The Philadelphia Phillies fired manager Joe Girardi on Friday. Here are five potential replacements for him.
The Philadelphia Phillies have been one of the most disappointing teams in MLB to start the 2022 season as they are in third place in the NL East with a 22-29 record. As a result, the team fired manager Joe Girardi on Friday after losing 12 out of their last 17 games.
Phillies President Dave Dombrowski said that the club needed a “new voice” in the clubhouse so let’s take a look at five possible replacements for Joe Girardi.
1) Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson could replace Joe Girardi
Rob Thomson has been named the interim manager of the Philadelphia Phillies in the wake of Joe Girardi’s firing.
He has been coaching in the majors for over a decade and he was in the minors as a coach for nearly two more decades so he has plenty of experience. He was with the Yankees as a minor league coach, coordinator, and manager as well as an MLB coach from 1990 through 2017. In fact, he was on Joe Girardi’s coaching staff as a bench coach or third base coach for Girardi’s entire tenure as Yankees manager.
The problem is just that, though. If the Phillies truly want a “new voice,” Thomson has been on their coaching staff since 2018, when he served as a coach under Gabe Kapler and he is one of Girardi’s lieutenants. Will he actually be different enough from Girardi to light a spark underneath the Phillies to play as well as they are capable of?