Good stuff from Rosenthal
Cora might want to reunite with Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski regardless. He considers Dombrowski a mentor. Together, they led the Red Sox to the 2018 World Series title. And Phillies owner John Middleton, invested both financially and emotionally, is the polar opposite of the Red Sox’s John Henry.
A better fit for Cora might not come available for some time, if ever.
Still, the current collection of Phillies just got a good man fired with their putrid 9-19 start. They figure to play better for interim manager Don Mattingly than they did for Rob Thomson, if only because they can’t play worse. Their schedule also will ease after 13 straight games against the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves.
Dombrowski, then, acted rather shrewdly with the timing of this move. On other fronts, not so much.
The first head of baseball operations to lead four different franchises to a World Series, Dombrowski is far more accomplished than another top executive who just fired his manager, the Red Sox’s Craig Breslow, and one who might follow suit shortly, the New York Mets’ David Stearns. But the 2026 Phillies, at least to this point, are not Dombrowski’s finest work.
Dombrowski excels at persuading owners to spend and, as his nine division titles attest, putting winning clubs on the field. But he isn’t the most creative of executives, and he wasn’t proactive enough in retooling this group.
