PHILADELPHIA — Paul Toboni knows the optics of his trade-deadline moves.

He professed his belief in the 2026 Nationals while in the same breath explaining his decision to trade away corner infielders Curtis Mead (.851 OPS) and Luis García Jr. (.873 OPS) to the Red Sox and the Yankees, respectively, and All-Star left-hander Foster Griffin to the Guardians.

By shipping out the trio, Washington received nine pitchers — starters Connelly Early, Jack Cebert and Josh Hartle, and relievers Jake Bird, Yovanny Cruz, Will Dion, Ben Grable, Joe Glassey and Kendeglys Virguez — and Double-A outfielder Nick Mitchell.

But that’s the line that Toboni has to straddle as president of baseball operations. Balancing the Nationals’ present and future comes with the job. Since assuming his current position in 2025, Toboni has said that he wants to build a sustainable winner in Washington.

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“It’s probably my brain and my heart at odds too, right?” Toboni said Monday. “Where it’s like, ‘Hey, we want to make sure this is really stable. At the same time, when I say it, I hope that when [James Wood] hears it or [CJ Abrams] hears it they sense that it’s genuine. At the end of the day, no matter who the players are on our team or who the staff is, whatever it might be, our job is to realize our potential and give it our best, and hopefully the fans will receive that, and it’ll make them happy, and we can create this really awesome thing and a great organization.”

A week ago at Nationals Park, Toboni said that this year’s team had an “it factor.” Part of the calculus in trading for Early was that he would be able to return from the injured list and contribute to the rotation this season.

Pitching is at a premium in the majors, particularly arms under club control for multiple years. The Nationals identified pitchers who could fill up the strike zone and induce weak contact.

Toboni singled out Cruz (acquired from New York) and Dion (acquired from Cleveland) as relievers who could help out the major league team this season. Cruz has shown promise over four games with the Yankees, posting a 1.69 ERA in his limited exposure to the big leagues, with an impressive 30% strikeout rate. But there will be adjustments as he gets acclimated.

Grable, a 24-year-old reliever at Double-A, could be in the majors this season. Toboni called him “one of the best relief pitchers in Minor League Baseball over the course of the last four months.” Grable has an impressive 13.75 strikeouts per nine innings across two levels, with low walk rates.

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The bullpen was the biggest culprit for this team’s shortcomings in the first half. Adding talented arms to the unit was a priority at the deadline.

“We’re trying to thread the needle and figure out a way to like create this stable foundation over the long run,” Toboni said, “while also giving ourselves a chance to win this year.”

Toboni’s saying that he wants to give the team a chance this year is a tougher sell, considering he shipped out three of the team’s best players. It’ll be interesting to see how the lineup performs down the stretch.

First baseman Abimelec Ortiz, who homered in Monday’s game against the Phillies, ostensibly replaces García as a left-handed hitter against righties. Jorbit Vivas and Brady House will platoon at third base in lieu of Mead. But replacing García’s and Mead’s production is a tall task.

“It’s really tough to replace those guys,” Toboni said. “They’ve been two of the best hitters in the major leagues this year, and I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to expect folks to just hop right in and replace them one for one. Having said that, a huge reason why our offense has been really good to date is that it’s been a huge team effort, and there have been a lot of folks that are contributing versus right, versus left, whatever it might be. It’s my hope that the expectation amongst the position-player group is that we’re not going to slow down.

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“We’re going to have players popping into those roles, whether it’s Brady or Abi or whoever it might be to do their jobs, and ideally we can look up a month or two from now and say that the offense hasn’t slowed down much. If anything, it’d be cool if we reach new heights.”

The Nationals entered Monday with a 2.1% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs. The players believed that they could go on a run with some upgrades to the bullpen and rotation.

The team’s trade deadline moves upgraded the pitching staff, but it remains to be seen if those moves will do enough to offset the offensive subtractions.

“I know relative to preseason expectations, they’ve surpassed expectations that folks had,” Toboni said. “I think going forward, it’s going to be the same. Whatever expectations folks have for this team, it would not surprise me if they far exceed them. We’re going to continue to make the push and do everything we can to support them, and hopefully we’re playing really meaningful games late into next month, and then we’ll just see how it all shakes out.”