The Phillies announced Monday that they’ve extended the contract of general manager Sam Fuld through the 2025 season. Assistant general managers Ned Rice and Jorge Velandia also received extensions through the 2025 season. Philadelphia, fresh off a World Series appearance, also recently extended president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski through the 2027 season.
“The Phillies have been nothing short of first class in my time here,” said the 41-year-old Fuld, who was named GM under Dombrowski following the 2020 season. “I’m thrilled to continue to work for such a tremendous organization in a city that my family and I love so much. We have an exceptional group of players, staff and employees that I’m excited to grow with over the next few years.”
Fuld played parts of eight big league seasons as an outfielder, the last of which came back in 2015 with the A’s. He’s been in the Phillies organization since 2017, originally joining as their Major League player information coordinator — a role in which he worked to distill data from the Phillies’ analytics staff and front office to the players on the field in a more relatable manner. He held that post until 2020 when he was elevated to GM. Along the way, Fuld interviewed for a handful of managerial opportunities around the game but eventually began turning away interviews for dugout positions as he continued to focus on his front office work.
The 39-year-old Rice is a veteran baseball operations executive at this point, having joined the Phillies in 2016 after spending more than a decade with the Orioles’ front office. He’s held the position of assistant general manager for his entire stay in Philly. Velandia, meanwhile, was promoted to assistant GM back in Dec. 2020. After an 18-year playing career (including parts of eight seasons in the Majors), he’s spent more than a decade working for the Phillies in a variety of roles. Velandia has worked with the Phillies’ player development staff, coached in the minors and served as a special assistant to baseball operations before settling into his current role.
Inevitably so
Everyone in that organization deserves kudos and the $ rewards. Not thinking last season was a given to repeat and making the moves towards a more complete team
Easy to say when it’s not your money. Yeah the Phillies went a long way last year but these people were simply doing their jobs that they were hired to do. Nothing wrong with a little bonus maybe but let’s not go crazy with it.
Retired/advisory role- You said a lot without saying anything at all.
Seems pretty simple to me. Sorry you don’t get it.
It is simple. So simple that it added nothing of value because there’s no substance to it.
It’s a pretty big accomplishment making it to a WS. They deserve to be extended. Sorry you don’t get it.
Holy wow. Nevermind
Plenty of teams have spent $ without success (Angels etc.) It’s important to spend it well.
That does take skill .
It seems like he was a player not too long ago.
I hope Nola gets the next extension.
Read an article that suggested they may let him test the waters….?
With Walker in the fold, Suarez and Painter/Abel/McGarry progressing….
Phillies will have to decide between Wheeler/Nola? Nola may take a tiny discount and Wheeler, I assume will go for his last (big) contract?
Hoskins coming off the books will help….But he may be in line for 6-7 yr deal @27-30?
And yeah I am looking for the Nola rumours myself!
They are resigning Nola and Wheeler book it
Phillies Nola and Braves Fried would be foolish to sign any deal that isn’t in the Geritt Cole range. They can both get more than Rodon did by heading into free agency.
Nola is coming off a 56$ extension….so he is primed for ‘his” day.
Fried is a FA in ’25 so it’ll be interesting to see if he takes a deal covering the rest of his arb years plus maybe a year off fa….?
Glad they will have some consistency in the organization as they move on from the McFail and Klentak era.
Even though I’m a Mets fan I’ll have to admit he did a very good job last year
Not a lot of GMs would have the backbone to replace Gregorious with Stott. Then the trade for Marsh was also very smart
He trusted the farm system (Stott, Vierling, Hall) rather than go to waiver wire or trades
Sounds like he should run for office.
Below average player = good GM
he probably fulfilled his potential and more. 8 year big league career is not nothing. he was solid for a few of those years too
@keysox fans of Bob Watson tenure as Yankees GM and career OPS+ 129 in almost 7000 plate appearances might not agree with your equation
He was also part of Israel’s team in the 2017 World Baseball Classic that shocked South Korea, Taiwan, and the Netherlands in first round pool play, then beating Cuba before losing to Japan and the Netherlands in second round pool play. They were ranked #41 before the qualifiers that got them there and they beat top teams of international pros with mostly American minor leaguers. The Netherlands might not sound like a baseball powerhouse, but it includes the island Curacao and I believe Didi Grigorius, Jurickson Profar, Kenley Jansen and others were on that team.
