Will early results keep Thomson on the top step? The Phillies have an intriguing path to June 3, the three-year anniversary of when they last changed managers.
How long will Rob Thomson’s leash be with Dave Dombrowski and John Middleton after two disappointing Phillies seasons? Will early results keep Thomson on the top step? The Phillies have an intriguing path to June 3, the three-year anniversary of when they last changed managers.
Manager Rob Thomson has led the Phillies to more wins in each of his two-plus seasons, but they have regressed each postseason.The third day of June might tell the tale of the Phillies’ 2025 season, much the same way it told the tale in 2022. That’s the day the Phillies cut ties with Joe Girardi, who’d managed the Phillies to back-to-back underachieving seasons and was on his way to sabotaging a third. The Phillies were five games below .500 on June 2, an off day, which Dombrowski spent contemplating the direction of the team under Girardi. Then he woke up June 3, went for his daily one-hour run, showered, and fired the manager. Spoiled fans should appreciate Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler, the second best tandem in Phillies history The bar has been raised since the spring of 2022, but, no matter how you slice it, Thomson now has managed the Phillies to back-to-back underachieving seasons. The last glimpse ofshowed the owner fuming at being beaten in Queens. Fresh off losing to the Mets in four games in the National League Division Series, and less than a calendar year removed from collapsing against the Diamondbacks in Games 6 and 7 of the NLCS, the Phillies president made sure that his manager was signed through the 2026 season. “We’ve been a very good club under his guidance,” said Dombrowski on the day of the extension. For Dombrowski, “very good” seems good enough for Phillies teams that ranked fourth, sixth, and seventh in luxury-tax payroll since 2022. Entering 2025 they rank third, with a tax bill of more than $57 million — almost equal to the Marlins’ entire payroll. “We ran into the hottest team in baseball,” said Thomson on the day of the extension. Within a week the Mets had been outscored, 37-7, in their four NLCS losses to the Dodgers. I endorsed the extension, but Dombrowski’s decision to reward Thomson was met, generally, with howls of derision and sighs of disbelief. It made complete sense, but most fans with sore butts and pundits with ratings deficits don’t care much for sensible decisions.as they flailed out of the bullpen in the 2023 NLCS; or to not somehow change the selfish, fruitless at-bats in the 2024 NLDS, when they scored five total runs in their three losses. Again, I believe Thomson deserves the entire season. If nothing else, he is the best man to manage the continued development of Kerkering,The Bryce Harper conversation: Why he’s open to an outfield return, his love of Pilates, playing past 40, and more Rationally, the extension ensured that Thomson would not be a lame-duck manager in 2025, the final year of his initial contract. Dombrowski gave no such consideration to Girardi before the 2022 season, during which he fired Girardi. But then, he’d inherited Girardi from the previous front-office regime. He kind of inherited Thomson, too, since Thomson had been Girardi’s bench coach, but it was Dombrowski who promoted Thomson to interim manager during 2022, then, after the Phillies surged into the playoffs, Dombrowski removed the “interim” tag and signed Thomson to a two-year deal with a club option for 2025. However, since Thomson had never before been a major-league manager, not only can he be cast as Dombrowski’s choice, but also, to some degree, he can be cast as Dombrowski’s creation. However, while Thomson’s teams have won 87, then 90, then 95 games, and finished third, then second, then first in the NL East, they have regressed each postseason: A six-game loss in the 2022 World Series, a seven-game loss in the NLCS, and a quick, four-game disaster in the NLDS. “Topper,” as he is known in baseball circles, might be a mild-mannered lifer who has earned the devotion of the eight Phillies making at least $20 million this season, but results trump respect ... right?The Phillies have an intriguing path to June 3. They play six tough series: home against the Dodgers, at the Mets, home against the Brewers, home and away against the Braves, and at the Guardians. In May, they have a seven-game road trip to Colorado and Oakland that comes at the end of 10 games in a row and has that Phillies-special, 2-5, “stink-against-the-stinkers” kind of smell to it even though it’s two months away.
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