BREAKING: Jhoan Duran is a Phillie

The first domino falls.

Dave Dombrowski - much to the chagrin of the haters, doubters, pessimists, and losers who constantly criticize and baselessly beg the Phillies to give him his marching orders - has acquired Relief Pitcher Jhoan Duran from the Minnesota Twins. And he got him for cheap.

All day long the word was the Twins' asking price started with Andrew Painter, the Phillies top prospect and #8 in all of baseball. This report even came out days ago and was phony from the beginning.

I'm no Einstein, but you'd be a fool to not call their bluff. It was obvious they were getting too big for their britches - they already had tremendous leverage, being one of the few sellers on the market and owning one of the best relief arms available, under team control for a few years. They had a gem on their hands. And they got too greedy.

Instead of getting their asking price of Andrew Painter, the Twins settled for Phillies #4 and #6 prospects, respectively, C Eduardo Tait and SP Mick Abel. Tait, a nice player, is in A ball. Abel, an impressive prospect, showed he's not major league ready when he was thrust into the Phillies rotation earlier this year, only to be sent back down to AAA. After getting that preview of Abel, it seems as though many Phillies fans have no problem saying goodbye to him, but some are hung up on the Tait departure.

He's 18-years-old. He's hitting .255 in Single A. I'm not saying he's a bad play, I'm sure he'll be a fine player one day. But 2025 is not that day. Not on the Phillies major league club.

Jhoan Duran - a proven closer and one of the best relief arms in the game - will benefit the Phillies far more than an 18-year-old prospect who is years away from the majors. This is an A+ trade from Dave Dombrowski - an A++, if you will. The Twins ridiculous asking price alienated the Dodgers and other ball clubs, and Dombrowski stuck around long enough to get his guy.

Meanwhile, the Mets traded away major league arm Jose Butto, as well as Blade Tidwell (Mets #10 prospect), and Drew Gilbert (another prospect) - a decent amount of value - for Tyler Rogers.

This is a terrific start to the deadline for Dave Dombrowski. He acquired an elite reliever under team control for a few years and kept their top four prospects - SP Andrew Painter, SS Aidan Miller, OF Justin Crawford, and 2B Aroon Escobar. I fully support trading away one of those guys (not Painter, who is untouchable and they will not trade) for an impact bat. This is only the beginning.