Commentary | As Phillies surge, some wonder whether Thomson had to go

The lingering question, and one that will never be answered, is whether the Philadelphia Phillies would have rallied the way they have if Rob Thomson had remained their manager.

Their play suggests that Dave Dombrowski, president of baseball operations, was justified in replacing Thomson with Don Mattingly. The Phillies, after starting 9-19 under Thomson, are 31-16 since the change.

Still, a new manager should not have been needed to awaken a group of accomplished professionals collectively earning more than $300 million. The players knew it then, and they know it now. They got a good man fired.

Thomson, 62, had the highest winning percentage (.568) of any Phillies manager since 1900. If Dombrowski had given him more time, it is possible that their record now would not look much different, if at all.

The day he was dismissed, Thomson all but predicted the Phillies’ turnaround, saying he thought the team would get hot. Almost eight weeks later, he continues to follow the Phillies closely and harbors no bitterness about the way the team ignited.

“I watch every game that I can,” Thomson said in a text message. “When you have built relationships and been through the things that this group has been through, you don’t stop cheering for them. At least I don’t.

“I think that in a lot of situations where managers get fired, most wish that they had a little more time, but no lingering frustrations. You can call it whatever you want, but the fact is that the team has been playing so much better since the change and they are back to who they are!!”

One look at the Phillies’ schedule, though, indicated that they were in good position to surge. At the time of the change, they were coming off 13 straight games against two hot clubs, the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves. They went 2-11 in that stretch, including a 10-game losing streak.

Dombrowski acted at the perfect time, with his club about to begin 22 straight games against teams currently at .500 or below -- and with star right-hander Zack Wheeler just having returned from thoracic outlet surgery.

“I thought we’d get to where we’re at now no matter what, eventually,” shortstop Trea Turner said.

Catcher J.T. Realmuto, in a recent appearance on The Athletic’s “Starkville” podcast, recalled that on the day Mattingly took over, he told the players, “This is on you guys.” Mattingly’s meaning was clear. The players were to blame, not Thomson. Designated hitter Kyle Schwarber admitted as much to Thomson in the aftermath of the firing.

“You feel responsible,” Schwarber said. “I told him I was sorry.”

These things happen in baseball. Everyone understands. Thomson learned that from his four decades in the game. Mattingly, when he was a player with the New York Yankees, went through four midseason managerial changes, including the removal of Yogi Berra after 16 games in 1985 and firings three straight years from 1988 to 1990.

“You do feel guilty as a player,” Mattingly said. “You know it’s not the manager.”

Dombrowski, though, did not like what he was seeing under Thomson, particularly after four progressively earlier postseason exits -- from the World Series in 2022 to the National League Championship Series in 2023 to division series in ‘24 and ‘25.

In their first 28 games under Thomson this season, the Phillies were third-worst in the majors inruns per game and earned run average. Their defensive metrics also ranked near the bottom.

The team wasn’t playing with urgency. Thomson, particularly with some of his bullpen choices, wasn’t always managing with urgency.

During his four-year tenure, he was often praised for his steady hand, for never panicking. He kept the same approach with the team reeling in April, believing that things were bound to turn.

In the end, it might have cost him.

“We weren’t playing well, and sometimes my experience is that clubs respond to a different voice,” Dombrowski said. “You try to say that there’s a sense of urgency all the time. I’m sure the players felt they were playing with a sense of urgency. But we weren’t playing well.”

As the losses mounted, the players sensed that a move was coming. Dombrowski flew in three of his top lieutenants to evaluate the team in Atlanta. The Boston Red Sox’s dismissal of Alex Cora on April 26 only intensified the speculation about Thomson -- with good reason, as it turned out.

Dombrowski wanted Cora to take the Phillies’ job. Cora declined. Two days passed. Dombrowski turned to Mattingly.

The calendar had not yet turned to May.

“Obviously if we would have played well, he’d be sitting in that manager’s office right now, and we wouldn’t even be talking about it,” first baseman Bryce Harper said about Thomson. “It’s our fault for that happening. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ve just got to move on and play good baseball.”

A midseason change worked for the Phillies in 2022, when Dombrowski replaced Joe Girardi with Thomson in June, and the team went on to win the National League pennant. That situation, though, was different. Girardi had grown tense and was distant from his players. Mattingly’s low-key but firm demeanor, on the other hand, mirrors Thomson’s.

When asked what is different under Mattingly, Schwarber responded, “Not much.”

“Everyone has a different managerial style, the way they go about it,” he said. “But the day-to-day stuff is still the same. There’s not one thing you can really point to. I think he even said it when he took over: Not much is going to change.”

Mattingly is friends with Thomson, going back to their days together in the Yankees’ organization. He repeatedly has said that it “stinks” that Thomson lost his job.

When Mattingly became the Phillies’ bench coach in January, he did not intend to manage again. He had held the top position for 12 straight seasons from 2011 to 2022 -- five with the Los Angeles Dodgers, seven with the Miami Marlins. He thought he was done with baseball when he mutually parted with the Marlins after the 2022 season.

“You get beat up in Miami long enough, you’re like, uh, I can’t keep doing this,” he said.

But the game keeps pulling him back.

Shortly after Mattingly left the Marlins, Ross Atkins, general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, asked him to be John Schneider’s bench coach. Mattingly said yes. After the Jays’ dramatic run to the World Series last season, Mattingly stepped away, again thinking he was done. Then Dombrowski called, asking him to work under Thomson. Mattingly again said yes, in part because his son, Preston, is the team’s general manager.

“Being on the same team as your kid is really cool,” Mattingly said.

He intends for this to be a short-term arrangement. Cora very well could be the Phillies’ manager next season. But Mattingly took the job on an interim basis figuring things could only get better. It turns out he was right.

“I had two things going taking over: talent and time,” Mattingly said. “We had over 130 games left. This team is going to get going. And if they don’t, something’s wrong. It’s not going to be the manager.”

The Phillies remain far from perfect. Dombrowski assembled a flawed roster.

Free-agent addition Adolis García was one of the league’s worst hitters before tearing his right latissimus dorsi last week, likely ending his season. Even with Brandon Marsh among the league’s batting leaders, the Phillies’ outfield is one of the least productive in baseball. The team’s payroll also includes nearly $35 million in dead money -- $19.2 million going to Nick Castellanos and $15 million to Taijuan Walker.

The Phillies’ position-player group is the game’s second-oldest, behind only the Dodgers. But their farm system isn’t spitting out young talent the way the Dodgers’ does. Their offense entered Saturday’s game with the fourth-lowest on-base plus slugging percentage in the majors.

The good news is that unlike the Red Sox, who have struggled under Chad Tracy after struggling under Cora, the Phillies’ managerial change at least qualifies as mission accomplished.

“It’s unfortunate to see it happen, but it kind of kicked us in the rear, got us in gear,” Realmuto said. “I don’t think we wouldn’t have started playing that way if Rob had still been the manager. I think it was inevitable that we were going to start playing better.”

Probably so. But for Thomson, it happened too late.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company

This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 3:02 PM.