a willingness to waive their no-trade rights. (In Buxton’s case, the Twins are a playoff contender in the American League.) The Reds’ Spencer Steer injured his wrist and may miss the rest of the season; the Royals traded Lane Thomas to the Braves; the Angels’ Jo Adell has a .279 career on-base percentage; and the Orioles were noncommittal on trading Taylor Ward.
(Adell and Ward were ultimately dealt to the Guardians and Mariners, respectively, Monday.)
Given the state of the market, the Phillies felt they needed to get creative. So, they widened their search over the weekend, according to major league sources, and landed on Arraez, who has a .360 on-base percentage and figures to help set the table for Kyle Schwarber and Harper.
“He’s a guy that won the batting title a couple of years and somebody that’s going to put the bat on the ball,” Harper said. “Exciting player, you know? I think he just brings a lot to our lineup. He’s got that hit tool, and it’s somebody that can be really good for us.”
The Phillies also acquired Kilian, a 29-year-old righty, to add depth to the middle of the bullpen. He has a 4.26 ERA in 46 games this season, but hasn’t allowed a run in eight of his last 11 appearances.
The move comes at a cost for a farm system that was already ranked among the worst in baseball.
Marquez, a hard-throwing 20-year-old right-hander, has emerged this season, prompting debate among scouts about whether he or 2025 first-round pick Gage Wood was the best pitching prospect in the system. Scouts are impressed by Marquez’s changeup and an uptick in his fastball velocity. He has a 1.50 ERA in six starts since moving up to high-A Jersey Shore.
Marty Gair, a 23-year-old, was recently promoted to Jersey Shore. He has a 4.50 ERA and six saves in 30 appearances overall this season.
Raley is shaping up as an important addition, especially given the powerhouse Dodgers’ lefty-heavy lineup. In 41⅓ innings with the Mets, the 38-year-old veteran had a 1.96 ERA. A pending free agent, he will join José Alvarado as the lefty weapons to combat Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, and Kyle Tucker in the middle and late innings.
“I see him more towards the back end,” Mattingly said. “Obviously we’ve got Alvy, who’s throwing the ball really good. But we’ll take all the arms we can get out there.”
For the first time since, well, Tuesday, flood warnings have been posted in the Philly region and a flash flood watch remains until 11 p.m. Monday, with a potential for up to 5 inches of rain in and around the city.
The National Weather Service flood warnings were in effect until midafternoon for a broad area along the I-95 corridor where “slow-moving thunderstorms” had generated up to 4 inches of rain
The Pennypack Creek in Northeast Philly jumped 1.5 feet in just 15 minutes to go above flood stage, the weather service said. At least one water rescue occurred in Montgomery County, and flooding resulted in lane closures along Route 130 in Gloucester County, the weather service reported.
Strong storms remain possible during the day Monday, but Sarah Johnson, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, said “the bigger threat we are concerned about is heavy rain and flash flooding.“
While the weather service’s flood watch was in effect from 8 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Monday, she cautioned that with computer models having their differences, the forecast had elements of “uncertainty.” (And when was the last time that happened?)
Once again the atmosphere likely will be playing a version of rain roulette across the region, as it did on Tuesday, said Marc Chenard, senior branch forecaster at the federal Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md. Waterfall-like downpours turned the Delaware River into a shade of flowing mocha north of Philadelphia, while less than an inch fell upon the city.
Areas of heavy rain moved through the region Sunday nigh an Monday morning. And regardless of how it all plays out this time around, “it’s definitely going to affect the morning commute” said Bill Deger, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., with rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches an hour possible. Even if it’s not raining, he said, significant road flooding is possible.
He said it’s likely that Philly and the surrounding area might be in the 2-to-4-inch bull’s-eye zone.
When is likely timing for rain in the Philly region?
“This is another setup where we have very moist air from the South,” said Deger.
More rains were likely Monday morning, and again later in the afternoon with the approach of a cold front.
That front could fire up strong thunderstorms, said Chenard, and it might take its good old time moving through the area.
He added that as so often happens, the downpours “won’t be all that widespread, but where they do happen you usually get a flash flood.”
The rains likely will shut off Monday night; however, the workweek is looking quite unsettled with shower chances every day.
Will this end the drought in the Philadelphia area?
While the drought warnings continue in New Jersey and Chester County, conditions have improved measurably in areas around the city, which was no longer in “severe” or “moderate” drought, in the latest interagency U.S. Drought Monitor update.
Still, even in Philly conditions were listed as “abnormally dry” in the advisory issued Thursday, despite a July that was officially the wettest month in Philadelphia since March 2024.
Philadelphia’s total, 7.03 inches, was 2.65 inches above normal. Over 8 inches was measured in Wilmington. However, as a testament to the randomness of summer rains, precipitation totals were significantly below normal in Atlantic City and Allentown, the weather service reported.
And while downpours can trigger rapid rises on the local streams such as the Neshaminy Creek, in Bucks County, and the Frankford and Pennypack Creeks in Philly, they are less of a threat to the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, where water levels have remained relatively low.
Those levels are the result of the longer-term dryness: July broke a 16-month streak of below-normal rainfall in Philadelphia.
But Johnson said the region’s wetness trend has been showing some signs of staying power.
The tour bus heaved and weaved through the residential streets of Mount Airy, rolling over speed bumps, slowing for passing cars, and pulling over for the occasional gawking.
