High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - Dave Dombrowski Comments On Phillies "Quiet" Offseason | WIP Morning Show

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Phillies president Dave Dombrowski joins the WIP Morning Show to talk about the team's offseason, Johan Rojas's progression and Andrew Painter's rehab. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's talk to our next guest. Of course, the Phils are just a couple of days away from spring training. Pitchers and catchers, and then the spring training thing, and then obviously late March this thing gets real with the start of a new baseball season. Let's welcome the president of baseball operations of the Philadelphia Phillies, Dave Dombrowski. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. How are you guys doing today? We are wonderful. We're excited that baseball is going to be back upon us soon. I don't have to tell you the town needs it, you know, with the way the football season ended. So we're

looking forward to getting going. Dave, let's get to this here. So this season, this offseason, I should say, one that many people have referred to as a quiet offseason. Now, you guys had a massive signing with Aaron Nola and otherwise no particularly big moves. To the people that say quiet offseason. Now, you guys had a massive signing with Aaron Nola and otherwise no particularly big moves.

To the people that say quiet offseason, do you agree with that assessment? And if so, why quiet? Well, I think overall that assessment is accurate. I mean, quiet doesn't mean inactive. I mean, we've been active on many different things as far as staying abreast of what's going on. It's been quiet after our first real big goal was to get a starting pitcher with Aaron becoming a free agent.

Of course, we were fortunate to re-sign him, which is a big signing for us. That really stabilized our starting rotation. And when you say, well, why, I think there's a combination of factors. One is we have a good club. That's apparent. There's not gaping holes. And we're also in an opportunity where giving opportunity to some of our young players,

which people are not usually very open-minded to or understanding. But we think if we're going to be the organization that we would like to be throughout, that we want to give young players an opportunity. And with that, and those guys are guys like Christopher Sanchez, who did a good job for us, and if you count Christopher in, that gives us five really established Major League starters. Kirkering in the bullpen, and if he comes in, that gives us six people, three from the left-hand side with Alvarado Soto-Strom, three from the right-hand side with Sir Anthony Hoffman,

and then also with Kirkring there. And our positional players, we want to give the opportunity to Rojas. He did not have a good postseason offensively, but he played well for us beforehand. He's an outstanding defensive outfielder. That makes us better right off the bat in that regard. And so when you look at our infield, well, we have Harper, we have Stott, we've got Turner, we've got Boehm, we've got JT behind the plate,

you've got Schwarber as your DH, you've got Castellanos, you've got Marsh. Well, there's not a lot of other holes there if you're going to give Rojas the opportunity. And part of the thing which ends up taking place with rules and understanding is that, for example, if you sign a player that's a veteran outfielder, let's just say and say, okay, well, we'll put him in there. Well, A, that doesn't really open an opportunity for Rojas. And what ends up taking place is, in our case, we've been involved with trying to sign some starting pitchers for depth purposes more so, relief pitchers for depth purposes,

although there have been a couple that would have been established guys for our bullpen too that we thought would definitely be an upgrade. But the free agents want guarantees that they're going to have that job, and we can't sign a free agent starting pitcher that is, for example, we are involved in Yamamoto. People are aware of that. Well, you can guarantee Yamamoto is, for example, we are involved in Yamamoto. People are aware of that. Well, you can guarantee Yamamoto is a starting spot. But if you're going with that type of philosophy,

most people are going to take a chance where they have the opportunity to go ahead and pitch or play there rather than come into our situation. Although we still stay abreast of what's going on, and we're in a spot that not only now but also during spring training, we'll keep abreast of what's going on and we're in a spot that not only now but also during spring training we'll keep abreast of what's going on with all clubs and you never can tell what will take place. Dave you mentioned Rojas a few times there do you think it is likely that he is a starter day one of this season or not? Likely yes definitively noly no. So I think the answer would be yes. We saw enough at the last couple months in August and September

that we really like what we saw. I've talked to our hitting people at length about his progress over the wintertime. He's worked extremely hard. He's made adjustments that he needs to make. And I'm not saying he's going to come up and hit 300 with 20 home runs right off the bat, but I think he can do enough offensively and contribute from an offensive perspective. And when you add his speed in there and then his defense, all of a sudden he becomes a real plus for us. So yes, I do think that he will be up,

but he has to earn that. We're not going to just give it to him. Dave, we spent a lot of time as a show, and I'm sure a lot of people out there did, discussing and debating the merits of Rojas versus Reese Hoskins versus a free agent, namely that you could have put Kyle Schwerber back in left field and had Reese Hoskins as the DH while Bryce Harper would be the first baseman. How tempting or not was the option to keep Reese? How far did that go in your mind until you eventually said, okay, the Reese thing is over. We love him, but he's gone and we're going with what we got here otherwise.

