10:19am: Nightengale now reports that the Phillies offered the job to Cora but the former Boston skipper passed, citing a desire to spend time with family. Cora’s deal with Boston paid him upwards of $7MM per season through 2027, so he’s well positioned financially to take some time away if that’s indeed his preference.
9:52am: The Phils have announced the news. Mattingly has been named interim manager for the remainder of the 2026 season. Third base coach Dusty Wathan receives a promotion to bench coach. Triple-A skipper Anthony Contreras was called up to the MLB staff to take over third base coaching duties.
9:47 am: There’s a major shakeup in Philadelphia. Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports that the Phils have fired skipper Rob Thomson. Bench coach Don Mattingly is taking over as interim manager.
Philadelphia is the second struggling big-market team to make an early managerial change. The Red Sox dismissed Alex Cora and much of their coaching staff over the weekend. The Phillies didn’t overhaul the coaching staff to the same extent, but it’s a major change nonetheless. They’ll hope it’ll light a fire under an underperforming team that is out to a 9-19 start, tying them with the Mets at the bottom of the National League.
Given the timing of the dismissals, there’ll naturally be some speculation about Cora as a candidate for the Philadelphia position. Phils president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was leading the Red Sox’s front office when Boston first hired Cora in 2017. The Sox won the World Series a year later.
However, it’s perhaps notable that the Phillies specified Mattingly as their interim manager through season’s end. Bob Nightengale of USA Today suggests the Phils are not planning to hire Cora or any other skipper in the short term. Mattingly has an even stronger family tie with the Philly front office. His son Preston is Philadelphia’s general manager, the #2 role in the front office underneath Dombrowski.
In any case, the Phillies decided a change was needed given the disappointing first month. It ends Thomson’s three-plus year run leading the club, one that was highly successful overall. Thomson was initially hired on an interim basis when the Phils dismissed Joe Girardi in June 2022.
He took over a team that was seven games below .500 and 12 back in the NL East. They went 65-46 the rest of the way to snag the NL’s final playoff spot, then tore through the Senior Circuit playoff field to win the pennant. Even after they dropped a six-game World Series at the hands of the Astros, it was an easy call for the Phillies to commit to Thomson as the full-time skipper.
It’d be too simplistic to attribute the ’22 turnaround solely to the managerial change. The Phils dismissed Girardi because they had a talent roster that wasn’t performing to expectations, and some kind of improvement was probably inevitable either way. The Phillies’ regular season results continued to improve during Thomson’s three full seasons at the helm. They respectively won 90, 95, and 96 games between 2023-25. Philadelphia has won the NL East in each of the last two seasons and comfortably made the playoffs each year.
Despite the improved regular season output, their postseason performances have gone in the wrong direction. Philadelphia lost a seven-game NLCS to the Diamondbacks in 2023. They’ve been bounced in the Division Series (by the Mets and Dodgers, respectively) in each of the past two years. Philly’s front office has pointed to the unpredictability of short series in remaining committed to Thomson as manager. They signed him to an extension running through 2027 last December.
Things changed quickly. The Phillies couldn’t have started this year much more poorly. They’ve only won two series, and those came against the Nationals and Rockies. They’ve lost each of their past six series, including a 10-game losing streak that dropped them from .500 to 8-18 last week.
The issues have been up and down the roster. Cristopher Sánchez has been their only effective starting pitcher. The offense has scored 102 runs, above only the Giants and Mets. They’re 29th in batting average and on-base percentage while ranking 17th in home runs. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh have been their only above-average hitters. They’ve gotten particularly poor starts from Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, while offseason signee Adolis García hasn’t provided much in right field.
Philadelphia’s recent success has been built on excellent starting pitching and a potent lineup. They’ve had a difficult time building strong bullpens and are one of the league’s weakest defensive teams. The rotation should benefit from Zack Wheeler’s return from thoracic outlet surgery and more consistency from Jesús Luzardo, but they’re lacking rotation depth beyond their top five arms. The Phillies let Ranger Suárez walk in free agency, relying on Andrew Painter to step into the rotation. Painter’s performance has been up and down, while Aaron Nola continues to be much too susceptible to home runs.
The front office certainly deserves some of the blame for the underwhelming start. That said, it’s not as if Thomson’s managerial tenure was uniformly positive. He came under some fire for his in-game tactics in the playoffs and had a rift with Nick Castellanos, who publicly criticized the skipper’s communication skills. Veteran reliever Matt Strahm reportedly also voiced some displeasure internally with how Thomson handled his bullpen last season. The front office sided with Thomson in both instances, releasing Castellanos and trading Strahm to Kansas City.