“I invite you to look around,” tour guide Marianne Ruane said, gesturing out the window as her voice echoed from a transmitter microphone into the audiences’ earpieces. The attendees murmured as they admired the homes of the streetcar suburb.
This was “Neighborhood Jawnts,” a free, hyper-localized tour running throughout a diverse swath of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods this summer and into the fall. The “jawnts” — get it? like “jaunts” but Philly-style — are an effort by the city’s tourism arm to engage every locale, from Africatown to the Far Northeast, during the Semiquincentennial.
“Philadelphia’s a city of neighborhoods,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of Philadelphia Visitor Center Corp. and Philadelphia250, the nonprofit in charge of planning the 250th celebrations. The series is a collaboration between Ott Lovell’s organizations, with sponsorships from the city and Fulton Bank, which allow the tours to be offered at no cost.
“We wanted to make sure that people have the opportunity to get to know the whole city and to get to know the city through the neighborhoods and the diversity of our city — the cultures, the communities, the histories,” Ott Lovell said.
The tours, which began in late May and will run until October, feature a different area weekly, totaling 20 neighborhoods in the series. The tours are offered once on Fridays and twice daily on Saturdays and Sundays, and launch from the Independence Visitor Center.
Passengers board the PHLASH bus at the start of the “Neighborhood Jawnts” tour in Philadelphia on July 24.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
On a recent Friday in July, a commandeered PHLASH bus carted about 30 people around Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy. Each tour is led by a professional tour guide — someone who gives the “play by play” — and a community host — a resident who can add “color commentary” — Ott Lovell said.
Attendees visited the French and English Villages; the country’s oldest country club, Philadelphia Cricket Club; and the Wissahickon Inn, and they tasted “midnight chocolate” ice cream from Mount Airy institution Zsa’s Ice Cream, all while learning about the area’s history and how architecture has shaped the community and its landscape.
“I really love how Philadelphia 2026 has been about celebrating the city as a whole, not just Old City and downtown, but all of the neighborhoods that give Philadelphia its identity,” said Philip Dawson, community host and executive director of Mount Airy Community Development Corp.
Dawson added: “This tour really helped to highlight Mount Airy’s history, its housing and architecture, its businesses, its people, its diversity. It was really meaningful.”
Surprisingly, Ott Lovell said, Philadelphians — not out-of-towners — have capitalized on the tours. The majority of July 24 attendees were from the Philly area and most had already gone on a “jawnt.”
It was Janice Rudd’s fourth such tour. The 60-year-old recently moved from Houston to South Philadelphia and has been using the series as a way to familiarize herself with her new home city.
“I’m learning so much,” Rudd said. “It’s such a big city, there’s much to do downtown, in South Philly, out to the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] … but people just never go beyond there. … It’s nice to see real neighborhoods.”
While ambitious, “Neighborhood Jawnts” is paying off: Forthcoming tours are nearly full or completely sold out with a waiting list to join, according to organizers. Ott Lovell said they are brainstorming ways to keep low-cost and affordable tours going past the summer of the Semiquincentennial.
“We are a city of neighborhoods and it’s something we should celebrate as much as we celebrate our history,” she said.
The “Neighborhood Jawnts” series runs until Oct. 25. Tours start at 2 p.m. on Fridays and at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Tours are free, but online registration is required.
The first two days of Eagles training camp practice in South Philadelphia are in the books. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane and Olivia Reiner check in with key observations and highlight emerging early storylines to kick off unCovering the Birds’ coverage of the 2026 season.
00:00 How Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense has looked under new coordinator Sean Mannion
15:10 Why the Eagles felt Jalen Carter was worthy of a new contract, and whether he’s worth it
31:21 New segment alert! Jeff’s mailbag!
unCovering the Birds is a production of The Philadelphia Inquirer and KYW Newsradio Original Podcasts. Look for new episodes throughout the season.
We’re always looking for mailbag questions! Hit Jeff up on his socials, or drop a question in the comments. Jeff could answer it in a future episode!
WASHINGTON — Key senators unveiled a short-term spending bill on Sunday that would keep federal agencies funded past the midterm elections and into early December as they look to avoid a government shutdown during the middle of campaign season.
The Senate is likely to vote on the measure before leaving Washington at week’s end for its traditional August recess, a period that many lawmakers want to spend shoring up their reelection prospects rather than working in the nation’s capital.
The bill generally funds the federal government at current levels though Dec. 11. The House has passed a similar measure, but it did not include various exceptions sought by the White House. Senators have been spending recent days negotiating which of those exceptions to include.
One exception that did not make it into the bill, Democrats noted, was the administration’s request to include $1 billion to build “Trump-class” battleships.
In another major difference with the House bill, Democrats say they also were able to include language that will ensure the administration cannot transfer funds from other programs to the Border Patrol.
The late-summer action on a funding fix is unusual. Normally, Congress waits until the final days or hours of a funding deadline to pass short-term funding extensions, but this time senators are acting two months before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said passing the measure was his top priority going into the August recess. He noted that the American people have already experienced two record-breaking government shutdowns in the past 10 months.
“We need to ensure that they do not face a third,” Thune said.
Both parties want to avoid another shutdown
A short-term funding extension is needed because Congress has struggled to get the dozen annual appropriations bills negotiated and approved before the Sept. 30 deadline. By extending government funding now, lawmakers can use the ensuing months to work out their differences on full-year funding.
It won’t be an easy lift as Republicans seek a dramatic increase in defense spending while cutting non-defense spending. Trump proposed a 10% cut in non-defense programs overall. Meanwhile, he called for boosting defense spending by some 44%.
