Dave Dombrowski Talks Phillies Future Built Around What’s Worked

To watch Phillies president Dave Dombrowski answer questions about his offseason plan required a significant amount of cognitive dissonance. He’d just completed his fourth full year at the helm of the team, and the Philles are 4-for-4 in postseason berths over that time, winning more games in each season.

Yet without a World Series to show for it, every question he faced carried with it the implicit idea that the entire exercise had been a failure, that a team with superstar talent and plenty of help on the cusp of joining the big league team requires something between significant changes and a full-on teardown.

There are certain things management can’t say — and Dombrowski, who has a long history in the game which will land him in the Hall of Fame once he retires, knows how to not say all of them. But he did provide a window into which players and moves he considers his biggest priorities, all while leaving himself, as any baseball executive should, some freedom to pivot based on events beyond his control.

That’s what makes this coming offseason so intriguing. The Phillies, rightly, don’t want to make major changes. But free agency means some of that decision tree is out of their hands.

Take Kyle Schwarber, for instance. The slugging designated hitter just posted his best OPS+ season, 150, at age 32. He’s taught himself how to hit lefties as well as he’s mashed righties for his entire career. Will he be on the Phillies in 2026?

“We’d love to bring Kyle Schwarber back,” Dombrowski said. “It’s a priority for us. He knows it, but I also know he’s a free agent. So that’s what ends up happening when guys have free agency. You never know what happens. But it’s a real priority for us to try to bring him back. And he knows it, his representative knows it, but we’ll see what happens.”

Similarly, no one has a good handle on exactly how the Phillies would pivot if they are unable to sign J.T. Realmuto, their rock behind the plate for the last half-decade. Manager Rob Thomson struggled to explain just how valuable Realmuto is to the Phillies.

“I can’t put a dollar sign on it, it’s just hard to do it. But this guy is, and I’ve had a lot of great catchers, [Jorge] Posada, Pudge Rodriguez for a short period of time, it goes on and on and on. This guy, to me, is the most prepared guy I’ve ever been around as a catcher. He will spend hours watching video, making up his own game plan, and then matching it up with [pitching coach] Caleb [Cotham] and talking with the pitchers, and he’s got a great feel for in-game adjustments, when to go to the mound, when to change the pitch, when to change location. I can’t put a number on it, but it’s significant. I mean, he’s just that good.”

And yet: will he be back? Dombrowski pointed out that he cannot plan this winter as if that’s assured, when asked whether the outfield can be considered the biggest area of potential improvement.

“Well, you can, and I would think it would be that’s because the infield is pretty well solidified. But again, is it catcher? I don’t know, because I hope we bring J.T. back, but I don’t know.”

The knowns are extremely positive for the Phillies. A payroll north of $300 million in 2025 is unlikely to go down, according to Dombrowski, which leaves plenty of room to keep several of their top free agents — more if they can find someone to take at least part of Nick Castellanos’ 2026 salary of $20 million, a player Dombrowski made clear was not a priority this winter in response to a question about Castellanos’ clashes with Thomson.

“Well, we’ll see what happens,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not going to get into specific players that are on our roster, under contract. But the things that you talked about are accurate, but we’ll see what happens.”

It’s hard to do the math and come up with a way for the Phillies to keep Schwarber, Realmuto, Ranger Suarez and Harrison Bader, even if Castellanos is dealt. And Dombrowski was realistic about that, too.

“We have a good club with a lot of good players, but you don’t have unlimited — I mean, I read some places where how they get better is, well, they sign this guy, they sign that guy. Well, I don’t think we’re going to have a $400 million payroll. I just don’t think that that’s a practicality, but we will be open minded to get better.”

Still, it is worth putting the idea of getting better in proper context here. The Phillies won 96 games. Rob Thomson, who Dombrowski said he expects to extend an additional year this winter, which will eliminate his lame-duck status going into 2026, has been to the playoffs 14 times in 22 big league seasons as a coach and manager. And Dombrowski’s taken every team he’s won to the World Series, but has only two titles: 1997 with the Marlins and 2018 to the Red Sox.

This is not some mark of failure. This reflects that even the best baseball executive of the past 50 years and the most successful manager by winning percentage in Phillies history cannot turn the postseason into something more than a small sample of baseball where one errant throw or one timely hit can alter entire October destinies.

The only real comparable period to this in Phillies history without a World Series title came in the late 1970s, when the Phillies, over a four-year period, won the National League East in 1976-1978, before injuries limited them to 84 wins in 1979. Incidentally, by the modern playoff structure, they’d have earned a wild card berth in 1979, and finished with the identical win total to the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks who ended Philadelphia’s season in the NLCS.

That Phillies team, with relatively few changes, went on to win the 1980 World Series, and the player fans held most responsible for a failure of timely postseason hitting, with 0 home runs in 50 postseason plate appearances from 1976-78, Mike Schmidt, coupled a NL MVP with a .381/.462/.714 line in the 1980 World Series, winning MVP honors in the Fall Classic as well. It turns out Mike Schmidt wasn’t the problem!

It was probably for the best those Phillies stayed the course, too. Then again, as Dombrowski pointed out, free agency was still in its infancy in the 1970s. It doesn’t change what we know about elite teams, then or now. The best-laid plans can get a team to October, but no one has figured out how to lock down that month once it arrives.

“I don’t like to say it’s the randomness of the postseason, but anybody knows that if you play five games, start with a one game, play one game postseason series or best-of-three, and there’s a bloop hit, that can make a much bigger difference than it will in 162 games.”

Left unsaid, but undeniable: the only way that bloop hit can make a difference for your team is if you get there. Money aside, the pitch Dombrowski and the Phillies can make to their own players and potential additions is a strong one: Philadelphia, in the Dombrowski/Thomson era, hasn’t missed October yet.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardmegdal/2025/10/16/dave-dombrowski-talks-phillies-future-built-around-whats-worked/