Dombrowski sharpens roster’s edge
Dave Dombrowski had a year to watch the Phillies, to study their personnel, to interpret their statistics, to clock their speed, to measure their home runs.
He had a year to watch them produce a winning record, yet collapse in a late-season showdown series in Atlanta. He had a year to watch Bryce Harper unload one of the most remarkable individual seasons in franchise history, yet be surrounded by too many teammates willing to surrender at-bats.
He saw talented pitchers, but also too many prone to late-inning failure.
Mostly, one of the most accomplished baseball executives of his time, saw that the Phillies needed more players like Nick Castellanos and fewer of the other kind.
“He’s one of the premier hitters in Major League Baseball,” Dombrowski said Wednesday, at a Clearwater press conference. “But he brings more than the bat to the lineup. With his determination, he brings a winning atmosphere and a chemistry to the clubhouse. He is a championship type of individual.
“So we made some adjustments in our clubhouse, to bring some people on who have that type of mentality. And Nick has that.”
Castellanos, 30, signed a five-year, $100,000,000 contract on Tuesday and went through the buttonup-the-uniform-top routine Wednesday. His recent output alone — in 138 games for the Reds last season he hit .309 with 34 home runs and 100 RBIs — made him worth that Scott Boras money. But it was the bonus effect that appealed to Dombrowski, and in particular, the likelihood that Wednesday was the last time Castellanos would be photographed in a mudfree jersey.
“He’s a great offensive player,” Dombrowski said. “But in addition to that, he’s a winner. He has that approach: Get your uniform dirty, and just go get it done. That’s what he brings to a clubhouse. And that’s why I think this was so important for us.”
The whole dirty-uniform image can be overstated in sports, where the only stains on some superstars’ shirts come from champagne being sprayed around a winning locker room. Yet it is not to be dismissed, either. The Phillies of the late 1970s wouldn’t have won the 1980 World Series without the injection of Pete Rose. The 2008 World Champions were a reflection of the downand-dirty style of Chase Utley.
There is just a certain type of player Dombrowski believed the Phillies lacked, and he was not alone. So that would have been Harper growling at the end of last season that the Phillies needed more “dogs.” And that would have been him Tuesday, finally giving the barking a rest.
“Now,” said Boras, who represents both Castellanos and Harper, “I won’t be receiving four phone calls a day from Bryce Harper.”
Long known as an aggressive executive, Dombrowski did plenty in the offseason to transform the Phillies from a team content to be decent to one not likely to be happy leading the world in blown leads.
With the OK from John Middleton, he was able to plow past the luxurytax threshold and sign not only Castellanos but also Kyle Schwarber, who arrives with a similar canine reputation. In the process, the defense, which was pathetic last season, has not necessarily improved. But Dombrowski was hired for one reason: His gut. And his gut told him that Phillies didn’t need much more than a few more players with Harper’s approach to the sport.
“Nick knows how important every at-bat is, and I applaud him for that, I love it,” Joe Girardi said. “It shows how much a player cares and it becomes infectious in the dugout.”
Depending on Girardi’s game-day mood, either Castellanos or Schwarber will play left field while the other serves as the designated hitter. That way, one of them will always be in the dugout, spreading passion.
“Great pitching shuts down anybody most of the time,” Dombrowski allowed. “But you have a chance to score a lot of runs with that lineup.”
Castellanos has never been on a team that has won a playoff game. But in a lineup with Harper, Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Rhys Hoskins, he likely will have that chance soon.
“This organization is committed to winning,” he said. “You see that from the start with our ownership. I am excited to be able to play with these guys.”
In his nine major-league seasons with Detroit and Cincinnati, Castellanos, a career .278 hitter, has averaged 25 home runs and 89 RBIs. But it was more than the statistics that inspired Dombrowski to literally ask Middleton for a meeting to outline why it would be well-spent cash.
It was emotion.
It was an edge.
It was something the Phillies too often lacked.
“If that’s how people see me and want to describe me, that’s 100 percent on them,” Castellanos said. “I’m not here to say I am one way or another.”
That wasn’t necessary. By then, the $100,000,000 invested by an executive who was hired to right a troubled organization said plenty.