Odd that this would need an update, but here we are.
The Phillies, stocked with what seemed like a veritable who's who of tradeable pieces -- Cliff Lee, Chase Utley, Michael Young, Carlos Ruiz, Delmon Young, Kyle Kendrick, John Lannan, some relievers, Jonathan Papelbon, Pistachio Girl, et al -- have stood pat. Your post-deadline 2013 Phillies are...your pre-deadline 2013 Phillies. As Grant is fond of saying at McCovey Chronicles, there is no "rock bottom." Not really.
Dramatics aside, Ruben Amaro has commented on the situation to Corey Seidman as such:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Amaro- didn't find any satisfactory trades. So we didn't do anything.</p>— Pat Gallen (@PatGallen_975) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatGallen_975/statuses/362670490294296580">July 31, 2013</a></blockquote>
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If this is true, then it makes all the sense in the world not to have traded Lee, Utley, and Kendrick. And certainly, we knew Papelbon was a longshot due to his contract, his declining performance, and his being a bunghole of a person recently. But I think all of us were at least expecting some of the soon-to-be-free-agents-who-won't-get-a-QO to be out the door. Particularly Michael Young. And while an August waiver trade is certainly likely, at least in theory, the return will be less, and we'll still have this lumbering mess of a team moving forward. It's a bummer -- you're allowed to feel bummed!
But remember -- you could be the Royals, who traded their number 10 prospect -- a 20 year old kid with a K/9 around 10 and a BB/9 around 2.5 -- for fifth outfielder Justin Maxwell. You could also be the Orioles, who gave up a competitive balance pick, a credible looking OF (LJ Hoes), and a SP prospect (Josh Hader) for glorified righty specialist Bud Norris. Remember: making no moves doesn't feel great, and, yes, they probably should've figured something out for Young, but at least they didn't trade Lee for peanuts. At least they kept their valuable pieces if they saw nothing they liked. It's not a great deadline, but it ain't the worst.
Now let's settle in the next few weeks to watch Cody Asche play the OF for the first time in his entire pro career on the MLB level because we have too many 1B/LF players, like a bad fantasy team run by an algorithm designed to infuriate me.