Phillies Execs Fuld And Dombrowski Look For Balance Between Old-School And New-School Team Building

The Philadelphia Phillies’ offseason has been described a lot like their projected 2022 outfield defense has been described; an adventure.

Team President Dave Dombrowski has a reputation for being freewheeling with cash and prospects. In some ways, he is a hybrid of old school and new school approaches. He is willing to spend his way into and out of trouble. He looks to achieve short term success and figures out the long term components as he goes.

Throughout his career as an MLB executive, it is established that Dombrowski is very willing to spend and trade, but he has also been willing to trade the farm.

Enter Sam Fuld.

Sam Fuld may be new to the MLB executive suite, but he is no stranger to the advanced stats and analytics that guide the modern front office. As a player, Sam Fuld started his career as an undersized underdog, but the finale of his career saw him blossom into something of an analytics darling.

Although he did not amass overwhelming offensive statistics, his defensive profile, his ability to see pitches, and his ability to take walks (career 10 BB%) made him an excellent back of the roster player for the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics, two of the most forward thinking and analytically driven franchises.

He carried this knowledge into his post playing career as he was hired on the recommendation of then new Phillies Manager Gabe Kapler, to the position of Major League Player Information Coordinator. Essentially, Fuld was brought in to be the middleman between the players and the analytics department of the Phillies.

Unfortunately, it seemed there may have been too much of a discrepancy between the philosophies of the front office and field manager in Philadelphia, and Gabe Kapler’s tumultuous tenure was short lived.

Joe Girardi was brought in from the New York Yankees to replace Gabe Kapler as manager, and Girardi seemed to be the victim of a similar but inverse circumstance in New York.

Girardi, a more old school baseball type, seemed to have some philosophical differences with the Yankees’ front office, which led to disappointing results. Where in Philadelphia a more old school front office’s vision for their team did not seem to align with a more forward thinking Gabe Kapler’s vision for the team.

The Philles went 28-32 in the COVID shortened 2020 season, but the Phillies’ ownership seemed to have had enough of VP and GM Matt Klentak and he was fired at the end of the season. Sam Fuld was named to replace him and in order to help guide Fuld’s decision making as a first time GM and VP, David Dombrowski was brought in to serve as team President.

Sam Fuld might be in the perfect position serving as the go-between with an experienced executive in David Dombrowski and an old school former Major League catcher in Joe Girardi.

The tale of the Phillies’ offseason was offense. They signed two huge free agent bats in Kyle Schwarber and Nicholas Castellanos at the expense of defense. While on paper this may not seem like a very progressive or forward thinking approach, this is essentially a move straight out of the Bill James Almanac.

According to this line of thinking the ability to generate runs is the most important factor in team building. Defense is not a huge factor in this equation. Based on Baseball Reference’s 2022 projections, the Phillies are projected to score 722 runs and are projected to give up 598 runs. Obviously these projections have their faults, but this is the data that is available.

A quick calculation of this run differential would put the Phillies at a projected pythagorean Win-Loss record of 96-66. Typically 95 wins is the number teams aim to hit if they wish to grab a playoff spot and the Phillies could very well end up around that number.

Of course one could argue that their pitching is being incredibly overvalued in these projections, but the argument could also be made that their offense might be undervalued. Hence, the imperfect projections.

The point here is the Philadelphia Phillies have the rare hybrid of a former player serving as their General Manager. This is surely must be a voice that manager Joe Girardi has to respect. Perhaps this combo has a unified vision and are willing to punt defense to put runs on the board. After all, even by the most advanced analytical standards, run creation outweighs run prevention, and the Phillies look like they’re going to create a lot of runs.