Blame Game: Dombrowski, Mattingly, Thomson discuss firing and future

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, this is our go and welcome to the Philly Show.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: Play better baseball, better baseball. It's all about better baseball.

00:00:12
Speaker 3: Don Matticly use those words, those exact words several times on Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park in his first comments about becoming Philly's intern manager. Ruben Tomorrow Junior, Jim Salisbury, Todd Zoleki, It's Wednesday, April twenty ninth, twenty twenty six, a franchise altering day. On Tuesday at citizens Bank Park, Dave Dombrowski discusses his decision to fire Rob Thompson and replace him with Don Mattingly, who was his second choice for the job. We learned for sure on Tuesday, and Dave spoke about that, about the direction of the organization, about why he decided to make the change. Don Mattingly talked about what he hopes to bring to the team and what he hopes to you know, see on the field, behind the scenes. On the field, Rob Thompson did something he didn't really. Everybody kept coming up to me yesterday going are they making him do this?

00:01:18
Speaker 4: Its like no.

00:01:19
Speaker 3: Rob Thompson asked to make himself available to Philly media before he left town and of course, lots of players talked guys, I hope you're doing well. Dave Dombrowski had a lot of stuff to say. I mean, he said, he said the one of the I think the first thing he said was, it's not a blame game, but Rob Thompson lost his job. Jim, let's start with you. What kind of resonated with you in your story? I just got finished reading your story today.

00:01:52
Speaker 5: It didn't put you to sleep.

00:01:54
Speaker 3: I'm awake, Jim.

00:01:59
Speaker 5: I mean, the thing that resonated with me is the thing I lead. I led with that. Dave Dombrowski wanted a different voice, but his different voice wasn't necessarily his first choice. I think they were headed down this path. You could you could smell a move, Gumman, you could smell a change coming. But losing had spread like a wildfire, and all the fire trucks in the world weren't putting it out. And he needed to do something to shake that clubhouse, and and just you know, do some type of a quick fix. You had to. You had to play the card that often gets played, the manager takes the fall. But you know what really jumped out is how you know he wanted Alex Cora to be the fix, and he wanted it soon, and Cora engauged Cora's interest in Cora wanted to spend the summer in Puerto Rico counting John Henry's seven million dollars and then a seven million more next year. And uh, but you know, I even asked Dombrowski. I asked him about the schedule. They played the two hottest teams on the planet over the last ten days at a time when they were terrible, and teams go through that. There's times you're terrible and you can't beat anybody, and they just so happened to be matched up against the Cubs and the Braves who who were just whacking everything all over all over the lot, and the schedule softens up a little bit, now becomes a little more forgiving. Asked him, if you know, if you'd run, if you thought about sticking with Topper and seeing if this thing would turn around, because you're not facing the two hottest teams on the planet anymore, And he acknowledged that was something they thought about, but in the end he just thought they needed to change right now. Couldn't get Korra He opts for Don Mattingly and Don Mattingly's refrain was right on the money. They need to play better baseball. It sounds idiotically simple, but that's what it is. They would get in their asses kicked in all phases of the game. They need to turn those phases around, and you know, short term, Tuesday night, they played better baseball in all three phases. Their pitchers did not walk about her. They struck out twelve, they bunched hits. They got three doubles in one inning. Imagine that, and a great start the first time all season they've gotten seven innings from the starting pitcher. I don't know if it's going to keep up, but that's more like what you got to see, and you didn't see enough of it, and the players got Rob Thompson fired. You mentioned he did the zoom. Not surprised. The man is a class act. He gave this. You know, the fans a lot of great memories. Did they get the big win coming down Broad Street? Nope, But there are a lot of big wins along the way, a lot of great moments along the way, So a lot to unpack there. I'm not sure if I hit on all the keynotes, but my big takeaway was he wanted Alex Korra, and Alex Cora decided he needed to summer off, So we'll stay tuned for that down the road, and in the meantime see if Don Mattingly can can get this team to the postseason. I thought it was very interesting. He mentioned once upon a time they had a big turnaround in LA and I went and looked it up. In twenty thirteen, on June twenty second, they were nine and a half out his Dodgers, and over the next three plus months they ended up winning the division by eleven. They don't have to win the division here. They just need to get into October and have a different storyline in the month of October than they've had the past. You know, three years, four years really, but twenty two was bonus house money. The last three years disappointment. Maybe this is just an odd route to where they need to go. Sorry for being so long winded, but we'll see.