A potential shutdown before voters go to the polls is a scenario that both parties are looking to avoid, as polling indicated that neither party evaded blame for last fall’s record 43-day shutdown. Democrats sought to extend an expiring health insurance tax credit and refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.
A second spending battle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security took 76 days to resolve when Democrats refused to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations.
The bill delays a controversial policy on grants
Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, along with Democratic senators, are seeking to block a proposed rule from President Donald Trump’s administration related to grants. The rule would require a senior political appointee at each agency to review grant proposals through criteria that include “ensuring that discretionary awards advance the President’s policy priorities.”
Collins and Sen Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the rule would not take effect during the course of the stopgap spending bill. Collins said she advocated for significant changes to the rule, “citing its potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research.”
Democrats want to kill the administration’s effort altogether. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said it was a “disgraceful” effort that would “further politicize all federal grants.”
“While Republicans rejected killing the proposed rule outright, I’m going to keep fighting to put a stop to it once and for all, and I will keep pressing my Republican colleagues to do exactly that,” Murray said.
Democrats fear Trump would turn federal grants into a cudgel to punish perceived political foes and reward allies, while also undermining Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. The White House Office of Management and Budget says its effort is about improving accountability to ensure taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted or misused.
WASHINGTON — Two Republican senators who threatened to block acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation to lead the Justice Department said Monday that they will support his nomination, ending an impasse over plans to create a fund to compensate allies of President Donald Trump.
The endorsement from GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis paves the way for the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday after the Justice Department and lawmakers reached a deal to formally rescind the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” proposed to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Cornyn and Tillis had refused to back Blanche’s bid for the permanent post without official confirmation killing the fund meant to compensate people who believe they were unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Blanche’s written order, issued late Sunday, came after days of negotiations between the Justice Department and the Republican senators, who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn, of Texas, and Tillis, of North Carolina, said in a statement.
DOJ order says ‘beyond any doubt’ that fund is dead
Blanche has repeatedly said that the Justice Department was scrapping plans for the fund, which sparked bipartisan outcry over the possibility that violent rioters who attacked police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be considered for payments. But skeptical lawmakers said they were concerned that could be revived without a commitment in writing, especially because Trump has continued to defend the idea.
In his order posted on social media late Sunday, Blanche wrote that the department was confirming “beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”
Since the settlement of the president’s lawsuit against the IRS was announced, “No Members were appointed; no funds were transferred; no process for receiving claims was established; no claims were paid,” the order said. “This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”
Cornyn and Tillis had also pressed the Justice Department to limit the scope of a separate piece of the settlement that provided broad immunity for Trump and members of his family from tax audits.
Under the deal, the Justice Department clarified in writing that the tax audit immunity agreement “applies by its terms only retroactively” to claims open at the time of the settlement and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings. It also makes clear that only the parties that brought the lawsuit — Trump, two of his sons, and the Trump Organization — are covered by the tax agreement.
Cornyn and Tillis said in their statement that they were “pleased” with the concessions made by Blanche.
“From the outset, we were clear that we needed a written document addressing our concerns on the IRS audit agreement and the anti-weaponization fund that included constraining the scope of audit protection by limiting it to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and legally ending the anti-weaponization fund,” they wrote.
Democrats, however, noted that the order rescinding the fund doesn’t stop the Trump administration from compensating Jan. 6 rioters through a previously established process that allows people to file claims for damages if they believed they were wronged by the government.
“This supposed ‘deal’ doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future,” Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said in a social media post. Schiff added that it also “leaves in place a tax-immunity deal that could help Trump skip taxes on the $2.3 billion he made last year, and still leaves it vague who and what is covered.”
Cornyn, Tillis echo GOP colleagues’ concerns
Blanche’s nomination was thrown into doubt last week after the Judiciary Committee postponed a vote that had been scheduled for Thursday morning as Tillis and Cornyn said they needed more from the administration before they could provide the necessary votes.
After the Thursday vote was delayed, Trump said in a social media post that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year. And on Saturday the president threatened to push forward with the fund if the two Republicans blocked Blanche’s nomination.
On Sunday evening, Trump said that people who had faced charges from the Jan. 6, attack on the Capitol and could have benefited from the fund had “their lives destroyed.”
“This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffered,” Trump said. “A lot of people like it.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s defense lawyer in his criminal cases, entered the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general. He was elevated to the top post after Pam Bondi was fired in April by Trump, who was frustrated by her failure to successfully prosecute his political enemies.
Though Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent job, he has moved quickly since taking the reins of the department to promote the Trump administration’s agenda and accelerate investigations into the president’s perceived foes.
Located at 22 W. Lancaster Ave. in the former Kung Fu Tea storefront, Half A While is a tea and dessert shop specializing in high-quality cold-brewed teas and pastries and cakes with Asian influences.
Husband and wife owners Leo Wei and Haley He acquired the storefront from Kung Fu Tea after years of dreaming about opening their own business.
At Half A While, the duo is serving a range of treats, including handmade crepe and tiramisu cakes; cold-brewed leaf teas; and buns filled with taro, minced pork, and sausage. Half A While’s teas come in flavors from passion fruit to brown sugar, and can include manyof the boba accoutrements customers at Kung Fu Tea came to love.
Half A While tea shop in Ardmore. The lettering on the wall is 3-D printed by store owner Leo Wei.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
The name Half A While is a mashup of two core tenants of the café.
