Anthony: Hey folks, thanks for joining us here at Rally Cap and we're here talking. Rob Thompson, Alex Cora, a lot of manager movement going on and it is not even May yet technically. Parker, I don't know if I've ever seen anything like this in recent memory.
Parker: Yeah, so I mean, this is actually pretty nuts. There was a whole situation that we broke down last week when we talked about the Red Sox firing basically the entire coaching staff. ⁓ There was a lot going on. was a ⁓ still we still don't really know everything that happened or why everybody was fired. There's whisperings and there's, you know, reports from like unconfirmed sources and stuff like that. But long story short, the Red Sox fired Alex Cora and five of their coaches and. Immediately last time on the video in the video I'm gonna go ahead and take credit for this prediction right here that I said that within a month Alex Quarrow will be wearing a Phillies jersey in the Phillies dugout and that Dave Dombrowski was gonna be like the first call he made and this was the night of the firing like the major news networks hadn't even got this so this was my own take that I developed in my cranium okay and ⁓ come to find out we had a very interesting set of quotes from Dave Dombrowski
Anthony: You Yeah.
Parker: ⁓ This was posted by NBC Sports Philadelphia, but I'm gonna go ahead and pull it up. He talked very candidly when asked after firing Rob Thompson and making Don Maddenley the interim manager, which we will get to here in a second, if he even reached out to Alex Cora, and it turns out it looks like he did. I think it's absolutely ⁓ fascinating that Dave Dombrovsky the job to Alex Cora ⁓ before he had fired Rob Thompson. He said that's what those words were. He hadn't even fired Rob Thompson yet and he's already offering the job to Cora. ⁓ Alex takes a day to think about it. Rob Thompson's still not fired, comes and says,
Anthony: Mmm.
Parker: I'm gonna take time to be a dad. Al Square hasn't vacationed in the summer since 2020. Like this is a great time for him to spend the money he's being paid and go take a vacation, be a father. That's awesome. So I just thought that it was absolutely wild, the timeline of how everything took place and that Dave Dobrosky went out there and openly admitted that he was shopping the job to a candidate before he had even informed Rob Thompson that his job was terminated.
Anthony: Yeah, I think two things could be true there, right? I do think there, I really do think that he was set on firing Thompson. And I do also think that the, just happened to match up perfectly that this was happening with Cora and Dombrowski was really just capitalizing and putting the needs of the organization before anyone, any one single person, which is great. but Dabrowski for him to come out and be as transparent as he was in that presser. I love that about the guy. Like the guy is just so, he, leads with respect, with candor. He really cares about the people that he works with. And you can tell this guy just loves Rob Thompson and that's, that's a shared, that's a shared feeling. Rob Thompson and his way out talked so glowingly about not only the Phillies, but about Dave Dabrowski. mean,
Parker: ⁓ yeah.
Anthony: This was when we look at all the firings and as messy as these things tend to be, a la Alex Cora, ⁓ this one ended quite well. And there was a mutual understanding that maybe it was just time for Thompson as sad as it is, cause he meant so much to that Phillies organization.
Parker: Yeah, it feels kind of like Rob Thompson. I'm not trying to take anything away from him, but maybe he caught lightning in a bottle a little bit in 2022? Like maybe... Was it 22 or 21? It was 22. You know, like, it's like... It feel... Because he replaced Joe Girardi as he gets fired, and then he goes out there, he's a really good roster. mean, that was one of Bryce Harper's best seasons ever. He had a great postseason. Well, he had a decent postseason, but a really good World Series.
Anthony: Yeah... 22. I have mixed feelings about it. maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.
Parker: Like, I don't know, that felt like the year for those Phillies, which is why George Rarati got fired, first of all. Like, it was like, okay, the Phillies are ready to roll, everybody was, we hadn't gotten to the point, like we have for the last two, three seasons, where we were like, all right, Phillies are aging, they need to do something now. No, 2022 was like prime Phillies, they're ready to roll. So it feels like if he's a leader of men, and he's been in a clubhouse for as long as he had been leading into taking the interim position,
Anthony: It did. Yeah.
Parker: that like it's the same strengths that we talked about with Alex Cora where maybe Alex Cora is better at leading a clubhouse full of developed veteran players and maybe Rob Thompson's better at leading developed veteran players. ⁓ I mean, Theo Epstein's famous quote always rings in my ears where it's like every decade you gotta make a change. Every decade you've gotta make a change. I mean, it hasn't been a decade for Rob Thompson, but... ⁓
Anthony: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Parker: Time is finite in every organization you're in for sure.