It now falls on Mattingly to lead a turnaround, one the Phillies hope will resemble their 2022 season. They’ve already dropped 10.5 games behind the red hot Braves in the division race. Getting to 90 wins would require them to play at a 60.4% clip (a 98-win pace) for the rest of the season. It’s doable but leaves them without much margin for error, and another few weeks play this poor would dig a hole from which they’d have almost no choice to recover.
The 65-year-old Mattingly is in his first season in Philadelphia. He spent the previous three seasons working as John Schneider’s bench coach in Toronto. The Jays came up just shy of winning a World Series last year and hoped to bring back their entire coaching staff. Mattingly declined, preferring the Philly opportunity. It seems fair to assume he didn’t expect to be the interim manager within a month of joining one of the NL’s perennial contenders, but that’s the situation in which he finds himself.
Mattingly has 12 seasons of managerial experience. He led the Dodgers from 2011-15 and skippered the Marlins between 2016-22. He predictably had much more success in Los Angeles, leading the team to three division titles. Mattingly made the postseason just once in seven seasons in Miami, a 31-29 showing during the shortened 2020 schedule. He holds an 889-950 record as a major league manager overall.
Wathan assumes his highest-profile role on the Philly staff. The 52-year-old has been in the organization for nearly two decades. He worked his way up as a minor league manager and has been the third base coach since the 2018 season. Wathan has held that position under Gabe Kapler, Girardi, and Thomson. Contreras now takes that role for his first MLB coaching opportunity. He has managed Triple-A Lehigh Valley for the last four-plus seasons.
More to come.
He gone
Carlos Mendoza is sweating.
Thomson out – did not surprise
Mattingly in charge – did surprise
🎵Donnie in charge of- my ‘pen and my bunts!🎵
It should have been Bowa.
Bring back Girardi to complete the circle.
Tessio was always smarter
Not when his son is in FO
Cora turning down the opportunity makes sense. He’s getting paid millions. Take the opportunity to get off the treadmill and to better assess all the opportunities. The Phillies job is likely still there for 2027.
Still, this current Phillies team is perfect for Cora. Full of complacent veterans who’d rather chat about what bar they’re going to after the game than focusing on them winning ballgames. I bet it was a tough choice for him to decline at this time.
2 down,one to go!!!
Carlos Mendoza: “What’s that supposed to mean?!!!” 😜
Donny Baseball’s back!
So what?
it’s ginormous that Donny is back, this is why u washed up, homey
He’ll mean nothing in the long run. Nice that he has fanboys like you, though. Maybe you can get his autograph.
Saw this coming a mile away, especially after the whole Cora situation in Boston
What does one have to do with the other? Also congrats for seeing it coming, we are al very proud.
Bruce may be theorizing that Cora wants a year off and Mattingley is a placeholder until next year which may be the case unless Mattingly wants to manage going forward and the Phillies turn it around this year.
Seems like a stretch.
Cora already turned Dombo down Sack. the irony is fantastic.
Another big market club underperforming…. Those come in bunches most times. If you don’t like it move along??? Also wasn’t looking for any recognition. No big deal though I’ll just mute you since this is just talking baseball and I don’t have listen to your criticizing.
And he got the dreaded ‘vote of confidence’ from Dombrowski recently…
Death, taxes, Royce Lewis to the IL, and a manager/head coach getting fired shortly after the GM/POBO declares that so-and-so’s position has never been more secure.
Geez. I don’t care how bad your team is, the fact that 2 teams couldn’t even wait until the ASB to clean house on the coaching front just tells me these coaches are scapegoats.
Absolutely ridiculous.
It’s about tv ratings and money.
lol what
So when you have a bunch of really good players and only 1 decent team in your division you should just ride out the losing until its too late? This is absolutely the right time to shake it up if they feel that will help, not 3 months from now when its too late and the Mets have already righted their ship.
The Phillies fired Girardi a little later in the season in 2022 when they weren’t as bad and made it to the World Series. The players obviously weren’t listening or motivated so something had to be done. This team averaged almost -2 runs a game including their wins. They are playing awful in every way possible.DD definitely bears a huge responsibility for this mess but if they waited any longer they had no chance to recover and make a run.
You obviously haven’t watched their games. They are disgracefully awful.
What purpose is there to waiting until allstar break? Silly random date to clean house is how I would frame it. This was 100% necessary. As far as scapegoat goes, yes the person responsible for the day to day effort should be held accountable. You state scapegoat as though he is blameless. The job of every manager everywhere is the get the players or employees to perform to expectations. Thompson was not successful, so of course he got canned.
Mattingly is back, but can he save Philly?
