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

The team of president Dave Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld is in its third season overseeing operations of the Philadelphia Phillies. Last season, Dombrowski and Fuld saw their club barely qualify for postseason play, then get hot and make a run all the way to the National League championship.

At this season’s midway point, the Phillies are 43-38, which by coincidence happens to be exactly their record at last season’s halfway point. They’d settle for the same playout … with the possible exception of a fresh start come World Series time.

The Phillies have an interesting talent nucleus, headlined by Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, and Aaron Nola. So it’s a fair question to ask how much Dombrowski and Fuld have done since the conclusion of the 2022 season in an effort to improve the product in Philadelphia.

Grading the Philadelphia Phillies at the midway point of the 2023 season

What follows is a mid-term assessment of the Phillies’ personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the team’s performance.

The standard of measurement is Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Dombrowski and Fuld impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved – or worsened – the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how the Phillies front office stacks up by those five yardsticks.

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.