Dombrowki manages to keep Thomson’s extension short
While they needed to dig deep into the final hours of the season, the Phillies just over a week ago did nose into the sixth and final National League playoff spot. As they did, Dave Dombrowski was trapped. As they did, it was clear that under the winners-spoils agreement in sports and business, Rob Thomson would have to manage the Phillies in 2023.
Never mind that the Phillies had gone 14-17 in September and October, or that they lost much of a standings edge that once seemed secure, or that without the cooperation of the bumbling Brewers of Milwaukee would have been remembered for another late-season flop.
Never mind that Thomson, the interim manager, was at the right hand of both Gabe Kapler and Joe Girardi, both of whom were fired, or that he nodded along with every one of their cockamamie bullpen decisions.
Never mind that Dombrowski still technically hadn’t been able to do what an accomplished personnel leader is entitled to do and identify and hire his preferred manager.
No, the Phillies were a playoff team, and they were in the clubhouse carrying on, and their owner, John Middleton — that would be “John Meadowbrook” to Alex Rodriguez — was on TV and praising them for a season that too many fans refused to pay to watch.
So Dombrowski was cornered. With that, he would ring Thomson’s hotel room in Atlanta and offer him a two-year contract.
Touching.
“Well, all along,” Dombrowski said, “I’ve been very impressed with the job that he’s done.”
All along?
Even when the Phillies were losing six of seven in late September into October?
And if so, why did it take until the Phillies not only won a playoff spot but a postseason round before Dombrowski backed that opinion up with cash money?
One reason is that the club had to act soon or be made to follow baseball’s mandate requiring a comprehensive interview process for any high-level opening. Since that initiative also included something of an out clause when the obvious candidate was already in place, the Phillies had to delete the “interim” adjective or follow that so-called Selig Rule. All that would have done is waste the time of good people. Thomson did not deserve to be replaced. Why pretend otherwise?
“I thought we had reached the point that I could go to the commissioner’s office and ask what else you would have to do from a managerial pers—pective to earn a contract extension,” Dobrowski said. “And my mind was totally made up Rob is the right person for the job.”
That’s what Dombrowski said, and there is no reason to doubt it is what he meant. Yet with each day that passed, the implications grew that guiding them into the Elite Eight was not enough for the Phillies to give Thomson more than minimum job security.
Dombrowski’s actions said plenty too, and he didn’t become a likely Hall of Fame administrator without knowing how to maximize his contractplaying hand. He knew Thomson sputtered in the stretch. But he also knew that he managed with calm and guts and that he was a rare manager in the Phillies’ modern era to coax his players into playing hard because they truly wanted him to succeed. That was the secret of the late Jim Fregosi, who won a pennant in 1993. That was a secret of Charlie Manuel. That was something Kapler — for all of his well-explained if odd batting orders —
could never pull off. That was something Ryne Sandberg — for all of his Hall of Fame statistics — could never achieve.
But in less than one season, Thomson won clubhouse respect and two champagne baths.
“I think you can see the way we respond to him and I think the rest of the organization has seen that,” Rhys Hoskins said. “We’ve obviously played some pretty good baseball since he’s taken over. I’m elated for him. He’s a baseball man. We’re more than happy to go to war for him, as you can tell. And I’m excited to be a part of it, at least for another year.”
At least another year? Singular?
Clearly, that was a hint that Hoskins is planning to test free agency when his contract ends after 2023, his arbitration year. But it also could have been a reflection on the brilliant way Dombrowski handled the situation.
So convinced was he that Thomson was his manager that Dombrowski signed him for all of 730 days. He knew he couldn’t extend Thomson for just one season, for it would have meant the manager was still in a trial phase. But when he didn’t go three years, either, Dombrowski bought himself the option to buy Thomson
out were the Phillies flop in September again next year, the way they typically do.
And what was Thomson going to do? Shop for something better?
“I wouldn’t,” Thomson said, “want to be anywhere else.”
OK.
So for a year, or two at the contracted most, Rob Thomson will be back in the Phillies dugout as a manager without a modifier. Good for him. He earned the right to grow a little comfortable. But just a little.