Anthony: Yeah, I think, I think the Phillies are a complicated machine because you do have an aging roster. don't know that. I, I truly don't think Thompson was the problem. ⁓ you know, I, he made it. Dombrausky. I'm not sure if it was Dombrausky. I, you're probably right. I think to be, I don't remember if it was who said it, if it was just an unnamed source or Dombrausky himself that, ⁓ know, Thompson didn't lose the clubhouse. That wasn't it.
Parker: I don't think Girardi was the problem.
Anthony: It was just, know, you have a feel for these things, these things have timing and you just get a sense of the, ⁓ for it. And Dave felt that way, but I don't know that the issue was going to be Thompson. think the issue is going to be that the roster and the way that is currently constructed is starting to show. It's it's it's weaknesses, right? And we, talked about this. How many seasons have we gone into? How many seasons have we gone into the new season and said, is this going to be the year the Phillies, you know, show their rage? And here we are, right? So no matter who is in that seat, this was going to happen.
Parker: Absolutely. mean, I just think it's funny. Like when you look at two different organizations in the ways that they have fired their managers in the Red Sox and in the Phillies, and you could see the vast difference between the two situations. ⁓ know, ⁓ Alex Cora was fired and then the predominant feeling around baseball has been why was Alex Cora fired and why was Craig Breslow not? Like, okay, maybe don't fire Breslow and not Cora, but if you're gonna fire Cora, like Breslow gave him the roster. So this is what.
Anthony: Mm-hmm.
Parker: This is what the prevailing win sips have have been around the whole situation. Whereas with Rob Thompson, I think it's interesting that a lot of people have just been like, listen, Dave Dabrowski is that guy he's proven. I mean, he won the World Series with the Marlins. He should have won a World Series with the Tigers. He would have won another World Series with the Red Sox. And now he's been perennially competitive with the Phillies.
Anthony: Yeah.
Parker: You know, that type, he's a Hall of Fame executive as far as I'm concerned. Like if he doesn't make it into Hall of Fame, is among the top 50 executives to ever be a part of this baseball, this baseball, know, Major League Baseball. So I think it's interesting to see the clout and the respect of the executive just completely changing the light on the situation. And it is a different situation because when you fire Rob Thompson, ⁓ you just so happen to have a proven big league manager as his bench coach that you can bring in at any time. First of all, I don't think that was an accident.
Anthony: 100%. Right.
Parker: for a second. I think you hire Dave Don Mattingly and tell him, look dude, Thompson's on his last straw and you could be manager by beginning of May. And Don Mattingly is like, okay, sounds good. You know, I'll sit in that situation and see what's going on.
Anthony: Yeah, you never know if people really mean what they say, but Don Manningly made it very clear in his first presser the other day, like, hey, I don't want people thinking I took this job for this reason. How much that's true, we don't know. No one's going to say the opposite, right? But still, sure.
Parker: You don't have to take it for that reason, also know you have to be stupid to know that it's not a, you know, a secondary and tertiary follow-on effect of like, ⁓ I'm the experienced manager, right? Like I, just went to the world series as a bench coast. I've managed the Dodgers.
Anthony: Well, sure, mean, Mattingly has always been clear though, at least last couple of years, that he just is the energy for managing is not there. Like I think for a guy like Mattingly, like once you've like managed for a while in major leagues, you have a guy that's getting up there in age like Don is, the bench coach is like the perfect gig, right? Like it's literally the dream job.
Parker: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's right. That's I mean, that's what we saw from Jason Veritek in Boston. Like he has not taken a managerial position. He makes manager money because it's the Red Sox organization and he has a lot of pull. He's a made man in the Red Sox organization. ⁓ And so well, at least we thought he was. ⁓
Anthony: Wuhah!
Parker: And I've always been among the people that said, I never want Jason Veritek to be my manager because I get too mad at my manager. Like I'll get mad at Alex Cora. I'll get mad at now Chad Tracy when decisions don't go the way that I want. I like to keep Jason Veritek up on a shelf and like, at him. He's so nice. He's so beautiful. Yeah. A hundred percent. I like to keep him up there. never want him to be my team's manager. ⁓ And I feel like there's a lot of people where like, I mean, we look at Don Mattingly and what was his role before he even began managing. He was Joe Torre's bench coach in New York. And then, you know, he, don't think he would ever go manage the New York Yankees. And I think that that's a healthy relationship because Yankees fans, they can always be like, we love you, Don. Hope you're successful.
