David Murphy: Here's why the Phillies kept Rob Thomson, and were right to do so

PHILADELPHIA — Why didn’t the Phillies fire Rob Thomson? Well, start by listing all of the reasons they weren’t at their best against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

— Their highest paid pitcher (Zack Wheeler), the presumptive Game 1 starter for the National League Division Series, was out for the season with a blood clot. Meanwhile, their highest-paid active starting pitcher (Aaron Nola) threw two innings of Game 4 after a regular season in which he had a 6.01 ERA.

— Their two highest-paid hitters (Bryce Harper and Trea Turner) went 7 for 32 with one extra-base hit.

— Their third highest-paid starting pitcher (Taijuan Walker) spent the series in mop-up duty.

— Their fifth highest-paid hitter (Nick Castellanos) wasn’t in the starting lineup for Game 1 and only made it onto the field because the Phillies’ best outfielder (Harrison Bader) suffered a groin/hamstring injury that kept him out of the lineup for Games 2-4.

— Two of their three highest-paid relievers were not on the postseason roster, one because of a PED suspension (Jose Alvarado), the other (technically) because of an injury (Jordan Romano).

— Their highest-paid reliever on a prorated basis (David Robertson) helped blow a lead in Game 1 and then did not pitch again in the series.

— Their top two setup men by the end of the season (Matt Strahm and Orion Kerkering) combined to allow six of eight inherited runners to score in the NLDS and were charged with an additional three earned runs of their own.

Therefore, Rob Thomson deserved to be fired.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Look, you can argue that a different manager might have flipped a better coin than Thomson did before a handful of critical in-game decisions. Thomson’s decision to bunt Bryson Stott with Castellanos on second was the most disputable of those calls. His bullpen management was a classic case of a man with no good options. The Phillies lost to the Dodgers because Kerkering and Strahm were on the mound for 11 of the 13 runs the Phillies allowed, and because the top half of their order too often failed to come through when they had the opportunity.

Even if Thomson had elected to let Stott hit against a tough lefty with a chance to tie the game in the ninth inning of Game 2, would it have actually resulted in a ball in play? If Stott hadn’t moved the runner, would Castellanos have been able to score from second on Bader’s single, or from third on Max Kepler’s groundout? A lot of smart baseball men would have made the same decision Thomson did. All would have been much better off with better options.

Fact is, Thomson was trying to get through a series with Jhoan Duran and smoke and mirrors. We saw that in Game 4, when he did everything he could to avoid dipping into his stash of relievers before Kerkering finally took the mound in the 11th.

You need to be awfully careful when you are talking about disrupting a team that has won two straight division titles and just got done playing the defending World Series champs close to even. That’s not to say that Phillies fans should be satisfied with the outcome of the last three seasons. But they shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that any change will be one for the better. Things can easily get worse. You’d rather win 96 games and lose a tightly-contested NLDS than miss the playoffs entirely.

Retaining Thomson is the safe play. That’s the indisputable verdict on the news that leaked on Monday, three days after the Phillies’ season ended with an extra-innings loss to the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS. John Middleton could have done the easy thing and deluded himself into thinking that a different manager might have had the Phillies back in the National League Championship Series. He didn’t, and that’s a good thing.

The Phillies’ 2026 fate will be tied to Dave Dombrowski’s ability to re-sign Kyle Schwarber, and find a middle-of-the-order bat to hit behind Schwarber and Harper. It will be tied to Dombrowski’s ability to build a bullpen that operates at the same level it did in 2022. He has whiffed badly on that front over the past several seasons. The Phillies’ fate will depend on the player development system that Dombrowski has attempted to rebuild. Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller, and Justin Crawford will hold the key. So will Kerkering, who needs to take the next step and become a legitimate shut-down arm.

Thomson has excelled at all of the areas where a manager exerts most of his control. He has created a winning environment. He has nurtured a happy clubhouse. He has exerted a steady hand that has helped the Phillies win more regular season games in each of his first three-and-a-half years at the helm.

Firing the manager is the easy thing to do. For the Phillies, the hardest work lies elsewhere.

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