Thank fired Phillies manager Rob Thomson for all the winning but don’t blame him for the flawed roster
He used the uncomplicated magic of intelligence, innovation, patience, and wisdom to make the Phillies a winner again, and for that the franchise and city will forever be in his debt.
After 11 losses in 12 games, it ceased to be a matter of if Rob Thomson would be fired. It became a simple matter of when.
The matter that mattered, then: Why would he be fired?
Because the magic was gone.
For 3½ seasons, with his calm Canadian demeanor and his insane work ethic, Thomson made the whole better than its parts. He got the best from almost every player on his roster. He weathered storms of losing and PED suspensions and the insubordination of Nick Castellanos, the doofiest Phillie since the days of Macho Row in the 1990s.
And, then, he didn’t.
» READ MORE: Phillies fire Rob Thomson after 9-19 start; Don Mattingly named interim manager
For years, Thomson pushed the Phillies to unlikely wins despite rosters full of spotty starters, ragtag bullpens, and selfish hitters. His teams of ham-handed defenders and leaden-legged runners, with no real leadoff hitter and no real cleanup hitter, won and won and won and won.
His .568 winning percentage is the highest of any Phillies manager who lasted at least 300 games. His 21 postseason wins rank second in franchise history.
Thomson created a culture in which every sort of player could thrive: a peacock superstar like Bryce Harper, a reticent ace like Zack Wheeler, an insecure kid like Cristopher Sánchez, a loudmouth reliever like José Alvarado, a Midwestern hardass like Kyle Schwarber.
And then, this March and April, he couldn’t make them win any more.
And, so, he had to go, replaced by bench coach Don Mattingly, who was named interim manager. I probably wouldn’t have fired him, but president Dave Dombrowski had to do something, and owner John Middleton adores Dombrowski, so Dealin’ Dave wasn’t going anywhere. It had to be Topper. But his retreat to the Great White North won’t answer the questions left in his wake.
» READ MORE: Dave Dombrowski is ‘responsible’ for this reeling Phillies roster. And these decisions helped get them here.
To wit:
Why had the Phillies suddenly become the worst team in baseball?
Why had the second-best hitting team in the National League turned into the second-worst?
Why had the 22nd-best fielding team in the majors last season in defensive runs saved, according to Fangraphs, turned into the worst?
And, perhaps most maddeningly, how had the No. 8 pitching staff in baseball, with two left-handed studs and a lockdown closer, transformed into the third-worst?
One answer, which does not involve Thomson, is that the talented, aged roster that won 96 games last season got a lot older a lot faster than the Phillies anticipated. Trea Turner, hitting .230, is 32. Schwarber, 33, is hitting .196. J.T. Realmuto, 35, is hitting .259, and he’s hurt. Aaron Nola, 32, is 1-3 with a 6.03 ERA. Wheeler, 35, coming off surgery, made his season debut Saturday in Atlanta and started in the slump’s only win.
That’s $138 million in luxury-tax underachievement. No manager wins with that much underproductive payroll.
But the hard reality is that it was Thomson’s job to make the most of his roster, no matter how flawed it might be.
And that’s the thing.
The roster has always been flawed.
That’s why Joe Girardi was fired in June 2022. That’s why Thomson, his 58-year-old bench coach, was given a chance to manage for the first time in his career.
Now 62, Thomson has guided the Phillies to the playoffs four seasons in a row and he’s won more games each season. He’s never had the best team, and he didn’t win a World Series, and he wasn’t perfect in the regular season or in the playoffs, but, in balance, he did a fabulous job.
Because he made the team better than it really was.
He was magic.
And then, he wasn’t.
He got so much from young fringe players like Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh, but as they ceased to be young, he ceased to be able to develop them. They have proved to be solid major leaguers, and maybe a little less.
He helped current top-flight lefty Sánchez succeed just like former top-flight lefty Ranger Suárez, but now Suárez has left via free agency, and Sánchez, a Cy Young Award runner-up last year, looks shaky: Hitters are raking him at a .310 clip, more than 80 points higher than last season.
Marcus Hayes alerts
After a poor opening fortnight, Harper has been doing everything he can to save Topper’s job, with a 1.001 OPS in his last 19 games, but his teammates have not, because they’re 4-15 in those 19 games.
The answer?
Is it Alex Cora, the fired Red Sox manager and the likeliest replacement for Thomson? Well, Cora will not instantly turn around the season of streaky lefty Jesús Luzardo, who, like Nola, is 1-3 with an ERA north of 6.00.
Is it Mattingly? Well, his arrival this season coincided with the Phillies’ worst stretch of baseball in half a decade. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
It didn’t help Thomson’s fate that closer Jhoan Duran and three other relievers joined Realmuto on the injured list, but, frankly, Duran wouldn’t have had many save opportunities lately.
It doesn’t help that the bullpen is battered, but when a team scores three runs or fewer in 16 of 28 games as the Phillies have done, your record is probably going to be something like the Phillies’ 9-19 mark.
With an immolating pitching staff and an offensive sinkhole, unless you’re a great defensive team with scintillating pitching and elite speed, you’re going to lose a lot of games.
The Phillies defend like the love child of Charles Barkley and James Harden.
They’re slower than the Schuylkill Expressway at 8 a.m. on a Monday.
Blame Thomson for all of the recent losing? Please.
You should thank him, on your knees, that, for four years, he so remarkably overcame the team’s remarkable shortcomings.
Hunter Pence's 368-day stint with the Phillies was a study in extremes. Acquired at the trade deadline in 2011 as the missing right-handed bat for a World Series contender, he got dealt a year later by an underachieving team. And with the Phillies in full-on crisis mode this week, Pence sits down with "Phillies Extra," the Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss how quickly a team's fortunes can change. Watch here.
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Previous episodes: Paco Figueroa | Gage Wood | Scott Boras | Brian Barber | Aaron Nola | Justin Crawford | Garrett Stubbs | Kyle Schwarber | Brad Keller | J.T.Realmuto