Well, we love Reese Hoskins, first of all. I mean, you can't ask for a more stable individual that's a Philly organization person, that's a Philly city individual. Reese is a tremendous person. He and his wife, Jamie, did so much. He's also a really good player. He can hit and hit with power.

So he's a good player. He's a Philly from the very beginning. These are the type of things that are tough decisions. We felt, and no, I don't mean this in a negative vein, but we think that one of the other biggest things we need to do is to try to get Kyle out of left field on a regular basis. His knees over the last couple of years, last year, he didn't run as well. He catches what he gets to. He's a good offensive player, but we think that the defense and the speed help us a great deal more. And so when you look at what our situation is

as far as what we think is a better club, we look at it with having the outfield defense out there for us with some, of course, contribution from an offensive perspective. Well, if you do that, you move Schwarber to DH. Well, putting Bryce at first, there's just not that room for Reese. So that's really what it came down to. And I can understand we debated that ourselves. We had a lot of meetings in that regard.

You could also say, well, do you leave Bryce in the outfield? We think it's better at this point to move him to first base. We think he's going to be an outstanding defensive first baseman. One thing that doesn't catch people's eyes is that they're really not excited about a great deal. I get it. I love power hitting. Everybody loves a home run. Defense doesn't get as much attention.

But when all of a sudden you put Rojas in the outfield and you put Harper at first base, and you put Rojas in the outfield, and you put Harper at first base, you become a really good defensive ball club compared to the other combination of having Schwarbs and left and Reese at first base. Dave, how important is it for you to re-sign Zach Wheeler, and when do you anticipate that will take place? Well, we would love to sign Zach today if we could. I think it's important that we re-sign him. He's one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Really never get into negotiations publicly, but you can say it's something that's important for us, and we would love to get that done. So I know Wheels loves it in Philadelphia, loves being part of the organization, and I would say that it's a priority for us. How happy are you with the current rotation, and what's the likelihood you'd consider adding a starter like Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell? Well we're happy with our rotation and when you look at it

in all the analytical aspects of it too I think they rank us as number one rotation in baseball so that's pretty good in a lot of things or at least in the top three. So we like our rotation. We like it with Zach. We like it with, um, you know, Aaron Nola coming back. Uh, Suarez is really good pitcher. The one thing we'd have to get out of Suarez and he'll be in camp on time for the first time in a long time due to other time to immigration and WBC. Um, we'd like to get more innings out of him during the regular season, and we think we can do that. Tyon Walker is a really good 3-4 type of starter. He won 15 games for us, but he pitched 170 innings. And if you're going to give Sanchez the opportunity.

So I can't tell you that somebody doesn't fall in your lap at some point and you say, gee, that's an opportunity we can't turn down. But I think you also have to always combine it with we were in on a couple relief pitchers too. We liked them. We thought that they would be positives for us. But, for example, the situation with one, he wanted to go start somewhere. We didn't have a starting opportunity. We thought the guy was more of a relief pitcher.

There was somebody else we were in on that we liked a lot. He wanted to go close to home, which was on the West Coast. It's like Yamamoto's situation. We were very involved in that, and I think people would be shocked if they found out how much money we put on the table for him, but it really came down to, and even though there's a lot of regard for our organization, playing in the city, how we support the club, the atmosphere at the ballpark

is second to none but he wanted to go to the dodgers that was just the way it was um and i don't know that it had as much to do with the presentation of other things that happened in his earlier in his life where he was more of a dodger fan so um again you keep an open mind towards everything and every single day i'm looking at who our list of players are, who might make sense for us. But, again, somebody might be, okay, you need a – and I can understand, hey, we could use a better bat off the bench. Well, we might.

