Phillies banking on value of continuity with lower-key offseason

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There was no need Monday night for a substantial celebration. Rob Thomson, now under contract as the Philadelphia Phillies manager through 2025, would have dinner with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld. They could toast to an extended partnership no one envisioned 18 months ago when Thomson became the interim manager.

They could remember how the Phillies were in turmoil in June 2022 — staring at yet another regime change in the dugout whenever Thomson’s time as the interim steward ended. That might have meant another new pitching coach and another new hitting coach for a franchise that churned through different philosophies and personalities in the previous decade.

Instead, when the Phillies added a year Monday to Thomson’s contract, they had continuity. Many of the manager’s coaches have remained with the team and there is a brand of trust between the clubhouse and staff that the Phillies have not boasted in a long time.

“Ever since I stepped into this role, there’s no staleness at all,” Thomson said from the team’s fifth-floor suite at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, which this week is hosting the sport’s Winter Meetings. “It’s a new problem every day and things to do every day. And I’m upbeat, and I’m just happy. I don’t think there’s any question about my love for this team — this group of people, players, coaches, trainers, R&D. This group of people, the organization, the city, I love it all. So this was a no-brainer for me.”

It’s worth celebrating because the Phillies can legitimately say they are a functional franchise. There is a flag from 2022 to prove it. There is a sting from 2023 that proves it isn’t perfect. But, rather than pivot constantly, the Phillies can deploy their continuity to address specific issues. They can adjust the edges of the roster and the fringes of the coaching staff to refine a group of players that was one game from repeating as National League champions.

It starts with Thomson, who told the Phillies at the beginning of the 2022 season that it would be his final year in the game, only to discover how well the manager’s seat suits him. No manager has spent three consecutive full seasons with the Phillies since Charlie Manuel was fired in 2013. If Thomson remains in place through the duration of this contract extension, he’ll have accomplished that.

By extending him Monday, the Phillies erased any doubt about Thomson’s status during 2024. “I’ve been a lame duck for 27 years,” Thomson joked. Not anymore.

“It’s good to know that you’ve got that extra year,” Thomson said, “but if I didn’t get it, probably wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“He didn’t ask me,” Dombrowski said. “I approached him.”

“I’m waiting to win a World Series,” Thomson said, “and then I’m going to approach him.”

Dombrowski has been in the sport long enough to know the value of continuity. It manifests in different ways; Caleb Cotham, the club’s well-regarded pitching coach who lives in Tennessee during the offseason, is in the suite this week as the Phillies discuss potential bullpen additions. The front office is tasked with acquiring players, but Cotham’s input is an important piece of the equation. That is not typical for a pitching coach. Before Cotham, who was hired in November 2020, the Phillies had four different pitching coaches in four years. They have stabilized their pitching program and it has led to better results.

The Phillies have spent considerable money to retain many of their coaches when other teams show interest. They have created a workplace where people feel valued and important.

Nothing replaces having good players on the field, and the Phillies have done that — largely through a payroll that will rank among the top five in MLB again. But the Phillies have found a way to make everything around those players stronger.

“You continue to grow,” Dombrowski said. “When you make major adjustments consistently, you’re starting from scratch. And then you’re getting back on the same page. And you’re trying to put that together.”

They have made some changes to Thomson’s staff for next season. César Ramos, the pitching coach at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, was promoted last month to bullpen coach. Dustin Lind and Rafael Peña were hired Monday as assistant hitting coaches. The Phillies are spending more money on the staff by having three hitting coaches.

Lind, who has a nontraditional background as a hitting coach through his use of biomechanics, spent the past four seasons with the San Francisco Giants as their director of hitting. He’ll be in the dugout to share information with hitters during games, which will allow Kevin Long to focus more on the at-bats. Peña rose through Houston’s farm system as a coach and was the organization’s minor-league hitting coordinator in 2023. He’ll work with hitters in the indoor cage during games.

The Phillies went into the offseason thinking that Long was stretched thin and could offer better feedback to the hitters if they tweaked in-game duties. All of this is novel in December; the Phillies will have to chase fewer pitches in 2024 and even the best hitting coaches are only as good as their personnel. There will not be any major lineup acquisitions, Dombrowski said. The Phillies are betting on continuity allowing them to make efficient adjustments where needed.

“Can we do some things that just help us?” Dombrowski said. “Those are things we need to have conversations on. We have a lot of different analytical information. We have mechanical stuff we can deal with. We have mental things we can deal with. We have hitting coaches that have different thought processes. We have machines that can help us. So how can we do this? And you’re not going to change a guy dramatically most of the time. But if he can get a little bit better, that’s what we’ll look to try to do.”

It’s not the splashiest offseason; the Phillies have not spoken to San Diego about a Juan Soto trade, according to multiple major-league sources. They are not bidding in the highest range for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They are not targeting other top-flight pitchers such as Blake Snell and Josh Hader. They are content to see the biggest pieces come off the board and then add complementary players when prices drop. The onus will be on everyone — players and coaches — returning from a successful team.

Thomson said he is still processing the failures from the National League Championship Series loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. “Different things enter my mind and I think through it,” Thomson said. “I go back and watch it.” He has takeaways. He’ll keep them to himself — for now. The Phillies trust Thomson. They trust that the organization is on the right path.

“I have always felt that the best organizations in baseball also have continuity,” Dombrowski said. “You don’t want continuity if it’s not working.”

It’s worked more often than not in the past two seasons. They just need a little more this time.

(Top photo of Rob Thomson: Bill Streicher / USA Today)