Anthony: Yes. That's right. The a hundred percent. want to go back to Alex Cora and Jason Veritek for a second, because I can't help as we're talking about Craig Breslow and Dave Dabrowski. I, the reality is the way I see it is I feel like managers are going to want to work for Dave over Craig 10 times out of 10 based on what's happened. And I think you've picked up on a little nugget. And again, we don't, we don't report the news here. We just talk about things that are happening in the sport. Tell us what you picked up on the socials.
Parker: Okay, so ⁓ I heard this first from Tyler Milliken of the Section 10 podcast. He's posted it on Twitter. He's aggregated it from all over the internet. And he also talked about it on the podcast. But come to find out, Craig Breslow and Heim Blum's children both play in a baseball league in New England. They both play in the same league and they linked up over the off season and they hung out and they've hung out recently. And we saw
Anthony: this week. ⁓ boy.
Parker: that there was a pretty good relationship between the two because, you know, the Wilson-Catreras and then also Sonny Gray, like, ⁓ wow, look at all these Cardinals that are making their way over to Boston and look at all these deals that are happening between these two executives. And I started, and Tyler brought this up, ⁓ when these two guys got together, they had to talk about, at some point, the commonality that they share, which is that Alex Khor is their manager. At some point, Alex is gonna come up. And what situation played out, at end of Heim Blum's tenure in Boston is that Alex Koral was a part of the kind of part of the driving force behind getting Heim out of that seat. Like it's not a secret. He was putting out, was critical of the roster, he was critical of decisions, he was openly critical in the media, at least not to the point of being like, I don't like my roster and I don't like my executive, but like, you know, there's ways you can make that note. He was very, it wasn't Dave Dumbrauski's levels of candor, but it was noticeable.
Anthony: Yeah.
Parker: And that leads to Haim being fired. Now granted, I would throw out there that Haim not getting under the luxury tax at the trade deadline after selling but not selling in his final season probably had more to do with him getting fired than anything else. But Cora was not a small piece. Cora was on his second executive and then survived the firing of a second executive as a manager, which as an executive looks like this guy's more important than you will ever be in the seat. So when Breslow gets brought in and immediately starts getting pushback from Cora, He has admitted to expressing discontent with Trevor Storty batting in the two hole. He has admitted that he didn't like the way that the lineup was being fielded on the field every single day. And immediately he goes to maybe make a change in the coaching staff or say that this needs to be done. And Alex Cora gives him a little blowback and he realizes that ownership's not gonna fix that for him. Craig Ploegel probably felt compelled to get Alex Cora out of that seat, put himself in the best position to succeed as an executive because he knows he's on the hot seat. Why would you continue to deal with a guy who looks like he's made, who looks like he's not going anywhere, no matter who gets fired, as long as nobody pulls the trigger and gets him out of the seat? So I think Craig Breslow said, I'm going to see how much clout I have with this organization. I'm going see how much they trust my judgment. I'm going to get Oxcore out of the seat, put myself with my coaching staff and the way that I see this organization running completely in place.
Anthony: Mm-hmm.
Parker: and see what happens. And unfortunately for Red Sox fans, it means that we lose our somewhat popular manager and this third longest tenured manager in the history of the Boston Red Sox in favor of an executive that basically nobody was excited to see hired and nobody has been excited to see operate since.
Anthony: I mean, we can never be sure. We're not in the room and we understand that. However, it just makes too much sense, especially when you consider how quickly Sam Kennedy removed himself from the decision. Literally after Craig Breslow said it was a joint decision, Sam was like, uh-uh-uh, no it wasn't.
Parker: ⁓ yes. 10 seconds later, Sam said, Craig is our chief baseball officer. We hired him to be the chief baseball officer and this is his decision to make. So we back him 100%. And you know, it's really convenient to say to a guy that you already feel like firing. And he'll be like, all right, fine. Make your bed. Alienate Alex Cora and Jason Veritek, two of the most beloved people from the Red Sox history. Do what you're gonna do.
Anthony: Wow.
Parker: And then that just gives us more of an opportunity to get rid of you in the end. I have no clue who takes a baseball officer, chieftain of the world's job for the Red Sox after Craig Breslau departs. But I don't think Breslau lasts another. ⁓ think maximum he would last the next year, but I just don't see the raw unless he goes out there and spends a bunch of money next year, which I don't see happening because you still have lame duck contracts like Trevor Story and Yoshida on the books. You're not going to get below the luxury tax.