Nope
Dwight Schrute is MANAGER!!!!!!
he’s assistant to the Manager
Not before Ryan Howard, with mustache.
Eat fresh
Meanwhile in Flushing crickets. Mendodo is dead man walking.
Mainly DD’s fault but he may be following and you can’t fire all the players.
It’s a shame because Thompson is from all reports one of the better dudes in baseball but this was needed.
This feels more like DD’s fault for having an old and expensive roster instead of Thomson
Mattingly getting another chance at manager is pretty cool though hes never had a roster like this
“[N]ever had a roster like this.”
Do you mean not one this good? He managed the Dodgers before Dave Roberts took over.
Mattingly is being used as a buffer between whatever this is (vague gestures) and the next permanent manager. Cora knew enough not to walk into the mess that is Phillies Clubhouse 2026 until someone else goes in, opens the windows and airs the place out. Plus some of the problems are age, roster construction and injury that can’t be fixed from the manager’s office, and you don’t want to own all those until DD gets a chance to clean up a bit.
But this winter there will be a search, and I imagine that unless he does something very special in the next month, Mats will only get a look as if he was a participant in this situation rather than the solution. They have had competent, nice, empathetic leaders and done both better and worse over the years, so more of the same isn’t a difference maker.
Horses that stumble out of the gate sometimes throw their jockey.
Congratulations to Donnie I wish he was back in New York but good luck to him.
Mattingly was never going to be the Yankee manager under any circumstances.
This has Alex Cora > Philly next week written all over it. Dombrowski knows him well too.
Doesnt make sense to replace Donny so quickly
The Phillies wish.
Zero chance.
Alex has more sense than that. The problems are not rooted in anything the manager can fix, the expectations are too high and he can get hired next winter after they bite the bullet and make some fundamental roster moves.
Cora is being paid through ’27 by the Red Sox….he’ll have better options moving forward than an aging Phillies team. Cora playing the long game here.
Nick Castellanos just cracked a Presidente.
Not Thomson’s fault. Team just got old. Outfield players are just horrible. Pitching in bottom of league. Not much to work with. More injuries on the way.
I would take Brandon Marsh from that outfield group!
Can Donnie baseball bring back the old Nola ? I doubt it.
Mendoza should be getting ready as he is next.
Deck chairs
How r Mendoza, Sterns still employed??
Congratulations Mr. Mattingly, I really liked having you in a Blue Jays uniform and wish you all the best as Interim Manager of the Phillies.
Ray-I am ready.
To manage the Phillies that is.
An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today said that Dombrowski had three trusted scouts in the dugout or clubhouse for a couple of days and that does not augur well for the manager.They must have seen something that they did not like.
The fact that almost everyone on the team is old with little to no help on the farm does not augur well for the General Manager.
I think that the Phillies had to do what they did or did not do with the recent big win teams during the regular season but this team is not far away from the pennant winning “Wheeze Kids” from 1983.
Plus Thompson did not know how to manage in the playoffs.
Dombrowski has a specific skill set: he can take a team from Close To Winning all the way to a championship. He consistently does it in two ways: spends a bunch of money and trades away a lot of talent. He’ll keep a few special top prospects, but most of the others are bargaining chips.
What it ends up looking like is rings, a short dynasty, and then a descent into old guys on expensive deals and no easy way to hold the position due to long-term commitments and few prospects.
Dave D has never stayed around through the tough days that follow, and I don’t expect him to hang around Philadelphia much longer either. This is the unpleasant part of his model and he isn’t good at owning the consequences phase.
Alec Bohm was oft-rumored to be non-tendered last winter. The fact that Bohm is still on the Phillies speaks volumes about the inertia in their front office.
Not a big surprise
Best of luck to Mattingly – good fit. Great call signing on with the Phils this offseason. Wisdom (and possibly, a well-timed phone call).
And a son as GM….
Thomson just signed an extension before the season started and now he’s fired before April is over. What a game.
Lucky b astard
Just like Cora
I expect he’d rather still be managing, but the financial windfall has to be nice.
Remember that time the Bucks and Middleton were cool with Charlie Manuel being the fall guy instead of Ruben Amaro Jr.?
Remember the Chris Elliot sitcom “Get a Life”?
This was inevitable, even though I think he’s not to blame here. He’s a good manager. I blame DD for the roster construction. He has failed to improve a poor outfield and keeps playing it back, hoping it will be different. He’s the one that should go. Not sure Donny Baseball is the answer, but hopefully it can wake up the roster a bit. I would rather see someone with spit and fire that holds the group accountable, challenges the aging primadonnas that fill the roster, and throws a few bats in the shower now and then.
Larry Bowa is still available and able.
