{"id":532126,"date":"2026-01-22T04:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/532126\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T04:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:56:20","slug":"rob-thomsons-philadelphia-phillies-comments-are-totally-wrong-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/532126\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Thomson&#8217;s Philadelphia Phillies Comments Are Totally Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s been plenty of outside noise surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies this offseason, much of it centered on the idea that the organization is simply \u201crunning it back\u201d after falling short in 2025 and every other year before.<\/p>\n<p>From the outside, the thinking is understandable and to me, it makes sense. The good players on this roster are pretty much the same as they\u2019ve been for quite a few seasons now.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>However, inside the building, that\u2019s not how the Phillies see it, and skipper Rob Thomson made that clear.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking this week, Thomson pushed back against the idea that Philadelphia is just bringing back the same group and hoping for a different result. In his view, the changes may not all be massive to the fanbase, but they\u2019re meaningful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you think that\u2019s running it back, or whatever the saying is, I don\u2019t really know what to tell you,\u201d Thomson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philadelphiabaseballreview.com\/2026\/01\/phillies-thomson-running-roster-back-manager-bichette.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:said;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">said<\/a>, per Philadelphia Baseball Review. \u201cWe got three new relievers, a new right fielder, (Justin) Crawford\u2019s gonna have every chance to play, a rookie starting pitcher, Otto Kemp who wasn\u2019t here at the start of last year. That\u2019s 20-25% of the roster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>While the Phillies didn\u2019t overhaul their roster, they also didn\u2019t stand still, at least in a sense. The bullpen, which was an issue during stretches of last season, looks different, with multiple new arms expected to compete for leverage roles.<\/p>\n<p>I also liked the Adolis Garcia move, but if we\u2019re being honest, 2026 Garcia isn\u2019t exactly a game-changer.<\/p>\n<p>Thomson also pointed to players who weren\u2019t even part of the picture early last season, including rookie starter Otto Kemp and potential starter Justin Crawford.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe got a good ball club going in\u2026 we\u2019re going to infuse some youth into this lineup\u2026 I feel really good about it,\u201d Thomson said.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m excited to watch Crawford play, but similar to some other guys, it isn\u2019t like he\u2019s guaranteed to come in and do what\u2019s needed. The kid is young and will likely struggle, even if it\u2019s just early on.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the front office has done enough will ultimately be decided on the diamond, and we\u2019ll find out rather soon, with spring training not too far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s been plenty of outside noise surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies this offseason, much of it centered on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[3418,5,5159,4,5162,144,25,4216,40,4874],"class_list":{"0":"post-532126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-adolis-garcia","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-justin-crawford","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-otto-kemp","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","15":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","16":"tag-phillies","17":"tag-rob-thomson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115936977516489305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}