“Half” symbolizes Wei and He’s goal to use around half the amount of sugar traditionally found in items like bubble tea and crepe cake.
“That is our intention, to be more healthy,” Wei said.
“While” signifies their desire for patrons to feel comfortable in the shop and stay a while, lounging on the sofa or posting up at one of the tables. It’s a “really cozy place,” Wei said.
Half A While will be in its “soft opening” phase through the end of August or the beginning of September, as Wei and He pin down inventory needs, train staff, and get their online apparatus up and running. The store is currently open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesdays through Sundays.
The mango mille crepe cake slice, strawberry mango juice sago and lychee jelly with mango ice cream, and the mango coconut sticky rice ice cream at Mango Mango Dessert in Ardmore.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
Around the corner, Mango Mango has moved into 38 Greenfield Ave., the former home of electronic store World Wide Stereo.
Mango Mango is a growing chain of Asian-inspired dessert restaurants, where the sweet, sticky stone fruit is the menu’s “muse.”
The first Mango Mango opened in New York City’s Chinatown in 2013, and the dessert chain has since opened more than three dozen franchises across the U.S., from Hawaii to New Jersey. Ardmore is Mango Mango’s sixth Philly-area location after Chinatown, University City, Oxford Circle, Berwyn, and Cherry Hill.
Mango Mango Dessert in Ardmore.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
Mango Mango’s menu is extensive, ranging from pillowy crepe cakes to ice cream sundaes and fruit teas. Naturally, the café’s desserts and teas lean heavily on mango — one can order a mango smoothie, mango crepe cake, layered mango snowcloud with fresh mango chunks and popping bubbles, and hot mango green tea — though other flavors are available, too.
Mango Mango’s Ardmore outpost held its grand opening on July 31. The café is open from noon to 10 p.m. seven days a week, and the shop will be running deals and promotions through its first four weeks of service.
The two dessert cafés join an expanding list of new businesses in Ardmore, both in the Main Line community’s downtown corridor and in Suburban Square, the popular Kimco Realty-owned outdoor shopping center.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Phillies acquire infielder Luis Arraez from the Giants
Luis Arraez leads the National League with a .324 average and has more walks than strikeouts.Jeff Chiu
Luis Arraez is neither a right-handed hitter nor an outfielder.
But he’s the Phillies’ solution to help the offense.
The Phillies beat the trade deadline Monday by acquiring Arraez and reliever Caleb Kilian from the Giants, according to a major-league source.
Philly will send breakout pitching prospect Ramon Marquez and minor league reliever Marty Gair to San Francisco, according to USA Today, although the teams haven’t announced the trade because players were still being informed.
Arraez, 29, has said he prefers to stay at second base, where he has improved defensively this season. In that case, the move for Arraez will force the Phillies to shuffle the defense. It’s unclear how they will do that.
But Arraez is a contact-hitting, on-base machine. He’s leading the National League with a .324 average and has more walks (25) than strikeouts (21). He has a .360 on-base percentage and figures to help set the table for Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper.
Right-hander Anthony Eyanson is going to the Baltimore Orioles in the Adley Rutschman deal, a source tells ESPN. Big-time pitching prospect who's the centerpiece of the deal.
“His contact-based approach will aid a lineup built around sluggers hitting .250,” McCullough wrote. “The Phillies will also have to hope that his recent defensive improvement can continue without the daily tutelage of infield guru Ron Washington.”
Elsewhere, CBS Sports gave the Phillies a “B+” in part because the deal won’t move “the defensively deficient Trea Turner off of shortstop.” Sports Illustrated gave the Phillies an “A” despite giving up pitching prospect Ramon Marquez because “Arraez is a natural fit to boost an otherwise underperforming offense.”
Braves acquire reliever Brent Suter from the Angels
Trade news: The Atlanta Braves are acquiring left-handed reliever Brent Suter from the Los Angeles Angels for infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr., sources tell ESPN.
Phillies trade for Arraez creates more questions than answers
Will Luis Arraez play second base? Gregory Bull
Do the Phillies have something bigger in play?
You have to wonder because, right now, the decision to trade fast-rising pitching prospect Ramon Marquez for Giants infielder Luis Arraez creates far more questions than answers.
With Arraez reportedly insisting on remaining at second base, where he has graded out as a subpar defender for most of his career, the Phillies don’t have many palatable options to accommodate him within their current personnel structure.
Their best defensive alignment would be putting Arraez at first and moving Bryce Harper to the outfield. But, again, Arraez reportedly doesn’t want to play first. Yet it would be hard to justify moving Trea Turner to the outfield against his will to accommodate Arraez, rather than vice versa.
A report in the Athletic suggests the Phillies are considering putting Bryson Stott at third and Alec Bohm at first. But Stott has played 12 games of third base in his professional career, minor leagues included. That’s an awfully big unknown defensively.
All of these defensive questions might make sense if Arraez were a clear difference-maker. In reality, he’s a left-handed, contact-hitting bat whose batting average is nearly 70 points lower on the road this season, away from San Francisco’s massive outfield. He also has five extra base hits in 111 at-bats since the start of July, with an OPS below .700.
There is a scenario where Arraez could make a great deal of sense. A lot of people have focused on the potential of trading Bohm. But I wonder if Stott is a more likely candidate to move.