00:05:54
Speaker 6: I don't think you need to look past just a starting rotation to see that the Phillies still have a contending team. It sounds ridiculous, but the reality of it is, if you line them up the rest of the league and the rest of this division. In particular, you line up their starting rotation with any other starting rotation, and by definition of talent, these guys should have been playing much better baseball.

00:06:21
Speaker 7: Their rotation had the worst WHIP, the worst ERA, the worst batting average against, and I believe the worst or twenty ninth in ops against in baseball.

00:06:35
Speaker 6: Terrible, and it literally was supposed to be one of the top five three four rotations in baseball if you include Wheeler, a healthy Wheeler back.

00:06:49
Speaker 4: They pitched great yesterday.

00:06:51
Speaker 6: They gave it the offense a chance to get back in the baseball game or to score early, and they threw up some zero early. They didn't have the beginning. There's been something going on either defensively, pitch sequencing, tipping pitches with the catcher, with the in middle infielders, perhaps with the pitcher himself that was causing them to not have success that I'm sure was being scrutinized. I know Rob Thompson was scrutinizing, and I talked to him a lot about that stuff. And maybe they fixed it, Maybe they figured it out, and maybe yesterday the seven to nothing win and the zeros.

00:07:33
Speaker 4: That Lizardo threw up.

00:07:37
Speaker 6: Will be the beginning of what you would think would be a strong stretch because they got Sanchez coming next, and they got a terror, they got a great schedule coming up. Because they're not playing great teams. Even though Miami's playing okay and the A's are playing okay, they're not great teams.

00:07:56
Speaker 4: And the timing of this.

00:07:57
Speaker 6: Move is probably pretty brilliant when you think about it, by Dave Dombrowski, because now you're facing teams that frankly aren't that great and maybe they can get on a roll and who knows. I mean, with the type of staff that they have, they can reel off eight to ten or ten out of a twelve, or whatever the case may be, especially with how much parody there is in this league right now, there's no great teams other than the Dodgers San Diego playing pretty good. You know, as far as the change is concerned, the reason why they won seven nothing necessarily is not because Rob Thompson was not a dugout. I do believe, as Jim said, that the players themselves got got Rob Thompson banged. And I also believe that there should be scrutiny on other areas of the organization, including the analytics folks and the positioning and you know, sequencing and you know all types of things fixing deliveries that are not getting right right now, there's a lot of stuff that's happening that's taking them away from being, you know, the quality team that they should be, a lot of guessing at the plate, a lot of different things happening instead of guys just going out there and playing good to see Alec Bohm do some damage yesterday, a couple of knocks that was big.

00:09:17
Speaker 4: Maybe the ballot Patross is off his neck, who.

00:09:20
Speaker 6: Knows, But listen, sometimes you got to make change to make change, and that's exactly what happened. And they ended up cutting off the head of the snake didn't necessarily wasn't really a snake, but they cut off the you know who's Greg Dobbs just told me heavy is the crown. Yeah, And exactly what happened there, And so.

00:09:51
Speaker 4: Listen, I have a great deal of respect.

00:09:53
Speaker 6: I think everybody knows how I feel about Rob Thompson and what he meant to this organization and who he is as a person, and the fact that he did what he did as and doing that press conference after he was let go I didn't do that shit when I was let go because I was too worried about my children at the time and taking care of them. But Rob Thompson, who was the most classy guy, one of the if not the most classy people in baseball and in life, handled it extremely well and can't say enough great things about the man.

00:10:32
Speaker 2: So one of the things that.

