Phillies extend manager Rob Thomson’s contract through the 2025 season

NASHVILLE — The Phillies announced on Monday at the winter meetings that they extended manager Rob Thomson’s contract through the 2025 season, and hired two assistant hitting coaches, Dustin Lind and Rafael Peña.

Since taking over as manager of the Phillies on June 5, 2022, Thomson has guided his team to a 155-118 record with two consecutive playoff appearances. The Phillies reached the World Series in 2022 and lost to the Diamondbacks in seven games in the National League Championship Series this year.

Thomson, 60, was asked about his contract status in November but didn’t seem too concerned about his future. He joked that he has been a lame duck for 27 years, but next season, he won’t be one.

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“One reason I was thinking about retirement [a few years ago] was because it was getting a little stale for me,” Thomson said on Monday. “And ever since I stepped into this role, there’s no staleness. At all. It’s a new problem every day. Things to do every day. I’m upbeat, I’m happy.

“I don’t think there’s any question about my love for this team, this group of people, players, coaches, trainers, research and development. This group of people, the organization, the city — I love it all. So this was a no-brainer for me.”

Said Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski: “Well, we had actually talked about it a while ago. After the postseason and all that, but there was so much going on at that time, that when we got together at our organizational meetings, that we talked at that point and sort of finalized it but said we’ll keep talking, and discuss it here and get it done.

“I just wanted to make sure Topper wanted to add a year to his contract. We were very happy with the job that he did. Well deserved. That’s why we did it.”

Lind was the San Francisco Giants’ director of hitting/assistant hitting coach in 2023, and Peña was a minor league hitting coordinator for the Houston Astros this year.

Lind and Peña will replace former assistant hitting coach Jason Camilli, who the Phillies announced would be not returning for the 2024 season. They’ll work under hitting coach Kevin Long. The Phillies said the plan is to have Peña work with hitters one-on-one in the batting cages, and to have Lind sit on the bench during games, to free up some of Long’s time.

“The other thing is — with Kevin Long, who has been doing a lot of different things during the game — it allows him to pretty much stay on the bench, watch our hitters, work with our hitters and not have to worry about getting them the information when they get into the game,” Dombrowski said of the hires. “Dustin Lind will have that information. He doesn’t have to worry about running into the cages to work with people. Rafi Peña will do that.”

Lind, 35, spent four seasons with the Giants (2020-23) and two years with the Mariners as a minor league quality assurance coach in 2018 and director of hitting development in 2019. He worked as an independent hitting consultant from 2014-17.

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Lind has a degree in exercise science from Idaho State University and a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Montana.

“Dustin has a different skillset, definitely a little bit unorthodox compared to your traditional hitting coach, but I think we recognize that understanding human movement and how the body works is so important,” said general manager Sam Fuld. “I think he’s going to really supplement a lot of what K-Long does already, but leverage some data that is somewhat new to the organization and the industry, whether that’s data that helps us prepare on a nightly basis, or data that is going to help make guys’ swings better and help connect the dots between our strength and conditioning and medical group.”

Peña, 33, has spent the last six years working with Astros minor leaguers. He also worked as hitting coach in the Arizona Fall League in 2021 and for Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League.

“Houston has had really good offensive seasons for a long time,” Fuld said. “They have produced within their development system really well. I think [Peña] has been a big part of that. He’s had some really good ideas of his own, and also some things he’s learned along the way that I think are going to help us. He’s just got this ability to connect with players at a really high level. K-Long might be as good as anybody in the business, but I think Rafi, in his own way, is excellent at that.”

Lowering their chase rate will be a top priority for the Phillies entering next season. They chased 31.4% of pitches out of the zone in the regular season, a figure well above the league average of 28.6%. Dombrowski highlighted it in his end-of-season press conference as a reason the Phillies weren’t able to get past the Diamondbacks in the NLCS.

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How Lind and Peña will attempt to rectify that remains to be seen. Dombrowski said it’s something their hitting coaches will get together to address soon. Regardless, they are optimistic about how this group will work together.

“I don’t think there’s any silver bullet to fixing chase rates, if that were easy everybody would do it,” Fuld said. “But anytime you have a really difficult, challenging problem, whatever the problem may be, I think it’s helpful to have a lot of different resources to lean on. I think they provide a ton of different skillsets that combined with what we have in K-Long, it’s a recipe to improve something like [chase] rate really well.”