The Phillies expressed their continued confidence in manager Rob Thomson and his coaching staff today, with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski revealing that Thomson has been extended through the 2026 season and his full staff will return in 2025 (per reporters, including Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer). Thomson’s previous contract ran through the 2025 campaign, so it would have left him in lame duck limbo entering next season. As for the rest of the coaches, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported last week that the Phillies were holding “evaluation meetings” in which they would decide whether or not to make any changes to the coaching staff. Evidently, the team’s top decision makers came away from those meetings feeling good about the group of coaches that has led the club to three consecutive postseason appearances.
Thomson took over as the Phillies’ manager partway through the 2022 season, replacing his long-time boss Joe Girardi. A baseball lifer, Thomson had no big league managerial experience at the time, but he had been a major league coach for the Yankees and Phillies since 2004 and a minor league coach and manager (and briefly a front office executive) since 1988. Over parts of three seasons at the helm in Philadelphia, he has led the team to a 250-185 (.575) record, two Wild Card berths, one NL East division title, and one NL pennant. The Phillies have also gone 20-14 in the playoffs under his leadership.
While this year’s postseason run ended much sooner than the Phillies and their fans might have anticipated, there was little reason to think a change was in order atop the dugout steps. That being said, it’s noteworthy that Thomson has now received one-year extensions in back-to-back offseasons. Clearly, the organization doesn’t want him managing as a lame duck, but at the same time, they have been hesitant to give him a long-term deal.
Slightly more surprising than Thomson’s extension is the fact that his full coaching staff will remain intact next season. After all, it’s quite common for a coach or two to get the scapegoat treatment after a season ends in disappointment. However, it’s important to remember how well the Phillies played over the 162-game regular season and not just their poor performance in the NLDS. They were above-average in just about every aspect of the game, including hitting, baserunning, pitching, and fielding. That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement, but Dombrowski appears to be sticking with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. That approach worked well this past season, in which the Phillies ran it back with nearly the exact same roster and coaching staff they had the year before and managed to improve by five games.
The Phillies coaching staff includes pitching coach Caleb Cotham, assistant pitching coach/director of pitching development Brian Kaplan, hitting coach Kevin Long, bench coach Mike Calitri, third base coach Dusty Wathan, first base/outfield/baserunning coach Paco Figueroa, and infield coach Bobby Dickerson, among others. Interestingly, all seven of those coaches joined the staff before Thomson took over as skipper. Managers often like to put together their own group of coaches, but Thomson seems happy working alongside the staff he inherited.
Salvi
Nice of them to keep him around to see the fall of the Roman Empire.
This one belongs to the Reds
I wonder if he is taking violin lessons.
MLB Top 100 Commenter
But I’m not crazy, just a little unwell,
Right now you can’t tell,
But stay until the post season,
And you’ll see a different side of me.
oscar gamble
Why only extend him one year?
metsin4
So they don’t owe him a ton of money when they fire him.
Samuel
oscar gamble;
Works with Bud Black and the Rockies. They may have started a trend.
For Love of the Game
His team shlts the bed in the playoffs again and he gets rewarded?
Clofreesz
I mean, he made it to the WS in his first year, an NLCS in his second, and a disappointing NLDS in his third. Give him at least one or two years and see if he can get a ring for the city before giving him the boot.
Idosteroids
So following this set of data points…I should bet the house for the phillies to lose in the wild card round in ’25. Pretty strong negative correlation here.
Mercenary.Freddie.Freeman
With that stacked team a monkey could manage them and win lots of games.
Old York
@For Love of the Game
Can’t really win when your star players are more focused on rolling around in dollar bills than they are on winning. Sometimes, the players need to pull up their big boy pants and win.
For Love of the Game
Agreed. But if he can’t motivate his team with all the talent they have, maybe he’s not the right guy for the job?
Big whiffa
Yeah, did u see that regular season ?
avenger65
The Phillies are approaching the Dodger-zone where making it to the PO is expected. Anything less than winning the WS is considered a failure.
AHH-Rox
If a couple of relievers who were pretty good in the regular season hadn’t crapped out in the playoffs, the Phillies would still be playing and nobody would be here calling RT a terrible manager.
carlos15
Or they just got hit by better players
Chooch Ruiz
if those pitchers hadn’t pitched poorly, how would that cause the hitters to start hitting?
TerryTurnbuckle
His third year will be the longest anyone has managed that disaster since Charlie Manuel.
htbnm57
Expect another quick departure from the playoffs if they get that far.
Inside Out
So ridiculous to bring back everyone. Just repeating mistakes they made under Amaro that made them irrelevant for ten years.
bpflyers1
What a joke! Let’s bring them all back and not address that your team couldn’t hit their way out of a paper bag all year. If you weren’t going to fire the manager, at least the hitting coach should have been gone! The hitting approach is a joke. Trying to pull the ball and jack everything out instead of going with the pitch. Could have sent a message to his buddies Harper and Schwarber by firing Kevin Long, but let’s run it back again one more time! Bryce isn’t getting any younger! We are wasting time!