00:10:37
Speaker 3: Rubin you said that, I think people started kind of looking at other departments, other directions when something like this happens. I mean, you certainly have to look at the front office and some of the decisions that they've made, and they Dave was asked a lot of questions about roster construction. Jim, you asked about roster construction and any regrets about the roster construction season approach, and I try to grab some you know, people watching they can kind of read some. This is from Jim's story at NBC Sports Philadelphia, and I said, nobody has performed as a cleanup hitter. We have people that have performed in the past as a cleanup hitter. They're not doing that right now. No, I don't have any regrets. If we play this way the rest of the year, I'll have a lot of regrets at the end of the year. But I think we're a lot better than this roster construction. I don't think we have a gaping hole. Blah blah blah, all that stuff. You can read it there and go to if you want to read everything. Of course, go to Jim's Jim's story at NBC Sports Philadelphia.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: But uh, here we go. I want to do this.

00:11:44
Speaker 3: There you go, This is the box I want.

00:11:48
Speaker 5: You know, I disagree they have they have. They have gaping holes in performance for sure so far. So some of these guys need to firm up those those holes because I.

00:12:02
Speaker 6: Mean, you need to look at one case two things e ras and batting averages.

00:12:06
Speaker 4: They're horrendous, right, horrendous than the.

00:12:11
Speaker 5: League And you know, hitting, hitting with runners in scoring position is fundamental to a team's success. They were they were I think they were five for eleven on Tuesday night. Oh they scored seven runs. You get runners on base, you need to have your best at bats of the night. And it looked like they did on Tuesday night.

00:12:33
Speaker 6: And it was great that they faced the pitcher that's not really all that great. And they haven't putting the actually, but but they haven't really faced dominating pitching other than Chris Sale. Really, when you break it down over the last couple of weeks, I mean, Imaga.

00:12:47
Speaker 4: He's pretty good, pretty dark good well.

00:12:51
Speaker 6: But beyond Immanaga and Shale, you're not looking at cy Young Award candidates that they were facing as starting pitchers. And so they need to make some hay on these guys, and they need to make it fast.

00:13:06
Speaker 5: You're right, they were making a lot of guys look like saw Young winners. And that Molly guy from last night, I mean they had trouble with him in San Francisco. They seem to have trouble with guys who have that split in their back pocket. Last night, Tuesday night, they hit them and it was good to see. So we'll see if they can they can continue. I'll tell you what I was encouraged by. And it was just one at bat, and but Baum pulled the ball with authority that one at bat.

00:13:35
Speaker 6: He's been struggling with the fastball in the inside part of the plate and they've been pounding with him, pounding them on it, and he has not been able to master that and get to that pitch. Maybe maybe he can start doing that a little bit more regularity, because if he doesn't, they're going to continue to pound him in there and.

00:13:54
Speaker 4: Exploit him.

00:13:54
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been killing him. He's been killing them this season. He entered yesterday with the worst OPS of any qualified player in Major League Baseball. He entered the season as the cleanup pitnterer. I know we talked a lot in spring training about how he's not the prototypical cleanup hitter.

00:14:09
Speaker 2: They don't have a prototypical cleanup hitter.

00:14:11
Speaker 3: But if he's that forty RBI one forty double, one hundred RBI guy, they can live with that. That hasn't happened. Adoley Scarcia has not stepped up like they had hoped. I don't know what kind of their realistic expectations were behind the scenes. I guess be better than Nick Castianos. But things have gotten so bad that they had to put Felix Reyes in there last week and in Chicago. You know, that's how desperate things that had become, that they had put this guy in his second big league game in the cleanup spot. You know they don't have you know, I asked Dave about the overall health of the of the organization, the farm system, and all that, and he says, I feel great about the you know, the overall health of the organization. Again, these rankings, Ruby and I don't know how you felt about farm system rankings back in the day, but they have a bottom ten farm system right now. You know, they don't have a guy that's sitting in triple are going to they should, you know, bring this guy up and he can maybe be the spark that they need, you know, But they didn't. Then then they did also say, because I did ask him, if you guys somehow crawl back into this, if Don Manningly provides a spark, or you guys just play better baseball, Like Don Manningly said, I was curious, you know, do you think that you have the talent to go out on July twenty eighth, if there's a big bat available, to go out and get that player. He says, oh, yes, absolutely, absolutely, we have the talent to go out there. So keep an eye on that come come late July. Can they actually go out and get that talent because they've given up a lot of talent. They're really top heavy. We've been talking about how top heavy they are now. Crawford and pain are hears so and they're.