I’m having a hard time convincing myself the Phillies would consider such a thing, given how ingrained Stott is within the fabric of the current team. But he still has a year left on his contract after 2026, which means he would have more appeal to a selling team than somebody like Bohm, who will be a free agent after the season.
With an .820 OPS since mid-June, Stott might be a piece the Phillies could leverage for one that better fits their roster, whether in the form of a right-handed hitting outfielder or starting pitcher or both.
Luis Arraez has a career .363 on-base percentageCharlie Riedel
The Phillies are well-acquainted with Luis Arraez’s exceptional bat control.
It’s what’s helped the second baseman build a career .363 on-base percentage. And when he was on the other side — on the Padres in 2024 and 2025 and on the Giants this season — it made him a challenge for the Phillies to defend against.
“We started just moving around in the infield, because he’d look around and just find a hole and hit it there,” Alec Bohm said after the Phillies played San Francisco in April. “He’s just that talented.”
It’s the type of skill that has been missing from the Phillies’ lineup. Arraez doesn’t have much pop, with just four homers this year, but his contact ability helps manufacture offense.
According to Baseball Reference, when Arraez comes to the plate with less than two outs and a runner on third, that runner has scored 72.7% of the time. The league average for those situations is just 50.6%.
Bryce Harper back to the outfield after Phillies land Luis Arraez?
Bryce Harper could move to outfield to make room for Luis Arraez.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
A half-hour after the Phillies lost Friday night in Baltimore, Dave Dombrowski intercepted Bryce Harper in a hallway outside the clubhouse, draped an arm around him, and started talking.
It may have been the genesis of a creative deadline trade.
The move Monday for three-time batting champion Luis Arraez left people, even some within the Phillies organization, guessing about how the infield pieces will fit. The Phillies were trying to add a righty-hitting outfielder, a creature that was more scarce in this marketplace than a Mickey Mantle rookie card. And so, they widened their search over the weekend, according to major league sources, and landed on Arraez, a lefty-hitting contact machine who has made clear that he wants to stay at second base.
One issue: The Phillies’ infield has been set in stone, with Bryson Stott at second base, Trea Turner at shortstop, Alec Bohm at third base, and Harper at first.
The Phillies have been looking for a righty-hitting outfielder for years. Harper, who hasn’t played right field since 2022 and moved to first base midway through the 2023 season after undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery, repeatedly offered to move back to right field, on a short-term basis, even reportedly bringing his outfield glove on the Phillies’ road trip last week. Each time, Dombrowski declined.
“I’ve said it multiple years before — and this year, still: For the right player, I would do it,” Harper said in June. “I mean, that’s as real as it gets. I don’t want to do it long-term. But if the right player comes along and that’s what we need, or if that’s what we want, I’d be open to it at any point. I still feel like I can throw a baseball from right field, and I can catch a fly ball. It’s been a long time. But, yeah, I would do it in a heartbeat for us to win a World Series, without a doubt.”
Dombrowski’s response: “I know he’s always been very open-minded to trying to help the organization however he can, but we haven’t talked to him. And I really don’t contemplate it because I really like the way he goes about his business at first base. … I’m looking at him as being a first baseman.”
But market forces appear to have changed Dombrowski’s thinking.
Most of the available righty-hitting outfielders are platoon players. The Royals dealt one such option, Lane Thomas, to the Braves over the weekend. The Angels are holding Jo Adell, who has a .279 career on-base percentage and another year of club control. The Reds’ Spencer Steer may have been an option for the Phillies, but he sprained his wrist last week and may be out for the rest of the season. Mike Trout and Byron Buxton have indicated they won’t waive their no-trade clauses.
The Phillies turned to Arraez, who is unlike almost any hitter in baseball. He’s a .318 career hitter, including a National League-leading .324 mark this year, and has more walks (25) than strikeouts (21). He has 236 career strikeouts, fewer than the combined total of Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner … this year.
Arraez is having his best defensive season at second base, although Stott plays Gold Glove-caliber defense at second. In any case, Arraez is a pending free agent and isn’t likely to occupy second base beyond this season.
Moving Harper back to right field – plus, Stott to third base and Bohm to first — is probably the cleanest way for the Phillies to accommodate Arraez.
But there are other options. Turner, who leads the majors with 18 errors, briefly played center field with the Nationals in 2016. In that scenario, Stott would return to shortstop, where he played in 2022 when the Phillies went to the World Series.
Or the Phillies could attempt to trade Bohm for a starting pitcher — perhaps in a buyer-to-buyer swap – and move Stott to third base.
Phillies trade for Mets relief pitcher Brooks Raley
Reliever Brooks Raley is reportedly heading to the Phillies’ bullpen.Erin Hooley
In a move to reinforce the bullpen, the Phillies turned to … the Mets?
On the heels of a larger trade for second baseman Luis Arraez and reliever Caleb Kilian from the Giants, the Phillies acquired lefty reliever Brooks Raley from the Mets for minor league right-hander Luke Gabrysh and outfielder John Spikerman, a major-league source confirmed. The teams haven’t announced the deal because the players were being informed.
Raley, 38, has a 1.96 ERA in 41 1/3 innings for the Mets. A pending free agent, he figures to slot into the bullpen alongside fellow lefties Jose Alvarado and Tim Mayza and righties Orion Kerkering and Jonathan Bowlan as the primary pieces in the bridge to closer Jhoan Duran.
