Dave Dombrowski admits to brutal offseason bait-and-switch for Phillies fans

When we were in the early stages of the MLB offseason, it seemed as if Dave Dombrowski was positioning the Philadelphia Phillies for at least one big splash, if not multiple. While they ended up being on the outs in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, they were mentioned early on. The same was true in a trade pursuit of now-Red Sox southpaw Garrett Crochet when he was still on the southside of Chicago.

Obviously, neither of those players — nor Blake Snell, nor Max Fried, and so on — are on the Phillies roster right now. The club's two moves of note this offseason have been signing reliever Jordan Romano and most recently former Twins outfielder Max Kepler, both on one-year deals after dealing with injuries in 2024.

But hey, with so much of the winter still to come and Dombrowski at the controls while several high-profile free agents remain unsigned, we can expect Philadelphia to make another big move, right?

Not so fast. On Friday evening, Dombrowski spoke on the offseason and, per MLB insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today, all but said that the Phillies are done for the offseason in terms of "high-profile" acquisitions in free agency and, more troublingly, aren't currently in the mix for Japanese superstar newcomer Roki Sasaki.

Perhaps the better question now is what exactly the Phillies have done to make Dombrowski think this team is better than it was a year ago and how only adding another "back-end starter" is going to fully change that.

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Dave Dombrowski admits he was leading Phillies fans on this offseason

While Dombrowski may not have been outright telling Phillies fans that a big, splashy offseason move was coming, the writing seemingly was on the wall for that for more than a month. So to now be sitting here at the end of December and have the general manager saying that Kepler, Brandon Marsh and Nick Castellanos is the starting outfield is just a kick in the teeth to the fanbase.

That's not to say that's the worst outfield in baseball — it's certainly not. However, when the in-division Mets added Soto and while the Braves have returning Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II manning the outfield, it's lacking.

Furthermore, it feels as if Dombrowski or whoever has been leaking things about the organization's dealings to the media have simply pulled off a gut-punch of a bait-and-switch. There were optimistic feelings that a team on the cusp of World Series contention could make the right moves to vault to the next tier. Instead, one could argue that the team is either the same or, if you consider age or the looming loss of Jeff Hoffman, objectively worse.

Phillies fans deserve better than that and, frankly, with Dombrowski running the show, most would expect better. While his moves may not always work out for the best, aggression has never been an issue for him. There's a first time for everything, sure, but it's exceptionally poorly time for Philadelphia that this is the first time the GM isn't showing a bit of devil-may-care in his offseason approach.