Anthony: man. Yeah.
Parker: which means you're not gonna reset it, which means the front office is not gonna authorize you to spend more money and the ownership box is not gonna authorize you to spend more money. is just, is, his seat is white hot and I don't see him lasting past this season.
Anthony: I had to agree with you. Before we wrap this combo up, I want to go back to Cora for a second. It seems to be the overwhelming opinion. And I think we would both agree that Dombrowski is going to approach Cora in the off season and try to get him to Philly. I don't know that, I think it's hard to say that Cora is not a fit. Don't get me wrong. I think he's a fit everywhere. He's a great manager, but man, the situation he's walking into at Philly, really not great, right? This, this team is getting older. We have these older guys locked up through 2030, 2031. We're talking about the Harpers, the Turners, the Swarbers, all 2030 and beyond. Like, yes, they have younger guys. You're Justin Crawford's, Andrew Painter. ⁓ you have Aiden Miller is going to be coming up soon after his injury, I would think. But I feel like the talents there, but there's a lot of opportunity for this to continue to go wrong. matter who's in the manager seat.
Parker: Yeah, I agree. I also just think that to a certain extent, was no, there's no better combo of, of leaders to come into that situation and take advantage of that aging clubhouse like Dave Dombrowski and Alex Cora. If you're going to get, squeeze more juice out of that, then you currently have been able to do so. I think that Alex Cora is the kind of guy that do it. ⁓ He is just so good at managing a clubhouse full of veterans. One that
Anthony: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Parker: doesn't need him at every single hitters meeting. One that doesn't need him, you know, doing the Ron Washington and like doing infield work with his, one that lets him sit in the manager's box, honestly, kind of just sit on his ass and make decisions when he needs to make decisions. He's a very hands-off guy in that way. He communicates, he spends his time managing, communicating with his pitching staff and saying, hey, you're good today. Don't even take the hoodie off. Sit in the bullpen, only emergency situation. And that's the big strength that we've heard about him throughout his managerial career. So ⁓ anytime you can bring that to a clubhouse full of veterans that really want to know if they're playing next Tuesday, they would like to know if they're going to be playing the day before the off day and they can go ahead and plan around that. So anytime you can bring that into a clubhouse full of veterans, I think you're gonna get more out of them. think he's gonna garner a ton of respect in the situation where he gets the higher, ⁓ but I still don't think that they get over the hump. I think the Phillies are too old to actually expect.
Anthony: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, think however, and I'm going to literally contradict myself already, but I think the Phillies are in a better situation than people give them credit for. It would be different if they didn't have a 15th ranked farm system. Not great, but still middle of the pack. would be ...
Parker: A very dumb Browsky farm system.
Anthony: It's a very Dabrowski farm system. And it almost kind of works in his favor, right? Where he can mix and match the veterans with the younger guys. Like he still has the ability to do that. Like there is a path with, have enough talent and you have older guys that again, older, but they're still, they're still stuff in the tank. I think with these guys that you could get creative and make some moves so that 2027 actually looks pretty good for the Phillies. If you're really smart about it. And like you said, Alex Cora and Dabrowski together.
Parker: Mm-hmm.
Anthony: Not sure there's any better two guys to do that.
Parker: Mm hmm. Yeah, no, I love the idea of like Dave Dombrowski being like the wider of base, but just like the hired gun of baseball where he like comes in, you give him a core, he supplements here and there has a couple of really good trade deadlines and all of a sudden, boom, a World Series trophy appears in your trophy case. And I think that I think he's got a lot of respect around the game for that. But if this becomes a situation where the Phillies need a full rebuild, Dave Dombrowski is not going to stick around to do it. I think he's going to he's going to get himself out of there quickly enough.
Anthony: Ha ha ha.
Parker: and find himself in a situation where he can go ahead and try to win one more World Series before his eventual retirement. Sorry one last thing I want to make sure we mentioned before we're done We have our first ever father-son GM managerial combo in the game in the history of the game And it's in the opposite way that we thought it would happen You would think that the dad would be the GM the son would be the manager well jokes on you ⁓ Don Mattingly is the manager and his son's the GM so here we go
Anthony: Well, let us know in the comments. Oh yeah. Oh man. That is, that is absolutely nuts. I, you can't, I mean, what a, that'll never happen again, right? There's no way. There's no way. No. Let us know in the comments, folks. Did Rob Thompson deserve to be fired? Let us know. Make sure you're liking subscribing and following us for baseball talk here at rally.
