Phillies Fans Might Be Disappointed Again This Winter

The Philadelphia Phillies absolutely need to make changes this MLB offseason in order to truly elevate themselves to World Series contenders.

The problem is that the Phillies are sort of hamstrung.

Everyone knows the team has holes, and those holes are obvious. Philadelphia needs a couple of more bats, particularly one in the outfield. It needs better contact hitters. It also needs a lot of help in the bullpen.

But where will the Phillies find all of those pieces?

The free-agent market is rather thin, and while Philadelphia can explore trades, the Phillies don't exactly have a deep farm system with tons of desirable assets.

On top of that, Philadelphia's financial situation is a mess.

The Phillies have quite a few bad contracts on the roster, namely in the form of Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Aaron Nola.

Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are also getting paid big money on long-term deals, and Cristopher Sanchez and Jesus Luzardo just signed extensions.

So just trade some of those players to offload the money, right? Well, it isn't that easy.

Turner, Nola and Harper all have full no-trade clauses in their contracts. Realmuto and Schwarber both have 10-and-5 rights, meaning they can veto any deal.

Sanchez and Luzardo aren't getting traded, nor should they.

Really, the Phillies might be stuck with all of that cash on the books, and given how much owner John Middleton seems to be monitoring the payroll these days, I'm not sure how much leeway he will give Dave Dombrowski in terms of spending.

Last offseason, Philadelphia was largely inactive. It signed Adolis Garcia and Brad Keller, both of whom ended up getting knocked out for the season due to injuries. And neither was any good when healthy, anyway.

Yes, the Phils tried to sign Bo Bichette, but he ultimately signed a shorter-term, higher AAV deal with the New York Mets (which ended up being a blessing).

But otherwise, the Phillies did next to nothing to genuinely improve their roster last winter in a much deeper free-agent class.

So why should Philadelphia fans expect the team to make any truly game-changing moves in the coming months?

Perhaps losing early in the playoffs for the third straight year will grease the wheels a bit, but I'm not entirely confident that we will see the Phillies go all in.

Surely, they'll do something, but will they do enough to make the fanbase happy? That much is debatable.