Tuesday was a massive news day for the Philadelphia Phillies, and not just on the Kyle Schwarber front.
Late on Tuesday morning on the East Coast, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Schwarber had agreed to a five-year, $150 million deal to return to the Phillies as a free agent. Though there were threats from big-market and small-market teams, it never appeared that the Phillies lost the inside track to secure the three-time All-Star designated hitter.
But in the moments immediately after the breaking news alerts for Schwarber popped off across the baseball universe, the Phillies made a contract announcement of a very different nature.
According to the Phillies’ official social media accounts and website, manager Rob Thomson was extended through the end of the 2027 season.
Thomson was entering what would have been the final year of his contract, as he and the Phillies completed a similar move last offseason to avoid a “lame duck” situation. The move was expected, as Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told the media on Monday that an extension of some kind was likely forthcoming, as beat reporter Todd Zolecki noted in the announcement on the Phillies’ website.
Thomson, 62, has gone 346-251 (.520) in four seasons as the Phillies’ skipper in the regular season, and 21-17 in the playoffs, including a National League pennant in 2022. That year, Philadelphia fired Joe Girardi in June, went on a run that concluded with a loss to the Houston Astros in the World Series, and made Thomson the full-time manager in the middle of the postseason.
This season, Thomson and the Phillies have more to prove than ever, and thus far, they’ve only made moves to keep the band together. It will be interesting to see what else they have in store as free agency heats up.
More MLB: Phillies Source Reveals Obvious Reason for $150M Kyle Schwarber Deal: Insider