Huh.
Listen, I know that the trade deadline brings us all kinds of wild rumors. You’ll no doubt be inundated with talk of this player and that player being sent to one place or another, and by this point the names are pretty much known.
Eugenio Suarez.
Luis Robert.
These are players that you can point to and have a pretty reasonable idea that they are going to be dealt at some point. However, there is always a surprise at the deadline, a player moved that we had never even considered to be available that is all of a sudden cleaning out his locker and moving to the next team. Might we have found one?
Source: The Phillies are one of the teams that’s trying to trade for Pirates CF Oneil Cruz. Philly has gotten terrible play in CF this year. And they are interested in seeing what Cruz could do in a lineup with Harper Schwarber and Turner. Good veteran influences. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/wLmSG02yrO
— Andrew Fillipponi (@ThePoniExpress) July 24, 2025
At first, my skepticism was also firmly in place, especially with this kind of rumor and this kind of rumor dropper (?). However, dig a little more and there seems to be some validity to it. Prior to this, there was one of the beat reporters talking about this very possibility happening. Maybe not with the Phillies, but definitely in the realm of reasonable rumors to be thrown around.
A few updates on this:
➡️ Just learned that the Yankees are one of many teams who have checked in on Oneil Cruz.
➡️ I’ve also been told the Pirates don’t expect to trade Cruz before this year’s deadline. https://t.co/8wn35Iawbx
— Noah Hiles (@_NoahHiles) July 24, 2025
So are the Phillies considered to be one of “many teams” that have at least checked in? Remember, this duo of local Pittsburgh media outlets also talked about the team’s interest in David Bednar and Dennis Santana last month, which means that Cruz’s name could have come up in this same conversations. It would be somewhat irresponsible of Dave Dombrowski not to at least ask about Cruz at least once, especially if they’re intent on taking some big swings this trade deadline.
Is pursuing Cruz something that the Phillies should be interested in? At first blush, sure. The team needs talent in the outfield, preferably the kind of talent that is game changing and Cruz is bursting with that. Dig further down and the prospect of bringing Cruz to Philadelphia starts to get a little less appetizing. He doesn’t hit left handed pitching at all (a 36 wRC+ against lefties this season) and he strikes out a ton. He’s played a great center field defense this year, which is a point in his favor, but the biggest issue with bringing Cruz to join the Phillies’ lineup is the cost it would be.
Trading Cruz would probably be cause for Pirates fans to bring charges against their ownership, but the price it would take to trade would him would astronomical. We’re talking something like Andrew Painter AND Aidan Miller AND something else as well. Is he really the game changing bat the team would like to acquire? If Pittsburgh hasn’t found a way to unlock all the talent oozing from his pores, what track record does the coaching staff in Philadelphia have that they would be the ones to do so?
It’s not a bad idea to think of Cruz in Philadelphia, it’s just probably not in the realm of possible.