STOP ME IF you’ve heard this before, but has there ever been a more frustrating good baseball team than the current Phillies?

Granted, it’s a question that could have been asked for the last five seasons or so: A highly paid, very talented, seemingly well-balanced — and, it must be said, mostly likable — club wins a fair number more games than it loses, yet still sits on the periphery of the sport’s elite. There are the Dodgers, and then there’s everyone else. Or so it seems.

The Phillies are, as they’ve been for a few years now, what they are: A streaky offensive team that, when they’re swinging the bats well, can rack up impressive strings of high-scoring wins. An uncommonly sharp collection of starting pitchers capable of seven innings or so of dazzling stuff that gives even the slumpiest of offenses a puncher’s chance. A whole whose admirable chemistry makes it greater than the sum of its parts.

The flip side is equally true. When the offense — a collection of gifted but uneven hitters — goes cold, low-scoring one-run losses pile up. The bullpen is hair-pullingly hit or miss, as capable of striking out the side as they are of walking the bases loaded. (Sometimes in the same inning.)

In first place at the All-Star Break, the Phils started the second half of the season by wasting two dingers by Bryce Harper and another from Kyle Schwarber. A wobbly start from Jesús Luzardo and (repeat after me) a bullpen failure cost the club in a 6-5 loss to the Angels.

And so with less than two weeks until the trade deadline, the Phillies face what seems to be their perennial question: How much of the future to swap for the present?

It’s easy to squint your eyes and envision Justin Crawford filling a gap that has existed for too long – an outfielder who can hit with consistency. Scrunch them up a little more and there’s Aidan Miller at third, the solid but hardly spectacular Alec Bohm having been flipped for relief help or prospects or both. In the distance is Andrew Painter working through his Triple A woes and stepping in to fill the post-Zack Wheeler void.

Young players offer payroll flexibility and new energy. They are also unproven, as likely to discover that The Show is a hell of a lot harder than it looks on MLB Network as they are to shine.

And that’s what makes all of this such a crapshoot. It’s why Dave Dombrowski and Preston Mattingly have the jobs they do, and we don’t.

Good luck, gentlemen. | DL