Categories: Phillies Beat with Destiny Lugardo

Takeaways from Dave Dombrowski, Rob Thomson press conference

New Phillies manager Rob Thomson and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski met with the media on Friday. (Destiny Lugardo/Phillies Nation)

President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and new interim Phillies manager Rob Thomson addressed the media following the dismissal of former manager Joe Girardi.

Here are a few takeaways:

Dombrowski on what Rob Thomson brings to the club

The top managers in the game are not the best strategists. The top managers are usually the best at communicating with players and the coaching staff and Dombrowski believes that Thomson provides a different communication style than Girardi.

“I’m disappointed. I put the club together. I think we’re better than what we played. But to me, I think the most important part is we’re going to turn this around and I think we still have the capabilities to do it. I think we need a different voice in the clubhouse. I think a different voice in the clubhouse with the players, with the staff members … I think [Thomson] provides that. I think he’ll provide a different type of communication aspect with players. ”

Dombrowski on who he consulted with to make the decision

When former manager Gabe Kapler was fired at the end of the 2019 season, managing partner John Middleton had the final say. Technically, Middleton still has the final say in this situation, but the power dynamics at the highest level of the club are much different with Dombrowski at the helm.

Dombrowski said that he spoke with Middleton on the decision, but not after he took some time to gather his thoughts.

“I did not consult with one player. I did not consult with one coaching staff member. It was a decision made [by] myself. I talked to some of my front office personnel, people like Sam [Fuld] and Jorge [Velandia]. A little bit even with Ned [Rice], Ani [Kilambi], Preston Mattingly, so people that were my close baseball people. I did talk to John Middleton after I knew what my thought process was and what I was thinking about and John said that’s basically your decision. Whatever you feel that you need to do, I support you. … Probably Tuesday was the first time I talked to him about it.”

Thomson on how he’s different from Girardi

“I’m a little bit different than Joe. I’m not going to go into the differences but I like to think that I’m prepared and I’m a good communicator. The plan is to make sure that all these guys know where they’re supposed to be at any given time, whether it’s our bullpen, the lineup, whatever it is, I just want to make sure that the guys are prepared.”

Thomson was asked a follow-up question on Girardi’s decision to not use closer Corey Knebel three days in a row on May 24 against the Braves, a move that led to Nick Nelson pitching the eighth and ninth inning of a game in which Bryce Harper gave his team the lead on a two-run home run against Kenley Jansen. Thomson said he’ll evaluate decisions on a case-by-case basis.

“We’re now into June. And I’m not going to say we do it every time because we could take it case-by-case. We used Familia the other night three days in a row. … If they got low pitch counts the first two nights, the guy looks me in the eye and he says, ‘Hey, I’m good to go,’ and you trust him, then it’s a possibility.”

Dombrowski on if the losing is a systemic issue

NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury asked a good question about the Phillies’ losing ways in recent years and whether or not it’s a systemic issue. For those that have been following the team over the last decade or so, it’s no surprise that Dombrowski highlighted the issues in player development and noted the changes that were made in the last calendar year.

“It’s not something that can’t be fixed and changed. I think we already started some of those changes this winter time when we made some changes within our system, our organization. A lot of changes. But those things don’t show up overnight, the results of changes in player development. They take a while until they come into play. But I think we have even fundamentally changed the mindset as far as how we’re going about some things in player development, which changes. We’ve attempted to do that at the big league level and I still think it can be accomplished by bringing people in like [Kyle] Schwarber and [Nick] Castellanos, even with the coaching staff, with Kevin [Long] and Bobby [Dickerson]. If you look at the results today, it hasn’t worked.

“But I do not think that that part is just something that’s written in stone. We can change that and that’s what our goal is. I’ve been in organizations where we’re in worst spots than this and we ended up coming back and having pretty good clubs. Same thing was asked of me in Detroit many many years ago, and we were a lot worse than what we are here. And you can turn it around with the right people and the right players. And that’s what we’ll do and I think we’ll tackle it.”