00:15:59
Speaker 6: Gonta get her, I kind of get themselves close to five hundred before that happens.

00:16:04
Speaker 5: Correct, And you do that by picking off a game a week in the standings, you know you do it in small bites, small bites.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt. We know we've got We've got it.

00:16:18
Speaker 3: We've got more comming from Don Mann. We want to talk about Rob Thompson right after these words. So, I've had a few people ask me lately, Hey, do you have any hookup for Flyers tickets? I wish I did, but I don't. But I do know who can help. See Geek a shout out to see Geek.

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00:17:40
Speaker 2: All right, we're back guys.

00:17:42
Speaker 3: Don Mattingly talked after last night's seven to nothing went over the Giants about you know, he's been in this position before, the guilt maybe or the responsibility that a player feels for a manager losing his job. And he did play for the Yankees, so he saw a lot of man ins uh. In his fourteen year Yankees career, he played for nine managers. He had four in season firings. One of those managers who was fired in season Dallas Dallas Green, Jim Good, Buddy good job, Yeah, Dallas.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: Martin Dallas Green, Bob Lemon, Bob Lemon, The list is endless, stick Michael down there, Showalter, Stunt, Merril.

00:18:32
Speaker 2: There's a whole bunch of guys. There's a whole bunch of guys.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: But uh yeah, he's and then interestingly that he impressed in maddingly his son, who's Philly's GM, believed to be the believed to be the first father son manager GM combo in in baseball history. So you got that going. But I love when I was.

00:18:53
Speaker 4: A manager, when I was a gentleman, you could have done it. Maybe a should have hired my dad.

00:19:02
Speaker 5: That would have been great. You guys could have led the way. Well you're already the were you the first father son combo to play for the team, and you and the Lighters?

00:19:12
Speaker 6: I was the first, and then Lighters and then uh Bedrosian.

00:19:17
Speaker 5: Oh that's right. Camba Drojan came through here briefly in that COVID era, which I have erased from my memory. But I I you know, this can be a tough job, and he's a hard days when when guys get fired and you're running around and chasing these stories, and honestly it's very stressful. I do love the human moments in the job. And yesterday when Don Mattingly did his first press gathering in the dugout before the game. It was serious, gotta play better baseball, blah blah, blah blah blah, and invariably it came up that, hey, your son is the GM and he's addressed this before, he addressed it over the winter, and he said all the right things, and I don't think it's that big a deal the more I think about it. He's you know, they're they're united in the fact that we both want to win. But he's talking about his kid, about Preston, and he kind of looks and just all of a sudden, this look of of across his face where it was just a very human moment. He says, he shrugs and says, I like the kid.

00:20:17
Speaker 4: That was good.

00:20:18
Speaker 5: I thought it was really kind of kind of tender.

00:20:23
Speaker 4: Gosh. Yeah, that was very very cool moment for the family.

00:20:28
Speaker 6: Obviously, Preston making his mark here with the organization and with the San Diego Padres.

00:20:34
Speaker 4: Prior to that.

00:20:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's got to be pretty cool for them, no, no doubt about it. And they'll have some discussions. But but you know, when you replace a guy like Topper with a guy like Don maddingly. You're not really getting a super different personality. I think you're getting a guy of similar similar ilk. I just think that at the end of the day, Dombrowski decided that the change had to be made, and uh, and this is what they're going with. And and you know, for the phillys sake, I hope it works out.

00:21:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt.