Mattingly is not a Billy Martin type and he should know. Played for the often-hired-often-fired Yankee manager when Steinbrenner was causing havoc in The Bronx.
‘I would rather see someone with spit and fire that holds the group accountable, challenges the aging primadonnas that fill the roster, and throws a few bats in the shower now and then.“
They already tried and fired Girardi.
Sure it helps, but Topper wasn’t hitting for them or working on hitting with them. Needing a change at hitting coach and changing their plate approach/displine is the main issue!!
There’s way more here than a hitting coach can fix. The pitching staff is a mess between age, injury and perhaps some things that a coach could help with.
All of these guys before Mendoza is wild!
Anyhoo, glad to see Don back in the skipper’s seat. Get him ready to take over for Boone. ;)
Mattingly is part of the old-boy network at this point in his career. The Yankees don’t hire from the old-boy network.
This oldboy can dream!
Gil needs to be traded. I’d package him and Jones for someone. LaGrange is next to be their 8th inning guy like Mo was in the beginning. Bednar is a free agent can be our version of Wettland this year
Donnie Baseball is garbage. Couldn’t get over the hump with LA. Terrible decision making. Floundered in Miami. His son gets the GM job in Philly and hires Donnie. Few months later Donnie is the interim skipper. See the grift? Kevin Long not fired. Lineup has more holes than Russini at the NFL combine. Poverty franchise.
Okey-doke’s will celebrate this though. Good for you, losers. Enjoy winning nothing.
Eh, foo. Mattingly had to handle the on-field part of the McCourt bankruptcy and divorce circus. He did it with grace (mostly). The players appreciated him for it, and he won some pennants. I wish him luck with the Philadelphia train wreck. He’s got his work cut out for him.
Cora already turned Dombo down too. that’s very funny.
Good luck in your future endeavors Gomer Pyle.
Cotham should go too
Once Cora got fired how do you justify not firing Thompson? But he’s not the issue, the issue is that they’ve failed to actually go after the missing piece since they go to the WS. Ironically any move they would have made this off-season would have been bad, no one is playing well. Letting Schwarber go would have looked really and tho.
The inevitable Dombrowski veteran decline has started. This is how Dave leaves clubs. I bet he will “retire” at the end of the year, and then resurface in 2028 to help set up one of the two expansion clubs.
This is exactly the DD plan: spend, trade, win, bask in fan adulation, dash as things get old and stale. I could see him announcing this well before fall, TBH.
Ozzie Guillen
I mean hey, for what it’s worth, the last time the Phillies fired their manager mid-season, it led to a fantastic run that ended with an NL Pennant.
I’ll take Pat’s over Geno’s any day.
Does Cora have to take a job if offered? I thought that a team has to pay the guaranteed salary, but whatever they are obligated to pay is reduced by whatever they are earning somewhere else (so that double dipping isn’t possible). But, if he’s offered a job and that scenario I presented is correct, you’d think there would be an obligation to take the job. Or, no?
Why would Cora have an obligation to take any job?
He’s not in any union or subject to any bargaining agreement, he’s management. No rules bind him.
So is Mendoza at this point just sitting in his office, flinching every time his phone rings?
The soup and and the plot thickens!!! Oh wait just the soup…Donnie is the manager or is he???Cora joins Philly with Donnie and wins it all and I can hear Dione Warwick singing “ what the world needs now is love sweet love”( Time to sober up this morning)
If the offense wakes up, they can make a run and get a WC.
If Wheeler is healthy in September ( and they make it, big if )….. this team can make some noise.
I wouldn’t want to face them. Not many teams have a legit 2 Aces
A change was necessary and the most direct change is the manager. If they don’t turn it around, the next levers are more dramatic. They have almost zero tradable assets which makes a rebuild almost impossible. This may be the start of 10 more years of futility
Lolphillies
Called it!:
The Magic Loogie
April 23, 2026
Yup, so the phans and phront office won’t be able to blame it all Thompson when he gets canned shortly 😱
What does Wathan have to do to get the job??? At least he is one step closer.
🤣😂💥
I think this is the right move, the team is one more sweep or one injury away from falling out of the race entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a couple of roster moves before they go to Florida too.
I hope this wakes them up..
I see Don’s grand plan of having a son – raising him in baseball – having him work in front offices – he gets promoted to GM – son fires dad’s boss – dad manages team – plan is working to perfection. Don Mattingly is the ultimate 27D Chess player.
Batting Schwarber first is bad baseball.
Funny how fast things change. I remember when Phillies fans were calling him Philly-Rob like he’s lived there his whole life. Especially when he was a Giradri guy and New Yorker.
Even funnier he gets fired under similar circumstances to Girardi.