That might end up happening. But in the outfield what ends up happening is there's some people, if you try to sign them, we want to be your left fielder or we want to be your center fielder. Well, right now, given Rojas the opportunity um those are things that we just can't do but yet look every single day and you just can't tell what'll end up happening you mentioned the wbc uh last season it sort of contributed to maybe a slower start how will the organization do things differently this spring

to hit the ground running to avoid the slow starts of the last two seasons? Well, and there's been meetings and phone calls, and Rob Thompson's been on it with our staff and participated in some of those calls. We'll have our meetings, of course, next week when everybody's here in person. But I think that we probably just need to be in a position that we're more focused on that not just getting ready for the season to go from there maybe turn it up a notch last year there was a lot of things that that happened so two years ago a little bit

different than I think last year but last year when you look at all our participants in the WBC and I'm a supporter I think WBC is great but it didn't help us last year because we had three of our positional players in Schwarber, Turner, and JT that just didn't get enough at-bats to get ready for the beginning of the season. Harper, of course, wasn't ready. You lose Hoskins right before opening day. Well, then you put Derek Hall in. He gets hurt. So that's a lot of things that affected Matt regarding it.

It also affected our pitch, and Suarez wasn't ready. Tyon Walker wasn't quite ready. So I think we're in a position where having our players in camp more, getting more ready ourselves, having that thought process and the folks in that regard will be a way that we can be better prepared to start the season. Dave Dombrowski here with us on WIP. Of course, it fills the spring training in just a couple of days. Dave, Aaron Nola, I'm curious, how worried were you specifically about the Atlanta Braves and their desire to sign Aaron Nola? Did that drive you to get to the price you got to

because the Braves are the Braves and they're in your division? Well, I was very worried that he would go to the Atlanta Braves or anybody else, but I think the Braves were a legitimate person that you knew that they had interest. They publicly said that I had a pulse of what their offer was. And I knew Aaron wanted to stay in Philadelphia once we got into the process. He had made that clear all along, but once he was out in free agency, I'm always worried in that case because our best chance is to sign a guy like Aaron. And you can say whomever it may be, Zach Wheeler this year is before they become a free agent, because once they become a free agent, anything can happen out there. So you're in a position where anybody can can overwhelm you.

But, yeah, I mean, normally when you sign a free agent, you give them more money than you would like to give them or more years, the combination. So you get driven to do that. But that's what free agency can create, although you see some free agents out there this year that are still sitting there and haven't apparently received the dollars they would want. But, yeah, it was a concern that we would lose Aaron. And he's really a good pitcher. And we really not only has he been a good pitcher, he's a Philly. You saw the adjustments he made as the year progressed with the pitch clock, which was important.

He was quicker to the plate last year, later in the year, when he established his slide steps. So he continues to improve, and he's the type of guy that we think can age very well. So we're thrilled that he's back. Dave, fascinating situation a couple months ago. Scott Boris came out and indicated that Bryce Harper wants a new deal with the Phillies. The story publicly seemingly just went away. It's almost like a lot of people probably forgot about it.

I know you have not. Should Bryce Harper, who's been unbelievable, should he expect a new deal from the Phils? Or are you very comfortable looking him in the eye and saying, listen, big guy, love you. You've been amazing. But that's why John Middleton committed $330 million to you five years ago. What we sign you for is what you're going to get. I mean, should he expect a new deal or not? Well, I would not get into any contract situations

publicly just never really do that um we'll say of the utmost respect for bryce tremendous players said everything for the our club and the team and the city so he's the type of guy you want to have he's in a situation where you can always desire or want, anybody can, anything that they would like. We end up making business decisions that sometimes are difficult, but I mean, the way, one way I would just say it without getting into any particulars is that we're thrilled that he's on board. We know he's at Philly for eight more years, and there's a lot of times to digest things, but it's a situation where we're thrilled that he's on board. And again, you can desire and want anything you would like, but I think it's also the apparent. Noah Bryce, when he gets to spring training under any circumstances, he's ready to go and you know

you're going to get 100% from him in every regard. Dave, who's the closer of the team? Well, I think that'll be a decision that we'll make in the spring. And I'm not sure even coming out of here that we'll per se have a designated closer. You work with your managers, and I think we have a few guys that can close games. I mean, Alvarado can close games. Soto's had over 30 saves. He can close games. Sir Anthony's closed games in the past.

