Phillies

I Can’t Believe the Phillies Traded Ramon Marquez, Who I Hadn’t Heard of Until Today

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Aug 3rd, 2026 · 11:30 AM EDT

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One of the guys the Phillies traded for Luis Arraez is Ramon Marquez, who was the fourth-ranked prospect in the farm system:

Ramon Marquez, the main piece in the Arraez deal, is a 20-year-old right-hander with a 1.68 ERA in the minors this year. Giants viewed him as one of the best pitching prospects who would be moved, and now their second-best pitching prospect (behind Jackson Flora).

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) August 3, 2026

There’s been some grumbling on the timeline about losing this Marquez guy, who casual Philly sports fans had probably not even heard of until today. I know I didn’t. But if you’re a Phillies-first fan, sure, you know the top 10 or 15 guys in the farm system, which is consistently ranked in the bottom half of Major League Baseball anyway.

At this current moment, the Phillies have two prospects ranked inside the top 75 at MLB.com. One is Gage Wood, who is rising quickly through the ranks. The other is Aidan Miller, who is suffering from some sort of Sixers-like back injury and has dropped entirely off the face of the Earth, for now. He will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

It’s funny to see the reaction either way, because Andrew Painter, Justin Crawford, and Miller were considered untouchable in recent seasons, and only one of them has done anything for the Phillies this season. Painter has been an abject disaster while Crawford is having a steady, if unspectacular first season in the majors.

So that should have shifted the current zeitgeist on prospects being untouchable. I thought it did. Maybe I was wrong. Sixto Sanchez was once considered untouchable. Dom Brown was untouchable. Kyle Drabek. J.P. Crawford. Adam Haseley. Spencer Howard. Mick Abel. Mickey Moniak. Logan O’Hoppe, etc.

Ask yourself, seriously – who is on the current Phillies list of “I can’t believe we let this guy get away“? It’s not a long list. It may not even exist.

The prospect thing will always be overrated. Like losing Isaiah Joe. Surely the Sixers would have won it all if they had kept Isaiah Joe! And the Phillies are old anyway. You’re hanging onto these prospects for what? For non-guaranteed reinforcement when the veteran core is all 36 years old and trying to win the World Series for the 8th season in a row?

FOR WHO? FOR WHAT?