Jeff Passan says the Phillies are ‘likely’ to trade Matt Strahm

Jeff Passan dropped his latest free agency notebook at ESPN, and the Phillies quietly popped up in the final stretch of it. In one of the last sentences, Passan mentioned Matt Strahm as a player Philadelphia is likely to trade this offseason.

That’s not exactly a throwaway line, especially when it’s coming from Passan and not the usual vague “people around the league think” filler. When he puts something like that in print, it’s usually because there’s real smoke behind it.

Jeff Passan on Phillies likely trading Matt Strahm:

The only closer left is Pete Fairbanks, who should get either multiple years or well over the $11 million option declined by Tampa Bay. Beyond that, the pickings are slim. Seranthony Dominguez throws hard, strikes out hitters and should find a soft landing. Shawn Armstrong was among the most unhittable relievers in baseball this year. An array of left-handers, from Sean Newcomb to Taylor Rogers to Danny Coulombe, could be snatched up soon, though the best available one is Matt Strahm, who is likely to be traded by Philadelphia.

Matt Strahm is under contract for one more season at $7.5 million, with a vesting option for 2026 that kicks in if he reaches 60 innings and passes a year-end physical. That’s a very tradeable contract for a left-handed reliever, especially one with a recent track record of elite production.

He wasn’t quite the same pitcher in 2025 as he was during his All-Star run in 2024, but he was still plenty effective. His ERA rose from an absurd 1.87 to a more human 2.74, while both his hits allowed and walk rates crept up.

The stuff didn’t feel quite as overpowering, and that showed in big moments, most notably the home run he surrendered to Teoscar Hernández in Game 1 of the NLDS that ultimately doomed the Phillies.

That moment tends to stick in people’s heads, fairly or not, and it probably plays into why the Phillies are open to moving him. The reality is Matt Strahm didn’t feel like the same automatic weapon late in games this year, and if the front office believes 2024 was the peak, now might be the time to cash in.

Left-handed bullpen arms with strikeout ability don’t exactly grow on trees, and plenty of contenders could convince themselves that a slight dip doesn’t erase his value.

If the Phillies ultimately decide to move Strahm, it would signal a clearer and younger vision for the bullpen. A group anchored by Jhoan Duran, José Alvarado, Orion Kerkering, Tanner Banks, and Brad Keller would still be more than capable, just built with a different identity.

It would skew heavily toward power arms and velocity rather than matchup-dependent specialists, and that appears to be a direction the organization is increasingly comfortable embracing.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about unloading Matt Strahm for the sake of it. He’s still a quality reliever on a reasonable contract with real value around the league. If the Phillies put him on the table, teams will line up.

This is about leverage and roster construction, not a salary dump. The front office is weighing whether turning one more year of Matt Strahm into a longer-term asset makes more sense than riding it out.

Now we’ll see how confident the Phillies are in the bullpen arms behind Matt Strahm, and whether they believe 2025 was an outlier or the start of something more concerning.

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