Hoffman has the ability to do that. His stuff last year was tremendous. He continued to move up the ladder. I wouldn't even discount a guy like Kirkering closing some games. So I think we're more of a club that looks at a manager like using a closer by, if you want to say committee, but on matchups more than you do, just say this is a designated guy. Unless you have somebody like Mariano Rivera,

of course, you'd give him the ball. And last year when we came out of the year, we didn't really expect Kimbrough to be our closer. He ended up closing the games and just moved into that role in, I think, about May and continued in that role. But we feel we have a lot of guys who can close games. Lead off hitter, feel we have a lot of guys who can close games leadoff hitter do you have a preference stop schwerber turner is there a dave dumbrowski february 7th preference

i do but i think i share that more with rob thompson i'll let him answer that question i think that's uh that's uh we talk about those things and a lot of people disagree and have different thought processes. I have my own personal preferences, but that's Topper's decision, and I'll let him make that one. Dave, is the organization cool with Tywon Walker? I mean, he went really public after the season, you know, social media stuff. You guys cool with him?

Yeah, we're fine. In fact, the other day I was just talking. And first of all, I understand when a guy gets frustrated he's not pitching that and when people look at it they sometimes it's hard to even when you're the person involved when you look at the whole circumstances we didn't need a fourth starter for a long time just the way the postseason lined up and um so and he hadn't thrown the ball. So we went with the other person. Walker was our fourth starter throughout the year, for sure, third or fourth starter.

But Rob Thompson's talked to him. He talked to him at great length within the last couple weeks, and he's fine. He's ready to go, and we're fine with him. So we're looking forward to him being at camp. Dave, two final questions here. The first, and you guys got so close last year to the World Series and obviously could have won it all, five games away from winning it all.

It was another great thrill for the fans to get that close, though. Any lessons learned from the elimination last year in the postseason or any part of the postseason journey? Well, I don't know if it's as much lesson learned. Most of our lessons were pretty good until we got to the very end. We got up two games to zero. I don't think our players did take anything for granted at that point, but I will give one thing

that ended up taking place, and we have looked at this over the wintertime, is that, I give the Diamondbacks credit, they really adjusted, and we chased a lot those last few games out of the strike zone. And I think that's something that we're susceptible to doing, but it's also things you can work on. And so it's been a focus for us in that regard, even in discussing with our hitters over the winter time. And we've got some different thought process and different drills that we'll focus on when we get to spring training to hopefully help us a little bit in that regard.

And Dave, the Andrew Painter rehab, how's it going? And when does the organization expect him to be able to pitch in any game? Obviously, it would first happen in a minor league game. What's the timeline for Andrew Painter? Well, Painter's rehab is going fine. He's here actually in the minor league camp. Right now, he's where he needs to be, but he's just tossing at this point, which is where he should be. I don't really look for Andrew

to pitch this year. I'm looking towards 2025. I guess you can always be surprised, but I don't want to put that pressure on him. So far, everything's been just as thought from the surgery. The rehab's been great, but that's really more the timeframe than anything this year. All right, Dave, and I got one more. I said two more. I have a third and final. Here we go.

I mean, baseball operations covers a lot of ground, including music selection in the clubhouse. Should dancing on my own be put to bed because, you know, you did not win the World Series the last two years, or is it too integral to this group of players, to Phillies fans and the recent Phillies history, to shove it aside?

Should it be embraced moving forward or not? I'll give you the realistic answer on that. I like this song. I didn't know this song before it got played a couple years ago. I like this song. And really, my vote counts as zero in this regard. The players will make that decision themselves. And you can make an argument any way you would like on that one.

I like this song, but those guys will sit down and decide if they should play it or not, and they will not ask my opinion whatsoever. It only goes so far. The boss's leverage only goes so far. Dave, good luck, obviously, with what's up ahead in the coming weeks with spring training and then ultimately the start of the season. We look forward to talking to you throughout it. Thank you, Dave.

Sounds great. Thanks a lot. There he is, Dave Dombrowski, president of baseball operations. So, Rojas, Seltzer, I need you to discern here. I told you. I said this. Well, hold on. Is that because Rojas is the guy or because he's saying Rojas is the guy unless they sign someone else, which they could still do?

Yeah, of course they could still sign someone, but I said to you this whole time that I thought they believed in Rojas more than you did, more than the public did, and I still believe that. Because, John, he was pretty strong on Rojas. He's doing really well with, look, he's getting at bats, and at bats like FaceTime at bats. Like he's with the pitching, hitting coaches, the assistant coaches all the time, and even more so because you can do it with technology now.