All along, the Mets appeared to be a source for the Phillies to find relief help. The Mets are among the few aggressive sellers in the marketplace and already moved relievers A.J. Minter (to the Twins) and Huascar Brazobán (to the White Sox). They also have gotten offers for Luke Weaver, who is under contract for 2027, and closer-turned-starter Clay Holmes.
The Angels will receive SS Arjun Nimmala (TOR No. 2 prospect per @MLBPipeline, No. 43 overall), OF Eddie Micheletti and RHP Angel Rivero in return for Soriano, sources tell me and @JonathanMayo.
The Mets’ Clay Holmes could give the Mets help in the rotation for the rest of the regular season and then move into the bullpen for the playoffs.Ross D. Franklin
Mets right-hander Clay Holmes made three minor league starts in his recovery from a right leg fracture.
The Phillies scouted all of them.
Holmes, who threw 73 pitches Sunday for high-A Brooklyn, was the Mets’ best starter until he got hit by a comebacker on May 15. The 33-year-old is uniquely suited to help the Phillies address their pitching needs on multiple levels.
Initially, Holmes could slot into the rotation behind Cristopher Sánchez, Zack Wheeler, and Jesús Luzardo to help nudge the Phillies into the postseason. And then, once they get there, the former All-Star closer with the Yankees could slide into the bullpen to give interim manager Don Mattingly another late-inning option before closer Jhoan Duran.
But would the out-of-contention Mets trade with a division rival, especially the Phillies? The teams haven’t paired up on a trade since New York sent lefty Jason Vargas to the Phillies for a minor leaguer at the deadline in 2019.
Holmes is almost certain to decline his $12 million player option for 2027, which would make him a free agent. The Mets have only four games remaining against the Phillies this season. Holmes has a 2.39 ERA in 52⅔ innings in nine starts.
In addition to having a scout follow Holmes’ rehab starts, the Phillies have gotten looks at most other starting pitchers in the marketplace, including Giants lefty Robbie Ray, who has a 1.69 ERA in 64 innings over his last 11 starts. Although Ray doesn’t have as much experience or success out of the bullpen as Holmes, he has appeared in relief in the postseason, including twice for the Mariners in 2022.
Could Bryan De La Cruz be a trade-day alternative?
Bryan De La Cruz is giving the Phillies something to think about ahead of the deadline. Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Last year, on the eve of the deadline, the Phillies completed a massive trade for star closer Jhoan Duran during a rain delay.
They had two downpours Sunday to make another splash.
No such luck.
There’s still time. Club executives have until 6 p.m. Monday before they must put down their pencils and live with the rosters they’ve built, at least for the duration of the season. And so, Dave Dombrowski keeps working the phones.
In the meantime, Bryan De La Cruz is giving the Phillies something to think about.
A veteran outfielder who finally got called up two weeks ago after 3½ months in triple A, De La Cruz crushed a two-run homer in the third inning of a rain-interrupted (twice) 8-0 thumping of the Orioles that was shortened to six innings after a second midgame downpour.
Make it back-to-back victories for the Phillies after four consecutive losses. And make it nine hits and six RBIs in 20 at-bats for De La Cruz since his arrival.
Impressive? Sure. Enough to call off the Phillies’ search for a right-handed bat? Probably not. But it might alter it.
Orioles slugger Taylor Ward fits the Phillies’ needs. But is he on the market?
Taylor Ward has a .383 on-base percentage and fits the Phillies’ needs.Chris O'Meara
Outfielders who are productive from the right side of the plate and potentially available in this trade market are almost as rare as a Mickey Mantle rookie card.
The Phillies just got an up-close look at one of them.
The Orioles’ Taylor Ward would be a fit for the Phillies, who were last in the majors with a .279 on-base mark and .639 OPS from their right-handed hitters.
One obstacle: The Orioles are on the buyer-seller fence.
“We’re not going to have a strong bias in either direction,” Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias said before Baltimore opened a three-game series against the Phillies. “We put ourselves in a position where we’re not declaring ourselves to be in one bucket or another in terms of buying or selling.”
After losing two of three to the Phillies this weekend, The Orioles are 54-58 and haven’t been over .500 since April 14 (9-8). But they were only 2½ games out of a wild-card spot in a mediocre, to put it kindly, American League.
Elias said the Orioles are closing in on getting catchers Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo, third baseman Blaze Alexander, starter Chris Bassitt, and closer Ryan Helsley back from the injured list.
And unlike National League bubble teams, who would have to contend in October with the superpower Dodgers and Brewers, the field is wide-open in the AL. Any team that makes the playoffs has a chance to make a deep run.
In that case, the Orioles may hold on to Ward, sixth in the AL in on-base percentage. Then again, he’s a pending free agent. And the righty-hitting outfield market got even thinner last week with injuries to the Reds’ Spencer Steer and Giants’ Casey Schmitt.
So, if the Orioles try to buy and sell simultaneously, maybe they can cash in Ward for a controllable asset.
Other right-hitting outfield options for the Phillies
Los Angeles Angels’ Jo Adell is on the Phillies’ radar ahead of the trade deadline.Caroline Brehman
Dave Dombrowski convened more than a dozen executives, analysts, and scouts in Baltimore for the weekend. They continue to pursue a right-handed bat, a late-inning reliever, and a starting pitcher, according to multiple league sources.
In addition to Orioles slugger Taylor Ward, the Phillies are exploring other righty-hitting outfield options.
Among them are Angels’ Jo Adell, the Dodgers’ Alex Call, and the Giants’ Heliot Ramos.
