Rob Thomson’s outfield wizardry makes him the National League Manager of the Year favorite
Thomson’s handling of his outfield situation has been predicated on the same no-panic, next-man-up demeanor that enabled the Phillies to cruise despite the obstacles they faced this season.
Two decades have passed since Bobby Cox became the most recent back-to-back winner of the National League Manager of the Year award. Over in the American League, it has happened just once in the last 42 years, and one of those years was the COVID-shortened 2020 season. BBWAA voters may have factored that into their decision to honor Kevin Cash for an actual 162-game season the following year.
Why does any of this matter? The answer will rankle a segment of the Phillies fan base that tends to credit Rob Thomson with all of his team’s losses and none of its wins. But the last month has left little doubt: If voters are reluctant to name the Brewers’ Pat Murphy the first repeat recipient since Cox, then Thomson is the obvious choice for NL Manager of the Year.
That’s neither hyperbole nor homerism. Whatever you think of Thomson’s managerial acumen over the breadth of his Phillies career, he has been nothing short of brilliant this season. We tend to overlook managers of teams that live up to their preseason indications. But think about all that the 2025 Phillies have overcome en route to being the team that everyone more or less expected.
» READ MORE: The Phillies should get Trea Turner back this season. But which player will they have for the playoffs?
A bullpen that spent the first four months of the season with three or four quasi-dependable high-leverage arms, one of whom missed 80 games with a PED suspension.
A starting rotation that lost a Cy Young candidate to a season-ending medical condition and spent three months without a guy who was supposed to be their No. 2 or No. 3 starter. This, while also seeing the team’s plans fall through for a midseason arrival by one of the top pitching prospects in baseball.
A lineup that played 23 games without superstar Bryce Harper and will play most of the rest of the regular season — and probably all of it — without Trea Turner. Besides Turner and Harper, only two other Phillies regulars had an OPS+ above league average as of Tuesday.
Even if that was the extent of Thomson’s resumé, you’d have no choice but to give him his due. I’m struggling to identify another contender that has encountered anywhere close to the level of adversity the Phillies have endured en route to an eight-game lead in the NL East entering Tuesday’s game.
The Cubs? The emergence of rookie Cade Horton and the resurgence of veteran Matthew Boyd have more than made up for the loss of top-of-the-rotation starter Justin Steele to an elbow injury in April. Until Kyle Tucker landed on the injured list on Tuesday, the Cubs hadn’t lost a single regular for an extended period of time. They’ve also been bolstered by breakout seasons from Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch, and Carson Kelly. In other words, Craig Counsell has benefited from some extremely good fortune.
The Dodgers? They’ve had a rougher go of it than most, especially on the pitching side. But it doesn’t take a whole lot of managing to draw up a lineup with Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Mookie Betts.
The Mets? Rookie breakout Nolan McLean helped offset injuries to Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas. Plus, their holy trinity of Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, and Francisco Lindor had missed a combined four games as of Tuesday.
» READ MORE: Phillies hope to get Trea Turner back for the playoffs; Alec Bohm joins him on the injured list
The Brewers are the only team whose performance rivals the Phillies relative to realities on the ground. Murphy, the veteran skipper who last year led them to a 93-69 record after Counsell skipped town for Chicago, has an even stronger case as the league’s best manager this season. Given the economic disparity between the Brewers and Phillies — the Phillies are spending roughly 2.5 times more than Milwaukee on payroll this season — you’d be hard-pressed to argue that anybody has done more with less than the MLB-leading Brewers.
That said, nobody will argue that the Phillies outfield is an embarrassment of riches. It’s here where Thomson has made his definitive impression on this year’s stretch run. In late July, when team president Dave Dombrowski opted against trading big resources for a name-brand upgrade in either center field or one of the corners, Thomson’s boss essentially left it on the manager to fashion some sort of workable solution out of a bunch of ill-fitting and underperforming parts. Somehow, Thomson has managed to do exactly that.
Look no further than Tuesday’s 1-0 win over the Mets, when the Phillies scratched out their only run on back-to-back-to-back singles by Max Kepler, Harrison Bader, and Nick Castellanos. It was the 103rd run scored and/or driven in by a Phillies outfielder since Aug. 1. That’s a remarkable 58% of their 179 total runs during that stretch, up from about 51% in the first four months of the season. Since the trade deadline, Phillies outfielders rank eighth in the majors with a .343 weighted on-base average, up from .298 before the trade deadline.
Thomson’s handling of his outfield has been classic people politics. On a couple of occasions this season, he exuded his typical low-key calm amid public grumbles from veterans Kepler and Castellanos with regard to playing time. Even in the immediate aftermath of the trade deadline, he resisted calls to bench Kepler and immediately name Bader a full-time player. Some will argue that he was being too soft on his players. I would argue that he was building the political capital to do exactly as he’s done: force his players to accept new matchup-based roles for the good of the team without explicitly demoting any of them.
This is exactly what good managers do. Thomson’s handling of his outfield situation has been predicated on the same no-panic, next-man-up demeanor that has enabled the Phillies to continue to cruise through the loss of Wheeler, the suspension of José Alvarado, and the various injuries that have hit the lineup. He has been nothing short of excellent this season. It’s time to give him his due.