Grading Dombrowski, Fuld and the Philadelphia Phillies front office at the season’s midway point

Acquired or traded

Dombrowski and Fuld were bold in their dealings with other teams, acquiring nine players via trade, waiver claim or purchase.

Those nine came at a cost of just three players who left the Phillies for other big league destinations.

Substantively, the most important deal brought Andrew Vasquez to the bullpen. Vasquez was picked up on a waiver claim from San Francisco, which, in very circular fashion, had acquired him from the Phillies the previous August.

Vasquez never actually made a big league appearance for the 2022 Phillies; to that point, his MLB resume consisted of brief stops in Minnesota, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Since coming back to the Phillies, he’s made 25 appearances covering 35 innings with a 1.80 ERA and 0.8 WAA. It looks as though he’s found regular work.

Cristian Pache has probably been the value surprise. An outfielder with a history of failure in Atlanta and Oakland, Pache came to Philadelphia in a May trade with the A’s that cost Dombrowski and Fuld a minor leaguer.

The way things are going for the A’s this season, you could figure that as soon as they quit on a non-performer, he’d start to perform. That’s Pache. With the Phillies, he’s hitting.316 and lobbying for additional playing time.

The glamour pickup was Kody Clemens, son of You Know Who. This Clemens is a first baseman, although the Phillies have tried him occasionally on the mound just to kill time. As a backup to Alex Bohm, Clemens is batting .232 with four homers, but that’s only brought a -0.6 WAA.

Free agency

Dombrowski and Fuld made one of the offseason’s big splashes when they went all in on free agent shortstop Trea Turner. He cost about $300 million through 2033, and to justify that he’ll have to step it up a bit.

Through half a season, Turner is batting .249 with eight homers and a weak .688 OPS, numbers that put him in the lower half of major league shortstops. His WAA is a barely positive +0.1.

The better news has been brought by pitcher Taijuan Walker, signed after a 2022 season spent with the Mets. In Philadelphia, Walker is 9-3 across 17 starts with a 3.93 ERA. That amounts to a +1.1 WAA, second-best on the Phillies staff and third-best on the team.

Craig Kimbrel, signed in January as the team’s closer, has racked up 12 saves on a 3.82 ERA in 35 appearances. He has added another +0.4 WAA to the total.

The news isn’t all good. Dombrowski and Fuld took a chance on veteran utility player Josh Harrison, and they’re finding out why everybody else has given up on Harrison. He’s hitting .225 with two homers in 96 plate appearances. That’s a -0.8 WAA.

Farm system

Three alumni of the Dombrowski-Fuld tandem are currently playing important roles with the Phillies. Ranger Suarez is probably the team’s best pitcher, Connor Brogdon has shuttled between the big club and Triple-A, and Bryson Stott is having a nice middle infield year.

The interesting thing is that the front office tried to write Stott out of the picture coming off a good but not powerful 2022 rookie season. They brought in Turner to replace him at shortstop and Edmundo Sosa to play second. But then Rhys Hoskins got hurt, Sosa had to move to third and second base opened for Stott. Good thing it did.

This season’s rookie class (at least to date) is neither as deep nor as strong. It has only three members, only one of whom is presently on the active roster.

Pitcher McKinley Moore made the team out of spring training, but got pounded in three appearances and was sent back to Lehigh two weeks later.

Outfielder Dalton Guthrie came up May 1, hit .167 in 23 games, and was sold to San Francisco, for whom he presently labors at Frenso.

The survivor is left-handed reliever Christopher Sanchez, who was activated in mid-April, sent down a day later, and recalled in mid-June. Since his return, Sanchez has shown some staying power: a 3.26 ERA in four starts.

Overall

Dombrowski and Fuld have taken a balanced approach to bolstering the Phillies’ personnel. They’ve been cautious in their use of unproven talent, made few mistakes and hit on their gambles more often than  not.

Here’s the first half report card on the Dombrowski-Fuld front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA               Grade

Acquired              -0.6                       C

Traded                  -2.3                       B

Signed                  +1.7                      B

FA Lost                 -1.4                       B

Rookies                -0.1                       C

Overall                  +4.7                      A

Since the end of the 2022 season, Dombrowski and Fuld have made 29 personnel decisions affecting the major league performance in 2023. They’ve been successful, with an impressive 16 improvements against just 12 negatives; one score was neutral.

What really moves the needle in favor of Dombrowski and Fuld is their success at free agent judgment.  They signed seven, and all but one have delivered. They walked away from seven others, and on balance time has proven those calls to be correct.

The performance of the rookie class hasn’t been much. But Philadelphia is a big market franchise built to take farm system failures in stride.