Parker: Maybe, it's definitely one of the more unique situations. That's pretty crazy.
Parker: Yeah, so I mean, this is actually pretty nuts. There was a whole situation that we broke down last week when we talked about the Red Sox firing basically the entire coaching staff. ⁓ There was a lot going on. was a ⁓ still we still don't really know everything that happened or why everybody was fired. There's whisperings and there's, you know, reports from like unconfirmed sources and stuff like that. But long story short, the Red Sox fired Alex Cora and five of their coaches and. Immediately last time on the video in the video I'm gonna go ahead and take credit for this prediction right here that I said that within a month Alex Quarrow will be wearing a Phillies jersey in the Phillies dugout and that Dave Dombrowski was gonna be like the first call he made and this was the night of the firing like the major news networks hadn't even got this so this was my own take that I developed in my cranium okay and ⁓ come to find out we had a very interesting set of quotes from Dave Dombrowski
Anthony: You Yeah.
Parker: ⁓ This was posted by NBC Sports Philadelphia, but I'm gonna go ahead and pull it up. He talked very candidly when asked after firing Rob Thompson and making Don Maddenley the interim manager, which we will get to here in a second, if he even reached out to Alex Cora, and it turns out it looks like he did. I think it's absolutely ⁓ fascinating that Dave Dombrovsky the job to Alex Cora ⁓ before he had fired Rob Thompson. He said that's what those words were. He hadn't even fired Rob Thompson yet and he's already offering the job to Cora. ⁓ Alex takes a day to think about it. Rob Thompson's still not fired, comes and says,
Anthony: Mmm.
Parker: I'm gonna take time to be a dad. Al Square hasn't vacationed in the summer since 2020. Like this is a great time for him to spend the money he's being paid and go take a vacation, be a father. That's awesome. So I just thought that it was absolutely wild, the timeline of how everything took place and that Dave Dobrosky went out there and openly admitted that he was shopping the job to a candidate before he had even informed Rob Thompson that his job was terminated.
Anthony: Yeah, I think two things could be true there, right? I do think there, I really do think that he was set on firing Thompson. And I do also think that the, just happened to match up perfectly that this was happening with Cora and Dombrowski was really just capitalizing and putting the needs of the organization before anyone, any one single person, which is great. but Dabrowski for him to come out and be as transparent as he was in that presser. I love that about the guy. Like the guy is just so, he, leads with respect, with candor. He really cares about the people that he works with. And you can tell this guy just loves Rob Thompson and that's, that's a shared, that's a shared feeling. Rob Thompson and his way out talked so glowingly about not only the Phillies, but about Dave Dabrowski. mean,
Parker: ⁓ yeah.
Anthony: This was when we look at all the firings and as messy as these things tend to be, a la Alex Cora, ⁓ this one ended quite well. And there was a mutual understanding that maybe it was just time for Thompson as sad as it is, cause he meant so much to that Phillies organization.
Parker: Yeah, it feels kind of like Rob Thompson. I'm not trying to take anything away from him, but maybe he caught lightning in a bottle a little bit in 2022? Like maybe... Was it 22 or 21? It was 22. You know, like, it's like... It feel... Because he replaced Joe Girardi as he gets fired, and then he goes out there, he's a really good roster. mean, that was one of Bryce Harper's best seasons ever. He had a great postseason. Well, he had a decent postseason, but a really good World Series.
Anthony: Yeah... 22. I have mixed feelings about it. maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.
Parker: Like, I don't know, that felt like the year for those Phillies, which is why George Rarati got fired, first of all. Like, it was like, okay, the Phillies are ready to roll, everybody was, we hadn't gotten to the point, like we have for the last two, three seasons, where we were like, all right, Phillies are aging, they need to do something now. No, 2022 was like prime Phillies, they're ready to roll. So it feels like if he's a leader of men, and he's been in a clubhouse for as long as he had been leading into taking the interim position,
Anthony: It did. Yeah.
Parker: that like it's the same strengths that we talked about with Alex Cora where maybe Alex Cora is better at leading a clubhouse full of developed veteran players and maybe Rob Thompson's better at leading developed veteran players. ⁓ I mean, Theo Epstein's famous quote always rings in my ears where it's like every decade you gotta make a change. Every decade you've gotta make a change. I mean, it hasn't been a decade for Rob Thompson, but... ⁓
Anthony: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Parker: Time is finite in every organization you're in for sure.
