- Red Sox President of Baseball Operations David Dombrowski)
The Philadelphia Phillies have yet to hire a baseball executive to chart the course forward. Earlier this offseason, Dave Dombrowski, a seasoned baseball executive with multiple World Series rings, indicated he was happy working on a committee that would bring baseball to the City of Nashville. But he may end up working for the Phillies very soon.
Jayson Stark of the Athletic reports the Phillies are in "advanced stages" of a Dombrowski hire:
For more than nine weeks, they’ve zigged, they’ve zagged, they’ve stopped, they’ve started, and they’ve often seemed like a team with no clear path toward a better tomorrow. But now the Phillies are on the verge of emerging from those two months of inertia with this stunning result:
They are in the advanced stages of serious talks to hire Dave Dombrowski, a man who built World Series teams in three different cities, to be their next president of baseball operations, sources told The Athletic.
A couple months ago, Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Phillies, suggested Dombrowski might be interested in the job, provided he has full control:
Dave Dombrowski, architect of two World Series winners, is more interested in the Phillies job than the Los Angeles Angels' GM vacancy, according to two sources, but only if he has complete autonomy. That wouldn’t be the case with Andy MacPhail in the role of team president.
Andy MacPhail has one more season left on his contract with the Phillies.
Would the Phillies let a lame duck season of MacPhail's tenure to get in the way of the hiring of the right person to move the organization forward? There is no indication that the Phillies plan to end MacPhail's run at the moment. But would MacPhail, who some have suggested is set to retire at season's end, be overwhelming in the president's role? MacPhail suggested in a forgettable Zoom call with reporters in October that he would happily step aside for the right executive.
Dombrowski built two World Series winners in the 2018 Boston Red Sox and the 1997 Florida Marlins. Dombrowski was the architect behind the core of the 1994 Montreal Expos team that never had the opportunity to make the playoffs due to the work stoppage and behind the Detroit Tigers teams that made it to the World Series twice.
Earlier this offseason, the Los Angeles Angels were linked to Dombrowski.
Some have suggested in the past the Phillies will keep the status quo in 2021, with MacPhail as president and Ned Rice serving as interim general manager. But the Phillies could be onto something here. Dombrowski certainly has the resume a team would want.