The Reds’ Spencer Steer and the Giants’ Casey Schmitt might have been options if they hadn’t gotten injured. The Phillies were interested in the Royals’ Lane Thomas before he got traded to the Braves late Saturday night.
The Phillies have been linked Jeff Hoffman, who pitched in Philly two seasons.Julio Cortez
The trade deadline is just hours away — 6 p.m. Monday — and Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski is trying to fill multiple needs.
Chief among them: late-inning relief, which was amplified by Friday night’s seventh-inning meltdown.
The Phillies have been linked to old friend Jeff Hoffman, who has a 4.02 ERA for the Blue Jays but also has given up two earned runs in 19⅔ innings since June 9.
They have expressed interest in Padres lefty Adrián Morejón, but San Diego was only game behind the Phillies for the last wild-card spot entering play Saturday.
Kerkering sounded like he expects that the Phillies will reinforce the bullpen.
“Everyone knows it at the end of the day,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone thinks about it, like when you’re out there or getting ready for the day.”
Latest MLB trade deals includes the Braves adding a starter
Tyler Mahle is headed to Atlanta.Jed Jacobsohn
Here are some notable MLB trades that have happened so far, according to team announcements and multiple reports:
Braves land starter Tyler Mahle: The veteran right hander heads to his fifth team, while the Giants receive Anthony Molina.
White Sox trade for Huascar Brazobán: In exchange, the selling Mets landed two prospects, per reports – starter Gabe Davis and reliever Zach Franklin.
Cubs acquire veteran pitcher Kevin Gausman: The Cubs land a starter while sending the Blue Jays two prospects – infielder Ty Southisene and outfielder Brett Bateman
Dodgers landing Tarik Skubal is humbling to the Phillies
The centerpiece of the Tarik Skubal trade is a good example of the Dodgers’ skill in this prospect thing.Paul Sancya
Nobody wants to admit it, but the Dodgers deserve Tarik Skubal.
Los Angeles landed him the old fashioned way. They drafted, developed, traded, and signed their way to a circumstance where they could trade a highly valued outfield prospect for three months of service that will only pad their odds of completing a three-peat that they were favored to accomplish anyway.
That’s what you should focus on. The dignity of the deal. Not the Dodgers’ myriad of other competitive advantages. The endless payroll. The creative accounting. The market size, location, and glitz. None of them matter as much as the fundamentals. The Dodgers are simply better at identifying and nurturing talent than any other organization. To focus on anything else is to give your own organization a pass.
The Dodgers traded for Skubal because they could.
They had four outfielders ranked among the 40 best prospects in the game, for crying out loud. Three of them were at Double-A already. Their big league outfield already includes young breakout star Andy Pages in center field and Kyle Tucker in right. Not only do they have high-end prospects that other teams want, they can afford to trade some of them. In fact, they almost have to trade some of them.
From 2021 through 2026, the Dodgers had 22 players appear on at least one of the major national Top 100 lists. The Phillies had eight during the same time span. Only two teams in the majors had fewer than the Phillies. Only three teams in the majors had more than the Dodgers.
MLB’s trade deadline is 6 p.m. Monday.Mitchell Leff / MCT
The MLB trade deadline is Monday at 6 p.m.
Historically, the trade deadline always fell on July 31, but commissioner Rob Manfred is able to set the deadline any day between July 28 and Aug. 3, so it avoids falling on a weekend and doesn’t conflict with any games.
After the trade deadline expires, players on 40-man rosters can no longer be traded from club to club. Players can still be placed and claimed on outright waivers.
Minor league players not on 40-man rosters can still be traded after the deadline.
I like to consider myself a reasonable person open to all reasonable points of view. Politically, my favorite people are those who will fight for what they think is right but can understand and respect those they disagree with because they’re standing up for their own beliefs.
Of course, beliefs can be mistaken.
Take my belief that the rules were being followed regarding people presenting themselves at the southern border during the Biden administration. My left-leaning bias led me to assume that officials were following the law for those seeking asylum to be allowed into the country while their case was being processed.
Doing some reporting last year, it turns out the administration was — at least during the early days — processing people regardless of any legal claims, under the assumption they would be seeking asylum.
As a reasonable person, my objection to this is twofold. One, you may be acting humanely in allowing someone who risked their life to come to the U.S. to enter the country, but you are not following the law. Two, you are giving all these immigrants false hope they can stay, when asylum, even under the best of times, is not widely granted — especially if an immigrant has no legal representation.
What happened under Biden wasn’t illegal, per se; the White House has huge discretion regarding immigration policy. But much like what President Donald Trump is doing on immigration today, it’s just not right.
I was thinking of how things are never black and white when reader Mark Fenstermaker asked that I write about “the growing number of U.S. citizens who have been killed by illegal immigrants” along with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to “remove thousands of known criminals who had the potential to add to that number.”
Data wise it’s difficult to offer a conclusive answer to that specific allegation, since law enforcement agencies rarely collect immigration or citizenship status (for victims or offenders). Fortunately, the great state of Texas once again comes through.
Analyses of Texas data, which include immigration status, find that the crime rate of undocumented immigrants in general is lower than that of the U.S.-born population, which is generally understood to be the case.
Regarding homicide, from 2013 to 2022 the conviction rate in Texas for illegal immigrants was 2.2 per 100,000 people, compared with 3.0 per 100,000 for native-born Americans, according to the libertarian Cato Institute. There are a couple of caveats that may push the conviction rate for illegal immigrants higher, but regardless, the rate is hardly zero.