Anthony: Yeah, I think, I think the Phillies are a complicated machine because you do have an aging roster. don't know that. I, I truly don't think Thompson was the problem. ⁓ you know, I, he made it. Dombrausky. I'm not sure if it was Dombrausky. I, you're probably right. I think to be, I don't remember if it was who said it, if it was just an unnamed source or Dombrausky himself that, ⁓ know, Thompson didn't lose the clubhouse. That wasn't it.
Parker: I don't think Girardi was the problem.
Anthony: It was just, know, you have a feel for these things, these things have timing and you just get a sense of the, ⁓ for it. And Dave felt that way, but I don't know that the issue was going to be Thompson. think the issue is going to be that the roster and the way that is currently constructed is starting to show. It's it's it's weaknesses, right? And we, talked about this. How many seasons have we gone into? How many seasons have we gone into the new season and said, is this going to be the year the Phillies, you know, show their rage? And here we are, right? So no matter who is in that seat, this was going to happen.
Parker: Absolutely. mean, I just think it's funny. Like when you look at two different organizations in the ways that they have fired their managers in the Red Sox and in the Phillies, and you could see the vast difference between the two situations. ⁓ know, ⁓ Alex Cora was fired and then the predominant feeling around baseball has been why was Alex Cora fired and why was Craig Breslow not? Like, okay, maybe don't fire Breslow and not Cora, but if you're gonna fire Cora, like Breslow gave him the roster. So this is what.
Anthony: Mm-hmm.
Parker: This is what the prevailing win sips have have been around the whole situation. Whereas with Rob Thompson, I think it's interesting that a lot of people have just been like, listen, Dave Dabrowski is that guy he's proven. I mean, he won the World Series with the Marlins. He should have won a World Series with the Tigers. He would have won another World Series with the Red Sox. And now he's been perennially competitive with the Phillies.
Anthony: Yeah.
Parker: You know, that type, he's a Hall of Fame executive as far as I'm concerned. Like if he doesn't make it into Hall of Fame, is among the top 50 executives to ever be a part of this baseball, this baseball, know, Major League Baseball. So I think it's interesting to see the clout and the respect of the executive just completely changing the light on the situation. And it is a different situation because when you fire Rob Thompson, ⁓ you just so happen to have a proven big league manager as his bench coach that you can bring in at any time. First of all, I don't think that was an accident.
Anthony: 100%. Right.
Parker: for a second. I think you hire Dave Don Mattingly and tell him, look dude, Thompson's on his last straw and you could be manager by beginning of May. And Don Mattingly is like, okay, sounds good. You know, I'll sit in that situation and see what's going on.
Anthony: Yeah, you never know if people really mean what they say, but Don Manningly made it very clear in his first presser the other day, like, hey, I don't want people thinking I took this job for this reason. How much that's true, we don't know. No one's going to say the opposite, right? But still, sure.
Parker: You don't have to take it for that reason, also know you have to be stupid to know that it's not a, you know, a secondary and tertiary follow-on effect of like, ⁓ I'm the experienced manager, right? Like I, just went to the world series as a bench coast. I've managed the Dodgers.
Anthony: Well, sure, mean, Mattingly has always been clear though, at least last couple of years, that he just is the energy for managing is not there. Like I think for a guy like Mattingly, like once you've like managed for a while in major leagues, you have a guy that's getting up there in age like Don is, the bench coach is like the perfect gig, right? Like it's literally the dream job.
Parker: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's right. That's I mean, that's what we saw from Jason Veritek in Boston. Like he has not taken a managerial position. He makes manager money because it's the Red Sox organization and he has a lot of pull. He's a made man in the Red Sox organization. ⁓ And so well, at least we thought he was. ⁓
Anthony: Wuhah!
Parker: And I've always been among the people that said, I never want Jason Veritek to be my manager because I get too mad at my manager. Like I'll get mad at Alex Cora. I'll get mad at now Chad Tracy when decisions don't go the way that I want. I like to keep Jason Veritek up on a shelf and like, at him. He's so nice. He's so beautiful. Yeah. A hundred percent. I like to keep him up there. never want him to be my team's manager. ⁓ And I feel like there's a lot of people where like, I mean, we look at Don Mattingly and what was his role before he even began managing. He was Joe Torre's bench coach in New York. And then, you know, he, don't think he would ever go manage the New York Yankees. And I think that that's a healthy relationship because Yankees fans, they can always be like, we love you, Don. Hope you're successful.
