How will the Phillies manage their new-look outfield? Let’s break down the options.

No offense to Harrison Bader, but the Phillies’ best chance to add offense to the outfield would’ve been to trade for a third baseman.

Confused? OK, let’s explain.

The biggest bat that moved at the trade deadline belonged to Eugenio Suárez, who went to the Mariners for three midlevel prospects after hitting 36 homers and slugging .576 for the Diamondbacks. The Phillies discussed a swap for Suárez, according to league sources, but talks didn’t get serious.

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“You talk about, ‘OK, if we get this guy from an offensive perspective, how does our defense look at that particular time?’” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said when asked about trading for a non-outfielder. “‘What adjustments do we need to make? How good a defensive club are we? Do we suffer in that regard?’”

Trading for Suárez, a third baseman in his walk year, would have meant putting Kyle Schwarber in left field to open the DH spot. Or moving Alec Bohm to first base when he gets back from the injured list and taking Bryce Harper up on his offer to return to the outfield for the rest of the season.

The Phillies lacked interest in either scenario, Dombrowski said, even though Suárez’s right-handed power would’ve given Harper better protection than fellow right-handed hitters J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos provide.

“They were open about it,” Dombrowski said of Schwarber and/or Harper moving to the outfield. “But internally, that wasn’t our preference.”

So, the Phillies made a more incremental trade for Bader, a righty-hitting outfielder who plays Gold Glove defense in center field and left field. He’s also having his best season at the plate since 2021, which meant batting .258 with 12 homers and a .778 OPS for the Twins, better numbers than any Phillies outfielder but far from, say, Juan Soto.

As Dombrowski put it, “It’s not like he is hitting .400. He’s been just producing on a regular basis.”

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Even so, manager Rob Thomson hasn’t installed Bader as an everyday player. Not yet. With the Phillies facing three lefty starters and three righties on a just-completed homestand, Thomson ran platoons in center field (Brandon Marsh and Bader) and left (Max Kepler and Weston Wilson).

Does he expect to stick with that arrangement?

“I’ll think about it [Thursday],” Thomson said.

Let’s examine a few of the options:

In rotating four outfielders through two positions for six games, Thomson seemed only to be delaying a decision.

But — small sample alert! — it kind of worked.

Bader, Wilson, Marsh, and Kepler homered once on the homestand. Marsh went 4-for-10, the continuation of a 27-game stretch in which he’s batting .288 with four homers and an .832 OPS in 89 plate appearances.

None comes close to Suárez as a middle-of-the-order force. Even Castellanos, third on the team in homers (15) and slugging (.430), has been only a league-average hitter based on OPS+.

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But maybe playing the platoon advantage will amplify Marsh in particular. He remains much more productive against righties (.792 OPS in 223 plate appearances) than lefties (.541 in 58 plate appearances); Kepler hasn’t done much against righties (.680) or lefties (.564).

A double-outfield platoon famously worked for the 1993 Phillies, who had Milt Thompson and Pete Incaviglia share left field and Jim Eisenreich and Wes Chamberlain split time in right.

Kepler complained in June about sitting out against lefty starters. He insisted this week that he has adapted, not that he has much choice.

“Early in the year, I was new to the platoon thing,” he said. “At this point, I’ve accepted it. It’s a collective thing moving forward. We want to win ballgames, and I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be a part of this puzzle.”

Unlike the Phillies’ other outfielders, righty-hitting Bader hits lefties and righties equally. In fact, his .444 slugging percentage against righties is third on the team behind Schwarber (.554) and Harper (.516).

It’s the best argument for playing Bader every day.

”I can see him playing against right-handed pitching, as well," Thomson said.

Thomson noted that Bader is the Phillies’ best defensive center fielder. If he plays more regularly, it would nudge Marsh to left. The metrics rate Marsh as a better defender in left than center anyway, with Thomson recently calling him “one of the best left fielders in baseball.”

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And after mostly shielding Marsh from lefty starters over the last few years, Thomson hinted that he might be more inclined to turn him loose.

“I don’t know the numbers, but just looking from my eyes, the at-bats against left-handed pitching have been really good,” Thomson said. “He’s made some pretty good contact. I like what I see with him. He’s worked hard at it.”

Said Marsh: “Honestly, I just simplified a lot. Had a lot of moving parts to start the year, and the competition’s pretty damn good out there. So I had to simplify to get to the spot where I wanted to be.”

Team officials have waged a running debate about calling up 21-year-old prospect Justin Crawford or keeping him in triple A to continue developing as a center fielder.

But everyone agrees: Crawford must play every day.

There’s a path to daily at-bats for Crawford at the bottom of the order and in center field or left. But it would mean a Marsh-Bader timeshare in the other spot. It also likely would spell Kepler’s release. The Phillies would owe him approximately $3 million.

“We think [Crawford] is ready to play at the big league level,” Dombrowski said last week. “We could bring him up. If we do bring him up, he needs to play a lot. I’m not sure that we’re in a position to do that at this point today.

“But he’s not somebody that we would hesitate to bring up if we decide that was the right thing to do.”