When the San Diego Padres pulled off a prospect-packed, eight-player swap for Juan Soto, the general consensus within and especially outside the industry was that they won the trade deadline.
Two months later, it appears the Phillies have a keeper. Brandon Marsh remains a work in progress at the plate, although his work with hitting coach Kevin Long did yield a solid .288/.319/.455 slash line in 41 regular-season games and helped produce a big three-run homer in Game 4 of the NL Division Series against Atlanta. But it’s Marsh’s defense in center field, specifically his range, that has had the greatest impact on the Phillies.
“I think it was the most undervalued trade throughout that whole trade deadline,” Kyle Schwarber said Saturday before playing alongside Marsh in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Citizens Bank Park. “The things that he’s brought to the team, he’s a natural center fielder. The way that he plays the game fearlessly. He’s a heck of an athlete. He makes plays look easy, like that play [Friday] night, that wasn’t easy.”
Indeed, an underrated moment from the Phillies’ 4-2 victory in Game 3 came in the second inning when Marsh tracked Wil Myers’ fly ball to the warning track in center field and hauled it in to help Ranger Suárez hold a 1-0 lead.
The Phillies didn’t expressly set out to improve their defense at the deadline, according to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, even though it was a clear weakness. But they shored up multiple areas by acquiring Edmundo Sosa from the St. Louis Cardinals for lefty reliever JoJo Romero and Marsh from the Los Angeles Angels for touted catching prospect Logan O’Hoppe.
“We knew that (defense) was not the strength of our club,” Dombrowski said. “We knew it all along. We knew it last year. But this wintertime, the best players that fit for us were not defensive players. If you can improve it, great. But if you improve it, at what cost does it hurt you, say, offensively? It was just the right players were available at the right time for us to be able to make those moves.”
In the days leading up to the deadline, the Phillies cast a wide net for young center fielders who were controllable for multiple years, including Arizona’s Alek Thomas and Houston’s Jose Siri. Unsurprisingly, they found the asking prices to be steep. With the Angels, they found a match, in part because O’Hoppe’s path to the majors with the Phillies was blocked by star catcher J.T. Realmuto.
And while Long went to work on widening Marsh’s stance and shortening his stride to improve his timing and cut down his strikeout rate, the Phillies’ benefited simply from his ability to cover the gaps in left-center and right-center field between Schwarber and Nick Castellanos, who have below-average range in the corners. He’s fearless, too. Two weeks after joining the Phillies, Marsh crashed into the center-field wall and banged up his knee and ankle in pursuit of a home run.
“I know the balls I can get to and the balls I can’t get to,” Schwarber said. “When you have a guy who’s got that extra-rangey factor, it makes you a little bit more comfortable. I know for a fact, if I’m playing in, Marshy’s going to have my back in the gap and I can be a little more aggressive. The more he’s gotten to play with us out there, he feels comfortable where he knows what he’s going to have to get to.”
In time, the Phillies believe Marsh will hit left-handed pitching. For now, they’re content to play him against righties and put Matt Vierling in the lineup against lefties.
But as long as Marsh catches everything in center field, he will be giving them what they need.
“It’s huge because he’s got great instincts,” manager Rob Thomson said. “His first step is tremendous and his routes are direct, and he gets great reads off the bat. It’s a lot of innate ability and sense that he has.”
Make like Jake
There are notable similarities in the pitching styles of Phillies ace Zack Wheeler and New York Mets counterpart Jacob deGrom.
It isn’t a coincidence.
Wheeler, who will start Game 5 on Sunday, admitted he harnessed his fastball command by watching deGrom when they were teammates with the Mets.
“He threw a couple bullpens in between each start, and one bullpen would literally just be 10 or so glove-side fastballs. That was it,” Wheeler said. “And then the next day he’d do his normal bullpen, and then he’d start off the next day doing the exact same thing.
“I really concentrated on doing that, and ever since, I’ve been able to command for the most part that side of the plate. And I think my command all around got a lot better because that is the hardest pitch to throw — a glove-side fastball — pretty consistent.”
Extra bases
Entering play Saturday night, the Phillies were 19-9 in postseason home games at Citizens Bank Park. ... Jayson Werth will throw the ceremonial first pitch before Game 5. He will be the fifth member of the 2008 World Series championship team to do the honors, following Shane Victorino and Pat Burrell in the divisional round and Matt Stairs and Ryan Howard in the NLCS. ... Wheeler will be opposed Sunday by Padres right-hander Yu Darvish in a rematch of Game 1.
