The Philadelphia Phillies have fired manager Rob Thomson, per multiple reports, with the team having gotten off to a 9-19 start, tied with the Mets for the worst record in the majors. Don Mattingly has been named the team’s interim manager.
Thomson, 62, was named the Phillies’ interim manager 51 games into the 2022 season after Joe Girardi was fired. Thomson spent almost 30 years — 1990-2017 — as a minor league manager and then major league coach in the New York Yankees’ system before leaving the Yankees to be the bench
coach for Gabe Kapler, who was hired by the Phillies after the 2017 season. When Kapler was fired and Girardi was hired after the 2019 season, Thomson, who had been a coach under Girardi with the Yankees, stayed in his role.
The 2022 Phillies team went 65-46 under Thomson and made it to the World Series, where they lost to the Houston Astros. Thomson, who had announced prior to the 2022 season that he would retire after the season, stayed on as the team’s manager, with the Phillies winning 90, 95 and 96 games the past three seasons.
The 2023 Phillies team seemed primed to make it to the World Series, but fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS. I don’t remember what happened in the World Series that year. Philadelphia got knocked out in the NLDS each of the last two seasons, and Thomson was seen as being under some pressure heading into the season. With the awful start, the Phillies have opted to make a change.
This is the second manager of a big market team that has stumbled out of the gates to be fired. Alex Cora was fired by the Boston Red Sox just days ago, and there was immediate speculation that Cora could be headed to Philly to replace Thomson. Cora was originally hired as Red Sox manager by current Phillies president Dave Dombrowski, when Dombrowski was running the Red Sox.
