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.

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.