Despite an early postseason exit, the Phillies extended manager Rob Thomson’s contract after winning the team’s first National League East division title since 2011.
The team signed Thomson through the 2026 season, Philadelphia’s president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski announced Tuesday. The Phillies will also retain their entire major-league coaching staff for 2025.
“He’s done a good job for us,” Dombrowski said of Thomson at the Phillies’ end-of-season press conference at Citizens Bank Park. “He’s been a very successful manager. There’s very few clubs in baseball that have made the postseason three years in a row. He has done that. We’ve been a very good club under his guidance.”
Thomson, 61, took over as Phillies manager during the 2022 season when the club fired previous manager Joe Girardi. The team quickly responded under Thomson and made a surprise run to the 2022 World Series, losing to the Houston Astros. Philadelphia then fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 National League Series before this year’s 95-win Phillies lost in the NL Division Series to the New York Mets.
Although they’ve gone backwards in each of the last two postseasons, the Phillies are 250-185 in the regular season since Thomson took over. He’s the most successful manager by winning percentage (.575) that the franchise has had in the modern era. While the 2024 season did end in disappointment, Dombrowski refused to pin that failure solely on Thomson and his coaches, instead opting to use their track record as reasoning to bring the group back.
The Phillies had previously extended Thomson’s contract through 2025, but Dombrowski decided to avoid starting next season with the potential distraction of a “lame duck” at the helm.
“I don’t think going into the manager’s last year is ever a good situation to be in if you can prevent that from happening,” Dombrowski said. “He deserves the extension in that regard. I’ve been in a position — sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly — where your manager goes into the last year of his contract, and right off the bat, you’ll lose three games in a row and there’s speculation on his job status.
“So I think it secures that people know how we feel about him. He’s done a good job, and it gives us stability in that role.”
Thomson, who also spoke at the press conference, was pleased with the extension and the opportunity to keep all his coaches in what he called “the best coaching staff in baseball.” He acknowledged that he’s fine with continuing to take his future year by year with the organization and that his stint as Phillies manager will be his final in professional baseball.
“I’ve mentioned it many times,” Thomson said. “This is the only place I want to be, and this will be my last stop.”
That stop, if all goes to plan, will now run through at least 2026.
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