Phillies: Recalibrating their future with Dave Dombrowski?

So Dave Dombrowski is now the head of baseball operations for the Philadelphia Phillies. What, exactly, does this mean for the future?

OK, then, since the Philadelphia Phillies have now hired legendary baseball executive Dave Dombrowski, is it time to recalibrate the perspective on the team’s chances next year? The plain answer on that is: “That’s a firm maybe.”

Not that Dombrowski’s hiring isn’t the best news of this, thus-far lousy Phillies off-season. Philadelphia baseball fans have to be happy with a new guy in charge who has taken three teams to the World Series (the Tigers twice), including a team from each league that has won it all.

Everybody knows Dombrowski won World Series trophies with the 1997 Marlins and the 2018 Red Sox, and those really paying attention know that his record lately has generally been better than his results early in his career. Nearly no one recalls that Dombrowki’s Tigers lost 119 games way back in ’03, an unenviable record.

Two World Series trophies forgive a multitude of sins, and no one can say Dombrowski isn’t willing to pull the trigger on important deals. His draftee and acquired player list is studded with big names:  Miguel Cabrera (both as a Marlins signing and a Tigers acquisition), Justin Verlander (as a draftee), Chris Sale, David Price, J.D. Martinez. Honestly, lined up against the Phillies historical draft and trade log, that should be enough.

However, this hiring is no guarantee that all the team’s problems are on their deathbeds, despite the fact that veteran Phillies writer Bob Brookover has trotted out this declaration: “It’s hard to believe…that Dombrowski would be interested in running the Phillies at age 64 without a strong financial commitment for the very near future.”

OK, fine, this means – if accurate – that the Phillies are probably not literally “tanking” this year, as some have suggested. But what this situation doesn’t rule out is a year of “tinkering” and then real aggression.

The next season will be the third for Bryce Harper with the Phillies, and he is still owed a truckload of cash under his lengthy contract. He would really, really like to have J.T. Realmuto, as widely documented, to throw to on plays at home plate.

Phillies fans have to hope that Bob Brookover is right about Dombrowski’s financial commitment from ownership. But they should not be sure at all that, this Christmas, Harper will have his fondest baseball wish fulfilled by Santa Claus.

However, Dombrowski may well go after James McCann. After all, he was in charge of the Tigers draft that grabbed McCann up in the second round in 2011. Expect a few other eye-opening moves as well.