Some immigrants in the country illegally kill, that is a fact. Another fact is that in the U.S., random killings are statistically rare. Yet the right-wing fearmongers will not tell you that broadly speaking, you are more likely to be hit by lightning than you are to be killed by a stranger, let alone a stranger who’s in the country illegally.
Even then, whether that immigrant came here under Biden or under Trump, the ultimate responsibility falls on the person who committed the crime.
Now, the impression that there is a “growing number” of people killed by immigrants is not helped by the Trump administration’s propaganda efforts. I do not begrudge the Department of Homeland Security regularly trumpeting that ICE has detained some of the “worst of the worst” — as immigration enforcement should. But claiming that crime rates have “plummeted” under Trump’s leadership because they’ve removed “criminal illegal aliens” is overblown to say the least.
Crime rates spiked during the pandemic, at a time when Trump closed the border to asylum seekers using the threat of COVID-19 as an excuse. The number of violent crimes committed has been steadily dropping since 2023. Using the administration’s logic, if anything, those six million or so immigrants who Biden let in are making America safer.
None of what I’m saying should be understood as minimizing the death of anyone at the hands of an immigrant who’s in the country illegally. As I’ve said before, there is no comfort for a victim’s loved ones to hear that immigrants commit fewer crimes than the U.S.-born. It would be ridiculous and heartless to answer someone’s pain with such a meaningless fact.
The best we can do is to demand that our media and our leaders do better. That they tell the real story and not whatever fits into their ideological narrative.
To the concerns of my conservative readers like Mr. Fenstermaker, there is often a knee-jerk reaction from many in the mainstream media to downplay crime by undocumented immigrants. Even when telling stories related to immigration, there is a penchant to focus on the unimpeachable “perfect immigrant” when the truth is that people are complicated and reality is messy. But there is also an undeniable push on the right to demonize and scare that should be unacceptable.
What’s much worse is that this is how too many of our leaders operate. You have Democrats who will romanticize immigrants and their experience to the point that people become a symbol and bad policy decisions are made. Then you have Republicans under Trump who push hate and division, and whose policies lead to suffering and harm.
I will choose the Democrats’ mistakes on this over the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rampage any day of the week, but one cannot exist without the other. If we keep casting things in black and white, we will never be able to reasonably move forward.
And every Democrat in the New Jersey congressional delegation collectively asked President Donald Trump to reverse his FEMA aid rejection for the deadly snowstorm earlier this year.
Plus, prosecutors filed a civil complaint to remove Willingboro council member Nathaniel Anderson, who has not resigned from his position despite being behind bars for mortgage fraud, and more news of the day.
There’s no such thing as too early for Halloween (in my opinion).
And I’m clearly not alone since about 3,000 people showed up to celebrate the annual grand opening of the flagship Spirit Halloween in Egg Harbor Township on Saturday.
Children and adults — some wearing shorts and T-shirts, others decked out in full costumes — were able to play outdoor games, enjoy food trucks, get their face painted, and of course, shop. Some life-size animatronics sold out within minutes.
The chain operates more than 1,500 stores in the U.S. and Canada from August through early November.
All of the Democrats in the New Jersey congressional delegation signed a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to reverse his rejection of disaster aid for February’s deadly snowstorm.
Their plea in the letter — first obtained by The Inquirer — is in support of Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s appeal of the denial of the $84 million request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the blizzard from earlier this year.
U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim led the effort. All of the members of New Jersey were invited to join but only three Republicans did, according to Booker’s office.
Notably, South Jersey Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew opted out despite initially supporting the FEMA request in April that sought money in every county in his district for costs related to the storm.
A man was charged with first-degree murder in the July 17 death of another inmate at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Chesterfield, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said Friday.
Prosecutors have a filed a civil complaint to remove the jailed Willingboro council member, Nathaniel Anderson, who has not resigned from his position.
The new CEO of the Pennsauken-based Bayada Home Care spoke with The Inquirer to discuss the importance of providing additional care at home as the country’s healthcare providers navigate financial strain.
Washington Township High School teacher Matthew Groark and fellow food influencer Maxwell McGibbon is competing on Food Network’s grilling competition show Pitmasters, Philly Voice reports.
Starting today, Camden County will begin the $2.5 million project to make infrastructure improvements to Collings Avenue Bridge over Newton Creek on the border of Gloucester City and Camden. The bridge will be closed for three months.
Back Alley Barbeque in Pennsauken is back after a deal for a seafood restaurant to take over the space fell through, according to South Jersey Food Scene.
🧠Trivia time
South Jersey singer Mara Justine came in what place when she competed on season 24 of The Voice?
🗳️ Considering: Columnist Daniel Pearson’s opinion piece, which reflects on his previous role when he investigated allegations of election fraud in light of New Jersey’s noncitizen voter disclosure.
⛳ Remembering: That time when Steph and Ayesha Curry’s Underrated Golf Tour stopped in South Jersey.
An early spring morning at the Franklin Parker Preserve.Richard Lewis
This submission was sent to us from Jess Fasano of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation who wrote:
New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s Franklin Parker Preserve encompasses 16 square miles in the heart of the Pine Barrens. It’s open to the public year-round and contains some of the region’s most beautiful wetlands and provides critical habitat to more than 50 rare, threatened, or endangered species.
What does your community look like? What South Jersey memory would you like to share? Submit a photo and/or a brief description for a chance to be featured in the Monday edition of this newsletter.
