The 2010 Major League Baseball trade deadline is just over a month away with the deadline being its customary date of July 31st on a yearly basis.

Over the next month I will try and tackle every Major League team as the deadline approaches to see if they will be buyers, sellers or stick to their current roster.

I will be basing my assumptions on the direction the team is going, their record as of the date I post the article, possible roster injuries and so on and so forth.

I will provide the information about each team by division. I began last week with the National League East’s Atlanta Braves & New York Mets.

Today I will continue my look at the NL East with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Coming into play today the Phillies were sitting in third place in the division with a 40-34 record, three and a half games behind division leading Atlanta and one and a half games behind the second place Mets.

The reigning National League champions were poised to win another division, hopefully returning to the World Series again this season when they went out and made the biggest off-season splash, acquiring former American League Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays.

The team had to give up a large number of top prospects such as Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor & Travis D’Arnaud, as well as perennial left hander Cliff Lee in order to acquire Halladay, but the move was going to be the one to earn them another World Series title.

With one of baseball’s best offenses featuring Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino & Chase Utley combined with a pitching staff that featured Halladay, Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer, Joe Blanton & J.A. Happ the team was most certainly the front runner for the NL title coming into 2010.

However, after a customary good start the Phillies have had to deal with numerous injuries to key players such as Happ, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Madson, Carlos Ruiz and most recently Utley and sit in third place in the division.

Despite the injuries to key pieces, as well as a slow start from outfielder Raul Ibanez, the Phillies sit just three and a half games back and can easily be described as the most dangerous offensive line-up in baseball, especially at home in hitter friendly Citizens Bank Park.

The team has survived with Brian Schneider behind the plate replacing Ruiz and Juan Castro & Wilson Valdez filling in for Rollins and have even seen the resurgence of the ageless wonder Jamie Moyer, who some critics thought would have his career come to an end after a poor 2009 season.

With the team sitting so close to their nearest competition in the division race for the NL East crown the Phillies could be one of the team’s baseball fans expect to make a move come the July 31st trade deadline, but with the team’s farm system depleted behind super prospect Domonic Brown and the return from the Seattle Mariners for Cliff Lee, as well as a high payroll ($138, 178, 379) the Phils may be better suited to wait for players to return from injury and go for the title with what they already possess, which is a ton of talent.

Happ & Ruiz are both expected back in early July and the team will also see the return of bullpen pieces Chad Durbin & Antonio Bastardo sometime in the not too distant future so the team should be solidified for a playoff run, with one exception, Madson.

For fans who do not follow Phillies baseball, Madson is an essential roster piece in my mind for the team. He fortifies the backend of the Phillies bullpen and has stepped in for closer Brad Lidge in the past when he has struggled. He has also been dominant in past playoff series for his team in a late inning role. Madson is currently on the 60-day disabled list with a broken right big toe, listed as possibly coming back sometime before the All-Star break, but no immediate date has been determined. He is scheduled to make his second Class A rehab appearance today which is a good sign.

With the Phillies possessing a strong bullpen featuring veterans such as J.C Romero, Danys Baez & Jose Contreras (who may be one of the best low-market signings of the off-season) they have the ability to overcome the loss of Madson as well as Durbin and Bastardo, but I could see the team possibly adding a reliever for their playoff run if one of their injured bullpen arms is unable to return as quickly as the team had hoped.

I personally think the team has a surplus of right handed bullpen help and could use a situational lefty reliever more than anything.

In the off-season the team lost situational lefty Scott Eyre to retirement and a lefty specialist with his ability will be tough to come by at this season’s trade deadline. The team is using lefties Romero and Mike Zagurski at the present time, but Zagurski has only logged 24.2 career innings pitched for the team, while Romero is primarily a seventh inning reliever for the Phillies.

If the Phillies wanted a left handed veteran to add to their bullpen the team could ask the Baltimore Orioles to make the likes of Will Ohman or Mark Hendrickson available, while the Pittsburgh Pirates could offer Javier Lopez. The Toronto Blue Jays are not in sell-mode just yet, but the possibility could arise with them trading away lefty Scott Downs or the Phillies could go to the free agent market after the likes of Scott Schoeneweis, although he has struggled in stints with the Milwaukee Brewers & Boston Red Sox this season. The price for Downs could be an expensive option for the Philliess as he is making $4 million this season and the Jays would most certainly want a lot in return for him, but the payout for any of the other relievers could be a low level prospect (not in the case of Schoeneweis as he is a free agent) and a small amount of money, as Hendrickson tops out the list with his $1.4 million salary for 2010.

As the July 31st trade deadline approaches some teams are buyers, as the Phillies were last season in acquiring Lee & Ben Francisco from the Cleveland Indians for a package of prospects, while some teams are sellers, but sometimes the best move a team can make is to do nothing. Surely, some fans would like to see the Phillies add to their current rotation, but with Happ returning and Blanton hopefully turning it around the move would be an unnecessary one.

With the Phillies perhaps owning one of the best current rosters in all of Major League Baseball the team might just need to wait out the injuries to some key players and than worry about dealing with their competition after the trade deadline, but if they do pickup a bullpen piece to help with the stretch run than the move surely wouldn’t hurt the team, especially if the return of someone like Madson is delayed any further.

Despite their current third place NL East position I would fully expect the Phillies to be in contention for the remainder of the season as they look to win their fourth consecutive NL East title.

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