Phillies make huge front office move by hiring Dave Dombrowski

The Philadelphia Phillies, looking to contend for the postseason, hired Dave Dombrowski as their new president of baseball operations.

It’s been nine years since the Philadelphia Phillies were participants in the MLB Postseason. Even with the team adding the likes of Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler and Joe Girardi in the past two years, it still wasn’t enough to contend for the playoffs. With ownership growing antsy about putting a competitive team on the field, they made a huge front office hire.

According to MLB insider Jon Heyman, the Phillies have hired Dave Dombrowski as their new president of baseball operations. Earlier in the day, Jayson Stark of The Athletic reported that the Phillies were set to hire Dombrowski.

Dombrowksi is the guy to build a winner

This move was a bit stunning. Dombrowksi was adamant that he was unwilling to take on an executive role, because his focus was on putting an expansion MLB team in Nashville, Tenn. That’s no longer the case, as Dombrowski is now heading to the City of Brotherly Love.

Dombrowski has a proven track record of building winning baseball organizations. He was the general manager of the Florida Marlins from 1992 until 2001, and won the World Series in 1997. He would move onto the Detroit Tigers (2002-15) shortly after his stint with the Marlins, where the organization won four AL Central titles (2011-14), two AL pennants and made two trips to the World Series (2006, 2012).

Perhaps Dombrowski’s most prevalent stint came as the G.M. of the Boston Red Sox (2015-19), in which the organization won the World Series in 2018 after an impressive 108-win regular-season. During his time in Boston, Dombrowski made the aggressive acquisitions for Chris Sale, David Price, J.D. Martinez and Craig Kimbrel. At the tail-end of a disappointing 2019 campaign, the Red Sox parted ways with Dombrowski.

The Phillies made it known they fully expect to contend in 2021 with Dombrowski’s presence. Now we wait and see what the first big splash move the long-time executive makes. For Phillies fans (and Bryce Harper), that first transaction should be re-signing Realmuto.