JoeBrady
5th out of 30 in scoring. Having both Marsh & Rojas on the team looks redundant. And who who trailed off? Stott was down, but that was mostly a matter of BABIP. The rest of the team hit as expected.
avenger65
If I read it correctly, the article said that all the coaches will be back, and at the same time saying there will be evaluating meetings to see if any changes are needed. Puzzling.
herecomethephillies2018
You can change strategy without changing personnel.
JoeBrady
I don’t pay too much heed to what any FO says. For all I know, they could like long and still opt for a different hitting approach.
Just going back to what the OP said about their offense, they are already #5 in RS. There isn’t that much that can be done.
C-Daddy
Hilarious when fans of teams with a top 5 offense complain about a lack of hitting.
RunDMC
It’s a fair point when in the NLDS their only win they had 7 runs, while averaging less than 2 runs/game in their 3 losses. Doesn’t help when bullpen also had 3 blown saves. NYM outpitched PHI, but PHI SPs pitched better than the series record indicated.
Maybe it was the long layover?
JoeBrady
I said the same thing when they lost about the offense, but it is difficult to point at a 4-game run to imply that the Phillies can’t score.
SD scored -0- in their last two games. Baltimore 1 in 2 games. Houston 3 runs.
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
Offense has been too streaky past 2 postseasons. Can’t win by relying on homers when facing good pitching and not the Nats and Marlins in October. Roster needs some tweaks, they should offload one of Marsh/Soto and possibly Schwarber. They’re stuck with the worthless Castellanos but they can DH him more Schwarber traded. Bohm could fetch something too but his defense still isn’t good at 3B and can’t play 1B cause Harper is there, but a 1B needy team could take him to play there. Walker is sunk cost at this point they should probably just cut him but if he’s kept around battery sales will go up in the greater Philly area.
Mercenary.Freddie.Freeman
Maybe Harper never wins a World Series. Nationals one as soon as he left. Hmmm….
RunDMC
Only way to find out is to get rid of him. 🙂
Samuel
bpflyers1;
The hitting coach’s name is Kevin Long. He’s been a hitting
coach in MLB since 2007 – never missing a year. Before that
he was a successful manager and hitting coach in the minors.
He’s considered by many as the best hitting coach in MLB.
Were the Phillies to fire Mr. Long he would have his choice of
jobs in MLB. Many teams would consider firing or moving their current hitting coach to another area if they could get Mr. Long.
TerryTurnbuckle
Whomever thinks this is a good idea likes candy corn.
NYCityRiddler
With a name like candy corn, it has to be good. Ahahaha!
DarkSide830
More Apathy
Captain Dunsel
Where have you gone, Dallas Green? Phillies nation turns their lonely eyes to you.
Flanster
Whoa whoa whoa
Big whiffa
Crazy haters out there lmao ! Team is absolutely loaded, why make changes ? How can u possibly tap another shoulder and say 1. This guy will get us to postseason then 2. Win series in postseason. Think the Halloween witches brew is getting a bit over stirred
Citizen1
Couldn’t get a better manager to do well during the regular season & flounder during the playoffs, Dave roberts was unavailable.
Old York
Philly peaked back in June/July. Maybe MLB needs two separate championships. One for the first half and one of the second half.
AM21
Fail.
Old York
@AM21
I know. My mom always said I was a failure. Nothing new to me. 😀
Clofreesz
You aren’t the first to suggest this.
Old York
@Clofreesz
Well, it happened twice in MLB history, so of course I’m not the first. Maybe I’m the 100th?
Captain Dunsel
The 1981 season says hello.
Old York
@Captain Dunsel
Hello, 1981! What about 1892?
jett
This makes sense, they finished their last 103 games 52-51 and still finished with the 2nd best record in baseball. As the post says, this extension is just to take away any lame duck questions/storylines for next year. Obviously, if they do the same thing next year the coaches are gone but the extension gives them some breathing room.
But if they’re keeping everyone, they will not get substantial change unless they make significant changes to their roster. Like at least 1/3 of that starting lineup needs to change. Harper, Schwarber, & probably Realmuto return but they should keep all options open. But there’s no clear choices as Soto doesn’t help their outfield defense at all and their lineup isn’t good enough for the owner to give out a $400M deal to Soto while paying into the 110% tax bracket. So, Dombrowski will need to get creative in free agency and the trade market to really improve this team.
Ronk325
Dombrowski has gone soft in his old age. The Phillies window is rapidly closing and they need new direction
keysox
Phillies looked old and tired in playoff games.
It’s a home run or nothing team
Samuel
Ronk325;
LOL
He’s been there for 3 seasons now. Do you remember the
condition the Phillies were in when he took over?
The only thing Mr. Dombrowski is guilty of is setting a
high standard.
P.S. I suspect major changes are coming.
JoeBrady
IMHO, if they liked the guy, they’d have given him a real extension. A one-year extension sounds like they weren’t ready to make the break.