How bold should Dave Dombrowski be at the trade deadline? A lot depends on Bryce Harper’s wrist.

One simple rule for Dave Dombrowski at the trade deadline:

Don’t trade any prospect who has the potential to become an impact bat unless it returns an impact player who will still be in his prime once Bryce Harper is no longer in his.

No Aidan Miller. No Eduardo Tait. No Aroon Escobar.

Not for a shutdown closer. Not for a Band-Aid in left field. Not for anybody in their 30s. Not for anybody of any age who doesn’t have the potential to receive MVP votes.

» READ MORE: The Phillies need an MVP Bryce Harper and Otto Kemp in the lineup ... and even then they need more

We’re not necessarily talking Mookie Betts to the Dodgers here. That kind of deal almost never gets done at the trade deadline. It almost never gets done, period. The bare minimum is something along the lines of Jazz Chisholm to the Yankees last season. Even that is up for debate.

The biggest question that Dombrowski and the Phillies must ask themselves as they plot out their trade deadline strategy:

How confident are we that we’ll have Harper in MVP form come October?

This is the question from which all others flow. The public messaging about Harper’s wrist has been murkier than a mud puddle in a SEPTA bus yard.

A reminder of Harper’s own comments on Monday, when the Phillies activated him from the injured list.

“It feels better,” he said. “It feels way better than where I was three weeks ago, four weeks ago. So I’m happy with where we are. Ultimately, it’s going to come down to how I feel each day. … I know we have Thursdays all the way until the middle of August off, so that’ll be good for it. I’m just not sure yet. Like I said, it’s been at a standstill the last couple days of feeling good, so hopefully it stays there.”

Any time a player comes back from a month on the injured list and is still talking about pain management, you’d be foolish to rule out any potential outcome. You’d also be foolish to try to talk your way through it. You can argue that the Phillies wouldn’t have brought Harper back so soon if they thought he might not make it through the rest of the season. Except, if they think some sort of surgery could be on the table, it might make sense to find out sooner rather than later in order to get him back as quickly as possible in 2026. Just mentioning that as a for-instance, to be clear.

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The Harper situation is a bit of a paradox because you can look at it two different ways. The Phillies need him at or close to an MVP level in order to enter the postseason as one of the World Series favorites. If they aren’t confident that will be the case, then they’d need to take a hard look at whether it makes sense to trade anything of value in order to win now. On the flip side, if the wrist ends up being a nonissue, then you can interpret the whole episode as underscoring the urgency of winning now while the Phillies still have Harper in his prime.

He is at the stage of his career where, at any given moment, he will never again be as good as he is right now. That’s true of any player in his early 30s.

Joey Votto had the best season of his career at 33. Aaron Judge currently has a 1.175 OPS at 33. Paul Goldschmidt finished sixth in the MVP voting at 33 and won it at 34. Freddie Freeman has been nearly as good between 33-35 as he was between 26 and 32.

On the other hand …

Nolan Arenado hit 64 home runs with a 134 OPS+ (.848 OPS) at ages 30 and 31 in his first two years in St. Louis. At 32, the OPS+ dropped to 108. At 33, it dropped to 101. This year, it is 95.

Anthony Rizzo had an .858 OPS, 130 OPS+ between the ages of 23-32. The last two years, at 33 and 34, he has a .673 OPS and 88 OPS+.

The best-case scenario is usually a two-stage decline.

Joey Votto, age 31-33: 1.006 OPS, 167 OPS+ in 2,079 PAs

Votto age 34-37: .839 OPS, 118 OPS+, 1,987 PAs

Votto age 38-39: Cooked

The first 6½ years of Harper’s contract have been about as good as anybody could have reasonably hoped. The Phillies are already close to a point where the deal will have been a win regardless of what happens from here on out. In an absolute worst-case scenario, the Phillies would have gotten seven All-Star-caliber seasons for their $330 million. Juan Soto just signed a contract that will pay him $357 million over its first seven seasons.

By no means am I suggesting that Harper is on the precipice of obsolescence. But his year thus far underscores the necessity of the Phillies factoring in their superstar’s aging curve with every decision.

The list of untouchable prospects is only one of the questions that needs to be answered. Are the Phillies willing to deal off the major league roster and risk upsetting the chemistry of a first-place clubhouse? Are they willing to bring on a player who cuts into a name-brand veteran’s playing time? Are they willing to roll the dice on a prospect from the minor league system the way they did with Johan Rojas in 2023?

The only thing we know for sure is that Harper, as always, is the key.