“I think it gives them a chance to stabilize their pitching situation in the rotation and the bullpen, and those have been their biggest issues,” one NL scout said. “I like what they did, moving (Ranger) Suarez to the rotation because Kennedy gives them more depth in the pen.

“Gibson is a nice pickup for them, because they’re not asking him to pitch at the front of the rotation. You need to see if it works there for him, because he’s a sinker-slider guy who needs his defense to help him, and the Phillies aren’t good defensively, but he’s solid and Suarez has good stuff. They can hit so maybe the pieces start to come together for them now.”

It’s worth remembering the Phillies have been wildly inconsistent. And as of Wednesday, they are only one game over .500, moving to within 1 ½ games of the division lead only because the Mets are staggering, having lost three straight game and five of their last six.

Still, to the scout’s point, the Phillies’ trade essentially added two starters to a rotation that ranks 12^th in the NL with a 4.42 ERA. Gibson slots in nicely behind Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, and Suarez, a 25-year-old lefty, has been moved to the rotation, where he delivered three shutout innings in a win on Monday.

“It makes them better as long as Kennedy performs for them (as a late-inning reliever) and Archie Bradley continues to pitch well,” said an exec from another National League team. “Their pen has been a little better lately but there’s a lot of scar tissue there.

“I do like that they addressed their pitching at the deadline but I think the biggest factor in that division could be that the Mets needed to do more.”

Yes, much like the fans, evaluators were puzzled that the Mets didn’t do more to help their pitching, especially knowing at some point early Friday afternoon that a rehabbing Jacob deGrom needed to be shut down due to an MRI that showed inflammation in his elbow.

“Look, you can’t replace deGrom, obviously,” one scout said. “And they had added Rich Hill, a decent pickup but he’s a five-inning starter. (Taijuan) Walker is wearing down and (Carlos) Carrasco is just coming back, and they’re counting heavily on the kid (Tylor) Megill who has looked good but you just don’t know if it will last with him.

“So to me they had to find a way to add another starter. At worst they should have taken (Zach) Davies over Trevor Williams in the Cubs’ deal. Davies is a soft-tosser who can get beat up at times, but when his change-up is right he can give you some really solid starts.

“If you want to say the Twins were asking too much for (Jose) Berrios, OK, I get it. The Blue Jays paid a stiff price for him but if I’m the Mets and I’m giving up a first-round draft pick (Pete Crow-Armstrong) for Javy Baez, I think they’d have been better off biting the bullet and making a deal for Berrios. At least he’s under control for another year. You can’t tell me that they’re going to lock up Baez for huge money to play second base when they’re already paying (Francisco) Lindor.

“I know there wasn’t a lot of pitching out there but there was some. Gibson is another guy who made sense for the Mets. Maybe the timing of the deGrom setback caught them by surprise but at that point you up the offer even for a guy like Jon Gray. The only reason the Rockies didn’t move Gray was because the offers weren’t good enough.

“Look, I’m not saying the Mets weren’t in a tough spot. They’ve got some high-end prospects but their farm system lacks depth so they were limited in what they could do. And their core guys are going to have to hit for them no matter what they did. But they have to be second-guessing themselves about not adding more pitching.”

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