One of the Philadelphia Phillies’ biggest roster flaws in recent years has been their bullpen. Since Dave Dombrowski became President of Baseball Operations in 2021, the organization has used multiple players to close out games and seal the win over the years:

-Hector Neris
-Ian Kennedy
-Corey Knebel
-David Robertson
-Craig Kimbrel
-Jose Alvarado
-Jeff Hoffman
-Jordan Romano

The 2025 Phillies entered action on July 30th with the 8th-worst Bullpen ERA (4.33) and tied for the 5th-most Blown Saves in Major League Baseball (17). So it was of high importance to get help to fortify Philadelphia’s bullpen before the MLB Trade Deadline at 6 pm EST on July 31st.

Phillies Make First Major Trade of 2025 MLB Trade Deadline

After weeks of speculation about the Minnesota Twins trading their best Relief Pitchers, the Phillies came out on top as several teams were calling about the availability of 27-year-old Closer Jhoan Duran.

The Phillies sent two of their Top Six Prospects to the Twins in exchange for the Closer who has 74 Saves over the last four years. According to Baseball America, Eduardo Tait is a 19-year-old Catcher who is rated as the 3rd best prospect in the Phillies Minor Leagues, and Pitcher Mick Abel was ranked as the sixth best prospect.

Numerous reports earlier in the day stated that the Twins wanted the Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter. But The Athletic’s Matt Gelb had previously reported that Philadelphia has been saying “no” to every team asking about Painter’s availability, the organization’s top rated prospect and ranked Top 10 Prospect in MLB.

According to USA TODAY MLB Insider Bob Nightengale, Catcher Eduardo Tait is the first top-100 MLB Pipeline to be traded at the deadline in the last three years. Philadelphia was willing to trade away a player who is 3-4 years away from being ready to play in the big leagues.

Most important for Philadelphia is that Jhoan Duran is under team control through the 2027 season. This means that the Phillies gave up two top prospects for one of the best Closers in Baseball, who will stay in a Philadelphia uniform until at least 2028.

Duran has a career 2.47 ERA in 223 games pitched over four seasons with the Twins. Along with 74 career Saves, Duran has also allowed a total of 83 runs to score in 233.2 Innings Pitched along with 292 Strikeouts.

After the trade with the Twins, the Phillies still have four of their top five prospects in their Minor League System: Painter, Aidan Miller, Justin Crawford, and Aroon Escobar. I would not be surprised if by the end of the 2025 season that we see Jhoan Duran’s name land on this list of the Phillies top top-selling Jerseys this year:

Top Selling Philadelphia Phillies Uniforms In 2025The Philadelphia Phillies only had two players selected to the 2025 MLB All-Star game but the fans support the players, giving the Phillies one of the best home attendence averages in Baseball. We wanted to know what the best-selling Phillies Jerseys this season. We gathered data from the MLB Shop and combined it with Google Analytics to find out which Phillies Players’ Jerseys are the most popular

Gallery Credit: Josh Hennig/Townsquare Media