Yeah I agree. When you aren’t trying to make the playoffs, adding a guy down the stretch who is a worse hitter than I am is meaningless.
Do you have among the best OAA in the league? The problem was his playing time. Negative hit/great d/good base running can have a place at the end of the roster, heck Trent Grisham was a CLS starter, but unfortunately he started multiple times in his two weeks here, shouldn't have gotten more than a handful of PAs a week.
But I know this isn't going to be a productive conversation so I'm done with it, have one more rebuttal if you'd like.
ETA: Phillips' real problem was symbolic. We just traded Mancini and Lopez, the fans at least are hoping to contend, and this is what we got to help out? Everyone would have mostly accepted promoting Stowers, but making an outside move like that made little sense. No one, I think, cared so much about Chris Owings, who played a lot more and was even worse due to lack of good d, but that was a different time of year. Tying back to this thread, if we re-signed Aguilar that would be similarly symbolic in a bad way, IMO. It's time to make real moves, and that ain't one.