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to Fuld ‘em…
Too bad his name isn’t Phillip Lee.
Remember watching him play for the A’s like it was yesterday.
As far as terrible baseball players who had shockingly long careers, only Steve Lyons surpasses Sam Fuld.
Positive WAR player. 4.1 fWAR for his career because he could run and play D.
There are worse guys than Fuld that hung around longer.
Kurt Bevacqua played 15 years with a career 78 OPS+, negative 3.9 WAR and per Tommy Lasorda couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fzjWQF1oP2M
If you think this is true, you’re forgetting a lot of players. Fuld actually did alright as far as career bench journeymen.
Sam Fuld had a nice final career postseason game for the A’s in their 2014 ALWC loss to the eventual AL Champion Royals: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA201409300.shtml
Go look at his career stats… he was horrible.
Jeff Mathis is somewhere in the Fuld. He was upper echelon type bad… I used to get sick everytime I would hear someone fawn over his defensive prowess behind the plate
With the exodus of people from the Rays’ FO and considering Fuld is very analytically driven, he would have been a great fit on paper to replace Bloom etc. Too bad.
Speaking of people who can transfer from the field to front office, I wonder what happened to Ross Ohlendorf. At one point, he was marked as the 3rd smartest athlete according to Sporting News.
Are you Ross Ohlendorf Mr.Formetdraftpick?
Nope. I just remember him for when he played. Just always thought he would go into management.
Who was one and two? I know TEX GM Chris Young was a Princeton grad and had the biggest head. I’m guessing he’s up there.
Had to look it up, Bochy nicknamed Young “Headly” b/c of his hat size: 8 1/8″.
Meeting’s adjourned.
Bruce Bochy commenting on someone else’s head size is saying something. Bochy, himself, appears to wear size ‘XL/Bison’.
Little Sammy being groomed as the heir to Dave Dombrowski and the next Phillies executive to help John Middleton spend his “stupid money”!
Someone woke up on the wrong side on the bed……
It was a joke! Easier to express that on Twitter with the help of emojis and/or GIFs, which I also did.
Gotcha…..as a Phillies fan, usually use of the phrase “S$” in a post makes me throw-up a bit in my mouth…….as it has been sooooo abused.
Middleton’s phrase was said out of enthusiasm and he’s backed it up every year…..So am used to reading troll-post offerings…
After 9 straight non-sunny days here in chicago….maybe my sense of sarcasm is too heightened….
Lifelong Chicagoan here. It’s definitely been gloomy lately with potentially much worse weather on the way starting late Wednesday. Forecasts are predicting a potentially historic winter storm just in time for the winter holidays. It could be a nightmare for local traffic and for those trying to ‘get out of Dodge” during Christmas break.
Yesterday broke a string on 9 straight sunless days……was out and about….in 20 degrees and will do the same today…
Don’t mind the cold so much….it’s the sunless days that gnaw at me…..
Beer helps and well the Eagles win yday….
@Aaron love your cubs and Sox takes! Happy holidays!
@poet Exactly how I feel. It’s the gray that’s killer.
Thanks! Happy holidays to you and everybody else here. The ‘hot stove’ will definitely come in handy through year’s end.
I forgot Sam Fuld was the Phillies GM. He was so fun to watch. Underrated OFer imo. I was just reading his Wikipedia page. He made a leaping catch to rob Nyjer Morgan(that dude was a hothead) crashed into the brick wall at Wrigley and then doubled off the runner at first. Unfortunately the link provided no longer works.
I found this a different link though.
https://youtu.be/wjHV1_fbqQE
He still has work to do on our bullpen
Yes – not the extension announcement that I was looking for, however Fuld seems to be a good fit with DD. Terrific guy, smart and hard-working and an executive on the rise.
To annoy the “sabermetrics are everything” crowd, this is the correct setup for a front office. An actual baseball guy in charge of baseball ops, and the younger guy (who also understands the game from playing it forever and not just playing fantasy sports) with an analytics bent keeping the metrics in the daily conversation and approach.
That isn’t to say that the metrics guy even needs to be represented at that level, either. An AGM in charge of analytics and heavily involved in the day to day is more than fine. The only big no-no is to have an organization run by a numbers guy that has not actually been in the trenches, with…perhaps…the very rare exception.
Sam’s been extended to six feet.