Well, look, we'll take your immediate reaction to that interview and everything we've been discussing today, which also includes Jalen Hurts, which includes Joel Embiid, the game in Brazil. I mean, all of this is on the table. Your assessment of what you heard from Dombrowski there, who right out of the gate very candidly said, I'd call it a quiet offseason,

which it has been, but I will say this, and this is why to the Twitter poll we've been asking today, are you disappointed with the Phillies offseason? I'm not, in part because they do have a good team. There wasn't, I mean, let's put it this way. If the Eagles next year make one big change, we got a big problem. Because they need to change like 14 different things.

The Phillies didn't need to change 14 different things. And I'll tell you, he said something there I was very encouraged by. That they put big money on the table for the Japanese pitcher. That tells me they got more up their sleeve. Now, might not happen in the next month and a half before the season starts, but that means this organization that gave $300 million to Bryce Harper

and Trey Turner and hundreds of millions. They'll continue to add the big blockbuster deals. That's a pretty juicy piece. Because if you remember, guys, Nola signed first. So if they were willing to go there, theoretically, maybe the Phillies could have rescinded their offer after Nola signed. I guess technically, maybe we don't know that it was both. It was both. Nola signed first. No, but theoretically,

the Phillies could have put $250 million on the table for the Japanese pitcher and removed that after Nola signed. No, no, no. The reporting was way after Nola happened. Like, the Phillies were in it till the end. The Phillies... Okay, well, that was my interpretation when he said it. They reportedly offered him over $300 million was what was reported.

That's pretty wild. All right, let's go to the phones. Your reaction to what you heard. Chuck in Worcester. What's up, Chuck? Listen, let me tell you something. When you write your memoirs, if you ever do do this guy is the greatest interview you ever do you do know that don't you this guy is phenomenal that's number one number two i am tired of hearing about this first basement

look people don't understand again they watch this guy the injury he had was it should have never happened the guy was the he understands how to play that position doesn't have to surround the ball doesn't have to run through a ball doesn't do right hand right foot this guy had to go why we keep talking about this i have no idea because he's a better because he's a much better hitter than rojas currently is that's why i'm talking about the ball player. He makes the whole team around it weaker when you've got to play him. But let me say this to you because you're a bright guy. Why are you asking this guy a question that you know he's not going to answer?

Which one? Which one? Bryce Harper. Why would you ask him that? You know you're not getting an answer out of him. Well, you're probably not, but you've got to ask the question. And you've got to discern from what he says what you think of what he says well let me say this to you in spite of everything i've said great interview joe well thank you thank you but

i mean chuck here's what i'll say on the bryce harper thing you never quite know what you're going to get and that question you do uh probably but but you don't know, no. You got to ask. Listen, Bryce Harper and Scott Boras try to put the Phillies up against the wall. I mean, they went public. That was a pretty provocative action. And by the way, Chuck, well, we know how they've handled it so far. You ain't getting a new deal.

And if you notice what Dombrowski said, while saying not much on that question, when he answered it, he did reference eight years to go. It's in his mind, because let's be real, Chuck, who that has eight years left on their deal in any industry gets a new deal? I mean, a president can't even get a ninth year. You know what the bottom line is? Unless you're FDR. The bottom line is for 20 minutes, you have the ears of the city. Great job. Thank you, Chuck. I appreciate the phone call. Well, John,

good stuff from him as well. I mean, listen, Dombrowski is an interesting interviewer because in part, first off, you know you're talking to an adult. Let's start with that. Okay? He's been around the block. He knows how to answer questions. But he also does actually answer most questions. He's answer most very honest doesn't lie yeah i don't think honestly i don't know that he lies at all i don't i don't remember an executive

who at least it feels like he's telling you the truth more in my life i agree and it's a tough thing to do because you're being asked probing questions and we know some people lie and some people don't some people hedge and i i think he think he's pretty darn giving there with what he says. And it might actually hurt you not to lie. Like giving away your trade secrets might be a bad idea, but he's just very straightforward. Now listen, I will say this. And brilliant on top of it. Maybe when he said likely that Rojas starts,

maybe it's a little bit of a fib, because he might know he could be signing a center fielder or a left fielder in the next 12 hours or 12 days and he doesn't want that guy's agent to know. So it's like, all right, we're pumping up Rojas. Totally. But at the same time, he gives you the thing about Schwarber and his knees. Well, he was clear there. He was very clear. He's like, we had to get Schwarber out of left field. You don't hear executives say that often. He was very clear he didn't want Schwarber in left field. He was very clear about that.