Bryce Harper took the wrong approach. But that’s not saying he wasn’t completely right.

Bryce Harper was right to be frustrated.

He had the right diagnosis. He had the right prescription. He had the right motivation.

He took the wrong approach.

The first four of those things are the only ones that should matter to anybody invested in the Phillies’ approach to this year’s MLB trade deadline. That goes for the fanbase and the members of the media, both social and mass.

To the bloggers, the Twitterers and the TikTokkers, the radio gabbers, the ink-stained goobers still typing with two hands, and to anybody else who has spent the last couple of days displacing their aggression upon a guy who desperately wants to win and has served honorably on the mission ... let’s all heed the words of QB1 and “keep the main thing the main thing.”

» READ MORE: The Phillies do ‘need some help’ by trades. But they also need some from Bryce Harper and his teammates.

The main thing is this: Harper is right.

“I think we need some help,” Harper told reporters earlier this week. “But you know, I think we’ve proved pretty much all year we’ve done a pretty good job. But anytime you can get some help in here and reinforcements, I think it helps.”

The Phillies need all the help they can find. Rarely does a World Series contender arrive at August with this many holes. Dave Dombrowski will be doing his roster a massive disservice if he operates in triage mode. Starting pitching? Relief pitching? One outfielder? Two? Yes and yes and yes and yes. If the Phillies want to escape the slippery slope they are currently sliding down, they can’t afford to treat the deadline as an either-or proposition.

“I think both,” Harper said when asked whether the Phillies need an arm or a bat. “Obviously, everybody knows what we need...”

Is it unrealistic to think that the Phillies can acquire everything they need over the next three days? Maybe. But they darn sure need to try. Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Zack Wheeler — all are at points of their career where they may never be as good again as they are right now.

Factor in Jesús Luzardo and Jhoan Duran and Cristopher Sanchez and the Phillies almost certainly will never have another season with this much individual dominance among their stars. That group alone is enough to give the Phillies a near-even chance in practically any playoff series. But they need to get there, and they need to do it with enough depth to win three of four series in a row.

» READ MORE: Brandon Marsh learned a lot clawing out of his last slump. He’s relying on those lessons to get right again.

Unrealistic? Maybe not when considering how low the bar for improvement is. The Phillies entered Thursday with the lowest on-base percentage in the majors. There’s no mystery why they seem to struggle to score runs. The fewer men a team puts on base, the fewer of them can score.

Harper sees it. Think about your frustration level when watching it on TV. Now think about how you’d feel if you were watching it from the dugout, or the on-deck circle, or while standing on second base.

The five most discouraging words in the human language are, “Now batting fifth, Edmundo Sosa.” The seven most discouraging words: “Now batting sixth, Bryan De La Cruz”. The Phillies lineup right now is Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber and a bunch of replacement-level players.

That’s almost literally true, by the way.

Besides Schwarber and Harper, the only two regulars with a positive offensive WAR are Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh. The Phillies entered Thursday with MLB’s fourth-worst aggregate WAR among position players. That’s especially damning when you consider how good Harper and Schwarber have been. The only teams worse are the Mets, Rockies, and Reds. Just ahead of them are the Blue Jays and Angels. All will be selling off their rosters over the next few days.

» READ MORE: The Phillies must go through the Dodgers. To do it they’ll need to find a lefty reliever at the trade deadline.

The Phillies shouldn’t need to bankrupt their system to bring in a line change at the trade deadline. Four years ago, they acquired Marsh, David Robertson, Noah Syndergaard, and Edmundo Sosa midseason. Two years ago, they landed Austin Hays, Carlos Estevez, and Tanner Banks. Last year, they traded for Duran and Harrison Bader and also signed Robertson. Quantity is rarely an issue.

Rarely has it been so sorely needed.

The trade deadline’s dirty little secret is that it doesn’t matter nearly as much as everybody dreams it does. Baseball is too fluky a sport to expect two months of game-changing impact simply because you paid a high price. I would venture to guess that Dombrowski’s results haven’t been better or worse than the average GM.

He won the Marsh deal, marginally lost the Hays deal, and more or less got what he paid for in aggregate. One exception could be the 2023 trade for starter Michael Lorenzen. Prospect Hao-Yu Lee is hitting .307 with an .817 OPS in his last 51 games for the Tigers. He bats right-handed, by the way.

The overarching point here is the process. The smoke signals are at least promising. The Phillies scouted Mets righty Clay Holmes’ rehab outing earlier this week. He’s a guy who would make a ton of sense, both as a rotation stabilizer in the present and as a potential postseason swingman in the future.

A report from the New York Post had the Phillies interested in Blue Jays outfielder Daulton Varsho. The son of former Phillie Gary Varsho, he had five extra-base hits in the Blue Jays’ American League Division Series win over the Yankees last October. He’s left-handed, but, again, the Phillies need help everywhere. Plus, he can play center field.

The broader point about Holmes and Varsho is they are the guys the Phillies should be targeting. Each is a couple months way from free agency. Dombrowski and John Middleton both have a history of taking big swings on players with years of club control beyond the present season. Duran and Marsh both fit that profile.

Before them: Hunter Pence, Cliff Lee, etc. The Phillies’ needs are broad enough that they can’t afford to pay a premium price for any single player. Rentals sure look like the way to go for a team in their situation. Add the Orioles’ Taylor Ward to the list.

As for Harper? From at least one perspective, the debate about his comments is much ado about nothing. There’s nothing less consequential than a player’s relationship with his front office.

From another perspective, Harper would be wise to reconsider his approach. Nothing that he says is going to change a thing about how the Phillies operate at the deadline. It’s far more likely that his outspokenness ramps up the pressure on the guys whom he has implicitly deemed to be not good enough.

The issue is not so much clubhouse chemistry as it is individual psyche and its impact on performance. Sure, some guys need a kick in the butt. But many others need a comfort zone. Whatever Harper’s evaluation of the talent around him, however accurate it is, the Phillies are likely going to need at least one or two of them to perform to win a World Series.

Next time, he’d be better off keeping his honesty off the record and taking comfort in the fact that the rest of us already know exactly what the Phillies need to do.

Watch the latest episode

Jim Bowden spent 16 years as a general manager with the Reds and Nationals before becoming an MLB analyst and commentator. And with the trade deadline approaching — Aug. 3 at 6 p.m. — he joined Phillies Extra to discuss the Phillies’ needs, some potential targets, and what it’s like to be a GM in the frenzied days leading up to the deadline. Watch here.

You can also subscribe to the podcast version of Phillies Extra on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Previous episodes: John Middleton | Ryan Howard | Dan Baker | Ricky Bottalico | Preston Mattingly | Caleb Cotham | Larry Bowa | Joe Maddon | Rhys Hoskins