All-Star week in Philadelphia has come and gone, which means it’s time to prepare for the unofficial second half of the season. The Phillies had a good first half considering they experienced a ten-game losing streak and fired their manager in April. They come into their second half opening series with the New York Mets two games behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League East with a record of 54-43. They currently occupy the second NL Wild Card spot and have a three-game lead for a spot in the postseason field. There is work to be done, but the Phillies have placed themselves right in the thick of the NL postseason picture.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t glaring weaknesses in this Phillies team though. The upcoming trade deadline will be the biggest chance to improve the roster, but thanks to the Phillies limited trade capital, they will also have to look inward for improvements. There’s no shortage of underperformers on the roster, but these are three that could make a real impact if they find a way to improve.
Trea Turner
Turner was one of the Phillies best players in 2025 when he won the batting title and dramatically improved his defense resulting in a 5.4 WAR season. He has regressed heavily in each aspect, as he’s hitting .236 and has the fifth most errors (12) of any shortstop in baseball which has resulted in a negative WAR total. His strikeout rate has spiked, up to 22.2% from 16.7% last season. His chase rate is back up in conjunction with that, up over 35% after cutting it down to 31.2% last season.
Defensively, Turner has lost all of the gains he made last season. He already has more errors than he had all of last season (8) and is on pace to come close to his brutal 2023 season when he led the majors with 23 errors. It’s even worse if you go by defensive metrics, as his -9 defensive runs saved are tied for second worst in baseball and his -6 defensive run value is fourth worst.
The good news is that Turner has begun to show a pulse offensively for the better part of the last month. Since June 15th, Turner is hitting .286 with a .759 OPS across 106 plate appearances. He started off July well but is currently 1 for his last 13 entering the break. The Phillies need Turner to rediscover some of what made him a batting champion in 2025, because it’s beginning to look like his strong defensive season last year may be an aberration.
José Alvarado
Alvarado looked to be having a renaissance in 2025 before a PED suspension and injuries completely derailed his season. The Phillies elected to pick up his club option for 2026 anyway, believing that he would rebound after a full offseason reset. That decision is not looking wise, as Alvarado is in the midst of the worst season of his career with a 6.82 ERA through 39 games. Opponents are currently slashing .307/.394/.464 against Alvarado. Yordan Alvarez and Yandy Díaz are the only qualified hitters with at least that slash line overall this season.
Despite a walk rate of 8.7% that is right around league average, Alvarado has struggled to throw strikes consistently. The in-zone rates of his two best pitches in the sinker and cutter are both down from his previous few seasons, with the sinker seeing a dramatic drop from three straight seasons over 60% to 53.3% in 2026. Opponents are also not swinging and missing at the cutter at the same rate as they have in years past while they are demolishing the sinker to the tune of a .342 AVG and .481 SLG.
However, there are signs that at least some of Alvarado’s struggles have been due to bad luck and, perhaps more astutely, poor defense. His 11.7 hits per nine is tied for the worst among all relievers with at least 30 IP and it would be the second worst among all pitchers if Alvarado qualified. His .440 batting average on balls in play is the highest in baseball and would be by far the highest in MLB history for a full season, surpassing the .364 BABIP Kevin Gausman posted in 2022. Alvarado’s FIP of 3.25 being almost half of his 6.82 ERA is the biggest evidence that he’s been victimized by the Phillies poor infield defense.
Where the ball goes when hitters make contact is largely outside of his control, but Alvarado can still control the part of his struggles that includes throwing more strikes and limiting contact. He has roughly over two weeks to find some way to improve before the Phillies will be forced to acquire a different left-handed reliever at the deadline.
Aaron Nola
This may seem to be the most obvious one of all and yet the one most people believe has the least chance of actually happening. Nevertheless, the Phillies are in desperate need of back of the rotation pitching and Aaron Nola isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so the easiest path forward would be for Nola to occupy that role. It is much easier said than done of course, as Nola is having yet another nightmare season with a 3-6 record and a 5.76 ERA through 19 starts. His 20 home runs allowed are the third most in baseball despite Nola only logging 97 innings pitched. For context, Bert Blyleven holds the dubious MLB record of allowing the most home runs in a season with 50, but he did it in 271.2 innings. Nola is currently on pace to approach that despite being projected to throw under 200 innings. All of this has been the continuation of a trend of him being one of the worst qualified starting pitchers in baseball.
Nola has shown some signs recently that he may have gained some sort of footing, as in his last two starts, he’s thrown 5 IP with 2 runs and 7 IP with 3 runs allowed. Of course, those two starts were following one of the worst starts of Nola’s career when he blew a 5-0 lead and allowed 8 runs in 4.1 IP. The Phillies don’t need Nola to be an ace or even a mid-rotation starter at this point. What they need him to be is an innings eater that keeps you in games and saves the bullpen. The contract is likely going to go down as a net negative, but that doesn’t mean that the Phillies and Nola can’t salvage some value out of it.
The Phillies are 40-14 in games started by Cristopher Sánchez, Zack Wheeler, and Jesús Luzardo. They are 14-29 in games started by anyone else, including 9-10 in games started by Nola. They are 5-21 in games started by the fifth spot in the rotation that has been a smorgasbord of Andrew Painter, Taijuan Walker, Alan Rangel, and openers. Nola is no longer the same pitcher he was when he signed his seven year, $112M contract and is certainly no longer the pitcher that placed in the top 11 of Cy Young voting four times. But it would be a boon to the Phillies if he can stabilize himself as a quality back of the rotation starter as it would remove one of the question marks from the rotation.
