This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki's Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Maybe things are finally starting to happen.

Blake Snell, Yusei Kikuchi, Jonathan India, Brady Singer and others have recently signed new contracts or been traded to new teams. Juan Soto is fielding multiple offers for more than $600 million, according to The Athletic. The Phillies are not believed to be one of those teams, according to sources.

There is speculation that Soto could choose a team before the end of next week¡¯s Winter Meetings in Dallas. Sources recently told MLB.com that the Phillies have not met with Soto. There had been an expectation they might meet with him at some point, but nothing appeared imminent.

The Phils have never been considered likely to sign Soto anyway, so none of this should come as a surprise to Phillies fans. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said a couple of times since the end of the postseason that he doesn¡¯t believe the Phillies need another superstar player to win a World Series. Phillies managing partner John Middleton said at a Penn event last month: ¡°I¡¯m afraid Juan Soto wants to be in New York, and I don¡¯t mind being a stalking horse ¡­ but I get the feeling, we¡¯ll probably say, you know what, we¡¯ll probably not win this.¡±

Dombrowski said this week that his offseason priorities have not changed:

• An outfielder to play left or center field
• A late-inning right-handed reliever
• A No. 5 starter

How they get there is unclear. FanGraphs already projects the Phillies¡¯ 2025 payroll to be $282 million for luxury tax purposes, which currently is the second-highest projected payroll in baseball and pushes them past the third luxury tax threshold at $281 million.

The fourth threshold is $301 million.

¡°We have the freedom to do some things that we need to do,¡± Dombrowski said, regarding payroll. ¡°But I¡¯m not sure what¡¯s going to happen at this point. The reality is when you look at where we are, a lot of clubs have had very little movement overall, but you can see it starting to break a little bit. But you just never know about these things. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re on the verge of doing something, but we¡¯ve had a lot of conversations.¡±

The Phillies have fielded interest about their big leaguers and top prospects, like every team does. Alec Bohm¡¯s name has been consistently mentioned in trade rumors, but mostly because he is an All-Star third baseman with two years of team control, not because the Phillies are trying to trade him at all costs.

Dombrowski wouldn¡¯t comment on specifics.

¡°We are looking to acquire Major League talent,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s really what we¡¯re looking to do -- win at the big league level. That¡¯s our focus.¡±

The Phillies need somebody who can play left or center, with Brandon Marsh able to play either position. Dombrowski said the Phils probably will acquire one right-handed late-inning reliever, despite free-agent right-handers Carlos Est¨¦vez and Jeff Hoffman pitching in the late innings last season.

¡°The way I look at it is we have a very good team,¡± Dombrowski said. ¡°We won a lot of games last year. We won our division. We basically have mostly our whole club back. We¡¯re not an aged club. I look at us as having a very good club going into next year. We¡¯ve got four starting pitchers at the top of the rotation who are as good as anybody¡¯s. We have a good offensive balance from the right-handed side and left-handed side. We need to fill a bullpen spot. But we have a really good club. We didn¡¯t play well against the Mets. But the reality is we have a really good club and I think we¡¯ll have a really good club next year.

¡°Now, we¡¯re open-minded to things. I don¡¯t want to put too much emphasis on that, because it¡¯s apparent that people have taken that and kind of run with it. But yeah, you¡¯re always open-minded. And so, the reality is we¡¯re open-minded. We¡¯re talking to people. But we have a good club. If we take the same club back that we had last year and we make a tweak here and a tweak there, I think we¡¯ll compete to win the division and be in a position where we¡¯ll be definite postseason contenders.¡±