The Philadelphia Phillies held their year-end press conference on Thursday morning, and there's a lot to unpack. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Rob Thomson, who recently found out he would indeed be returning as the bench boss next year, both spoke to the media about a range of topics.
It's been a week since the 96-win Phillies were eliminated from the postseason by the Los Angeles Dodgers, but Phillies fans' pain is still fresh. What everyone has been wanting to know is how the front office will react to another earlier-than-anticipated playoff exit.
On Thursday, we finally started to get some answers, kind of. Dombrowski was his usual coy self, but at least we finally learned what changes he's planning to make to the coaching staff.
Phillies running it back with coaching staff with only one minor change
Despite fans calling for sweeping changes to the coaching staff, mostly on the hitting side of things, the Phillies are sticking with their current coaches. Hitting coach Kevin Long, who many believed to be on the hot seat after a tough showing by Phillies hitters in the NLDS, is staying on. Assistants Dustin Lind and Rafael Pena will also be back.
Dombrowski had nothing but praise for Long and his staff.
"Kevin Long is an exceptionally good hitting coach," Dombrowski said when asked point-blank about Long. "With Dustin Lind and Rafael Pena I think we have a good hitting program. You can always get better, nobody’s perfect by any means, but I think they’re very good. That was a really good [Dodgers] pitching staff we faced in the postseason … I can’t put that on Kevin and his staff."
The only coaching staff news that came out of the press conference is that the team is adding a new role. Current bench coach Mike Calitri will shift over to become the major league field coordinator.
"Everybody’s coming back, but we’re going to have one change," Dombrowski said. "We’re adding a role this year to try to make us just a little bit better … we’re going to add the position of major league field coordinator which a lot of clubs have now … Mike Calitri is going to take that role for us, he’s an ideal person, he’s got the skill set to do that.”
So who will be the new bench coach? The Phillies don't quite know the answer to that yet, but it will be someone from outside the organization who ideally "has had some managerial experience," according to Dombrowski.
Despite the idea being credited to Dombrowski, Thomson is on board with the addition to his coaching staff.
"What we're really doing is adding another set of eyes, maybe a new perspective, different perspective on our club, new ideas," Thomson said. "But I'm still going to be utilizing everyone on that bench, including Mike [Calitri], for information during the games. I just think it adds hopefully an experienced guy, just a different perspective and makes us a little bit better."
Only time will tell who the Phillies hire as their new bench coach, and if running it back with everyone else will make them any better in crunch time.