Anthony: Yes. That's right. The a hundred percent. want to go back to Alex Cora and Jason Veritek for a second, because I can't help as we're talking about Craig Breslow and Dave Dabrowski. I, the reality is the way I see it is I feel like managers are going to want to work for Dave over Craig 10 times out of 10 based on what's happened. And I think you've picked up on a little nugget. And again, we don't, we don't report the news here. We just talk about things that are happening in the sport. Tell us what you picked up on the socials.
Parker: Okay, so ⁓ I heard this first from Tyler Milliken of the Section 10 podcast. He's posted it on Twitter. He's aggregated it from all over the internet. And he also talked about it on the podcast. But come to find out, Craig Breslow and Heim Blum's children both play in a baseball league in New England. They both play in the same league and they linked up over the off season and they hung out and they've hung out recently. And we saw
Anthony: this week. ⁓ boy.
Parker: that there was a pretty good relationship between the two because, you know, the Wilson-Catreras and then also Sonny Gray, like, ⁓ wow, look at all these Cardinals that are making their way over to Boston and look at all these deals that are happening between these two executives. And I started, and Tyler brought this up, ⁓ when these two guys got together, they had to talk about, at some point, the commonality that they share, which is that Alex Khor is their manager. At some point, Alex is gonna come up. And what situation played out, at end of Heim Blum's tenure in Boston is that Alex Koral was a part of the kind of part of the driving force behind getting Heim out of that seat. Like it's not a secret. He was putting out, was critical of the roster, he was critical of decisions, he was openly critical in the media, at least not to the point of being like, I don't like my roster and I don't like my executive, but like, you know, there's ways you can make that note. He was very, it wasn't Dave Dumbrauski's levels of candor, but it was noticeable.
Anthony: Yeah.
Parker: And that leads to Haim being fired. Now granted, I would throw out there that Haim not getting under the luxury tax at the trade deadline after selling but not selling in his final season probably had more to do with him getting fired than anything else. But Cora was not a small piece. Cora was on his second executive and then survived the firing of a second executive as a manager, which as an executive looks like this guy's more important than you will ever be in the seat. So when Breslow gets brought in and immediately starts getting pushback from Cora, He has admitted to expressing discontent with Trevor Storty batting in the two hole. He has admitted that he didn't like the way that the lineup was being fielded on the field every single day. And immediately he goes to maybe make a change in the coaching staff or say that this needs to be done. And Alex Cora gives him a little blowback and he realizes that ownership's not gonna fix that for him. Craig Ploegel probably felt compelled to get Alex Cora out of that seat, put himself in the best position to succeed as an executive because he knows he's on the hot seat. Why would you continue to deal with a guy who looks like he's made, who looks like he's not going anywhere, no matter who gets fired, as long as nobody pulls the trigger and gets him out of the seat? So I think Craig Breslow said, I'm going to see how much clout I have with this organization. I'm going see how much they trust my judgment. I'm going to get Oxcore out of the seat, put myself with my coaching staff and the way that I see this organization running completely in place.
Anthony: Mm-hmm.
Parker: and see what happens. And unfortunately for Red Sox fans, it means that we lose our somewhat popular manager and this third longest tenured manager in the history of the Boston Red Sox in favor of an executive that basically nobody was excited to see hired and nobody has been excited to see operate since.
Anthony: I mean, we can never be sure. We're not in the room and we understand that. However, it just makes too much sense, especially when you consider how quickly Sam Kennedy removed himself from the decision. Literally after Craig Breslow said it was a joint decision, Sam was like, uh-uh-uh, no it wasn't.
Parker: ⁓ yes. 10 seconds later, Sam said, Craig is our chief baseball officer. We hired him to be the chief baseball officer and this is his decision to make. So we back him 100%. And you know, it's really convenient to say to a guy that you already feel like firing. And he'll be like, all right, fine. Make your bed. Alienate Alex Cora and Jason Veritek, two of the most beloved people from the Red Sox history. Do what you're gonna do.
Anthony: Wow.
Parker: And then that just gives us more of an opportunity to get rid of you in the end. I have no clue who takes a baseball officer, chieftain of the world's job for the Red Sox after Craig Breslau departs. But I don't think Breslau lasts another. ⁓ think maximum he would last the next year, but I just don't see the raw unless he goes out there and spends a bunch of money next year, which I don't see happening because you still have lame duck contracts like Trevor Story and Yoshida on the books. You're not going to get below the luxury tax.
Anthony: man. Yeah.