00:21:13
Speaker 5: I mean it's not You're right, it's not a lot of difference. Personality was, but I'm not sure a chair breaker. I'm not sure they exist anymore. And I'm not sure this team would have even responded to one. You've got guys making hundreds of millions of dollars in that clubhouse, who have veteran track records, and I've been around a long time. And you walk in there and you start smashing stuff and start raising your voice and start making threats and demands, and they're gonna give you the side eye and like and then turn you off, turn you off, and like, who the bleep is this? Who the bleep is this guy? So, you know, I think in some ways, having you know, you always have that, you bring in that opposite type personality. I think in this situation it's overrated. You've got a guy who's managed. He's managed quite a bit actually, I think it's seven years, maybe eight years for ten years, I think years. And he's got the playing resume and he's got a sincerity to him much like Topper. This this is, this turnaround is going to be on the players. It ain't going to be on the voice in the in the chair. If they turn it around and get back in, it's because they had the talent and they manned up and did it.

00:22:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

00:22:30
Speaker 3: And then Rob did make himself available on Zoom two reporters and he was asked by I think it was Jake Mintz and.

00:22:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, who about it?

00:22:44
Speaker 3: And this is this is what Rob said, And he said, you know, why why do you Why are you on here right now?

00:22:49
Speaker 4: Rob?

00:22:50
Speaker 3: He said, if you're an accountable person, if you're a leader, you're going to stand up in front of people and answer the questions when it's all over. And I just wanted to make sure I did that in the right way. It's like the last four years that people feel like, whether I did a good job or or bad job, I represented this organization properly with class and with dignity. So this is all part of it to me. Do you guys have any final words? I mean, we'll talk about Rob obviously for the rest of our lives, but just don what kind of jumps out at you before we go?

00:23:19
Speaker 6: Class personified man, That's all I got to tell you.

00:23:21
Speaker 4: If he's a great man.

00:23:23
Speaker 6: Got a chance to know him, and behind the scenes, he is as professional as you can get. And I think he handled himself extraordinarily well under the circumstances here and did a hell of a job. You know, he won six six hundred six sixty percent of his games. This man knows what he's doing, did a great job for him and I'm just sorry that didn He's not holding the crown, right, he's not holding the He never held that World Series trophy because the players let him down in the playoffs too.

00:23:56
Speaker 4: Yep.

00:23:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:23:58
Speaker 5: The fact that he you know, he met with reporters, that's who he is. He never dodged a question when he was here, never dodged a question at all, never failed to put his hand up and be accountable. And maybe this thing someday will have a storybook ending for him, because I could see him being in a World Series parade someday maybe as the leader of the Toronto Toronto Blue Jays. He's sixty two years old. Take a little blow. I could see this guy riding again and manage advisor for.

00:24:30
Speaker 6: The Phillies because he said he made himself available to that for that possibility.

00:24:35
Speaker 5: Sure, but I don't think yeah he'll be He'll be one of those guys that that is a Philly forever. But if the Jays are looking for somebody, you know, in a year or so, a couple of years down the road, wouldn't they love to have a home boy bring him home. And this guy's a good manager. You could do a lot worse.

00:24:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll just say this.

00:24:56
Speaker 3: You know, I know a lot of fans were down on Rob at the end, But without Rob Thompson stepping in in June of twenty twenty.

00:25:03
Speaker 2: Two, there is no.

00:25:06
Speaker 3: Bedlamit the bank. There is no signature moment for Bryce Harper. There is no Now. I know some people don't like it or got tired of it, but there is no dancing on my own. You know, there is no memories of how many more JT four more topper, I mean, what great memories he has provided people over the years, and just fantastic memories for Phillies fans who don't forget how brutal it was for the longest time. I mean playoffs twenty twenty two, first time since twenty eleven, World Series, first time since two thousand and nine. That does not happen without Rob Thompson. And now, of course Phillies are hoping that Don Manningly can finish the job. So thanks everybody the Phillies Show.

00:25:52
Speaker 2: I think we'll be back later this week.

00:25:56
Speaker 5: Yes, smell you later, boys, he James.

00:26:01
Speaker 3: The Philly Show is brought to you by the Foul Territory Network. Subscribe to The Philly Show on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.