Some of the best parts of the offseason are the little moves that end up playing much bigger parts down the road.
When Dave Dombrowski arrived in Philadelphia, one of the first things he did was acquire Jose Alvarado from the Tampa Bay Rays as a challenge trade. Not a challenge trade in the sense that we think of, where players are swapped as last chance moves, but one where Alvarado was challenged to start throwing strikes or he’d be out of a job. That move has paid massive dividends for the Phillies years later as Alvarado is the best reliever the team has right now.