Parker: which means you're not gonna reset it, which means the front office is not gonna authorize you to spend more money and the ownership box is not gonna authorize you to spend more money. is just, is, his seat is white hot and I don't see him lasting past this season.
Anthony: I had to agree with you. Before we wrap this combo up, I want to go back to Cora for a second. It seems to be the overwhelming opinion. And I think we would both agree that Dombrowski is going to approach Cora in the off season and try to get him to Philly. I don't know that, I think it's hard to say that Cora is not a fit. Don't get me wrong. I think he's a fit everywhere. He's a great manager, but man, the situation he's walking into at Philly, really not great, right? This, this team is getting older. We have these older guys locked up through 2030, 2031. We're talking about the Harpers, the Turners, the Swarbers, all 2030 and beyond. Like, yes, they have younger guys. You're Justin Crawford's, Andrew Painter. ⁓ you have Aiden Miller is going to be coming up soon after his injury, I would think. But I feel like the talents there, but there's a lot of opportunity for this to continue to go wrong. matter who's in the manager seat.
Parker: Yeah, I agree. I also just think that to a certain extent, was no, there's no better combo of, of leaders to come into that situation and take advantage of that aging clubhouse like Dave Dombrowski and Alex Cora. If you're going to get, squeeze more juice out of that, then you currently have been able to do so. I think that Alex Cora is the kind of guy that do it. ⁓ He is just so good at managing a clubhouse full of veterans. One that
Anthony: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Parker: doesn't need him at every single hitters meeting. One that doesn't need him, you know, doing the Ron Washington and like doing infield work with his, one that lets him sit in the manager's box, honestly, kind of just sit on his ass and make decisions when he needs to make decisions. He's a very hands-off guy in that way. He communicates, he spends his time managing, communicating with his pitching staff and saying, hey, you're good today. Don't even take the hoodie off. Sit in the bullpen, only emergency situation. And that's the big strength that we've heard about him throughout his managerial career. So ⁓ anytime you can bring that to a clubhouse full of veterans that really want to know if they're playing next Tuesday, they would like to know if they're going to be playing the day before the off day and they can go ahead and plan around that. So anytime you can bring that into a clubhouse full of veterans, I think you're gonna get more out of them. think he's gonna garner a ton of respect in the situation where he gets the higher, ⁓ but I still don't think that they get over the hump. I think the Phillies are too old to actually expect.
Anthony: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, think however, and I'm going to literally contradict myself already, but I think the Phillies are in a better situation than people give them credit for. It would be different if they didn't have a 15th ranked farm system. Not great, but still middle of the pack. would be ...
Parker: A very dumb Browsky farm system.
Anthony: It's a very Dabrowski farm system. And it almost kind of works in his favor, right? Where he can mix and match the veterans with the younger guys. Like he still has the ability to do that. Like there is a path with, have enough talent and you have older guys that again, older, but they're still, they're still stuff in the tank. I think with these guys that you could get creative and make some moves so that 2027 actually looks pretty good for the Phillies. If you're really smart about it. And like you said, Alex Cora and Dabrowski together.
Parker: Mm-hmm.
Anthony: Not sure there's any better two guys to do that.
Parker: Mm hmm. Yeah, no, I love the idea of like Dave Dombrowski being like the wider of base, but just like the hired gun of baseball where he like comes in, you give him a core, he supplements here and there has a couple of really good trade deadlines and all of a sudden, boom, a World Series trophy appears in your trophy case. And I think that I think he's got a lot of respect around the game for that. But if this becomes a situation where the Phillies need a full rebuild, Dave Dombrowski is not going to stick around to do it. I think he's going to he's going to get himself out of there quickly enough.
Anthony: Ha ha ha.
Parker: and find himself in a situation where he can go ahead and try to win one more World Series before his eventual retirement. Sorry one last thing I want to make sure we mentioned before we're done We have our first ever father-son GM managerial combo in the game in the history of the game And it's in the opposite way that we thought it would happen You would think that the dad would be the GM the son would be the manager well jokes on you ⁓ Don Mattingly is the manager and his son's the GM so here we go
Anthony: Well, let us know in the comments. Oh yeah. Oh man. That is, that is absolutely nuts. I, you can't, I mean, what a, that'll never happen again, right? There's no way. There's no way. No. Let us know in the comments, folks. Did Rob Thompson deserve to be fired? Let us know. Make sure you're liking subscribing and following us for baseball talk here at rally.
Parker: Maybe, it's definitely one of the more unique situations. That's pretty crazy.
