Dave Dombrowski On Phillies Trade Deadline + How Jim Duquette Would Fix Mets | The Show Ep. 213

It's gonna be an interesting show this week. No Joel Sherman, he's on every week and I can't believe that he's actually on vacation. The man who never takes a vacation is off. So what we have is not just one but two people substituting for him. We're gonna have Jim Duquette from SNY and MLB Network Radio will join me to talk Yankees and Mets. And we will also have Dave Dombrowski, the President of Baseball Operations for the Philadelphia Phillies. Both have been on the show before. Both are excellent. Really looking forward to it. Stay with me on the show. Jim Duquette coming up next. And then after that, we're gonna have Dave Dombrowski. All right. It is my pleasure to welcome in Jim Duquette of MLB Network Radio, SNY. Are you doing anything else lately these days? That's enough. That's plenty. That's plenty. I'm doing this with you. This is for free. So that tells you what a nice guy Jim is replacing Joel here today. Joel is on semi-vacation. He's never on a complete vacation because I'm sure he's gonna do the post-plus and the pinstripe post and a few other things. But Jim is kind here to join me for the show. We really appreciate Jim. Also, previously the GM of the Mets and of the Orioles. So both leagues. So he's got experience. Very good. Jim, it's been an interesting week or so since the trade deadline. The Mets sold like crazy and now they're great. And the Yankees bought two offensive guys in and they can't hit. So it's been a weird week. Let's get the Mets first. We're gonna get the Mets out of the way. I saw Mike Puma in the post. Very fanciful. Some might call it far-fetched article that if they go 32 and 13, they can have 83 wins and get in. Well, they are hot. It's a fun article. What are you gonna do? Write that Beatty's in a slump again? I mean, it was a fun thing to write. What do you think? I mean, they're not gonna obviously do that. But let's look more long-term here, at least until next year. How buried are they right now? They had so many bad decisions that I think it's gonna be tough even next year. They say they want to win next year and they do want to win next year. They didn't trail and do all those things. They kept their top players. Is it possible? What do they have to do? Boy, it does feel like they have a lot of work to do still. First off, I did like their deadline. I know some people didn't. I did. Now, that's kind of the minimum standard when you're in that position that when you have good players that you end up trading, you better get good prospects back. If you can't do that well, then you shouldn't even be in the job. I thought David Stearns did a good job of that. There was some debate whether they should have gone as far as they did. I liked it just in the sense that relievers, the guys that they gave up relievers, you should be able to replace them. I think just starting with the bullpen. They've had a good bullpen. Obviously, Devin Williams is gonna be back. There's some question whether he, in a winning environment, if he's your close or not. He's gonna be back. I think they can find other relievers and be active and rebuild that. That, I'm not concerned about. Let's go to the offense real quick. The offense has not been great. Lately, it has been. I'm still stunned at how few games that they have played together with Soto, Pichette, and Lindor. That's just, I think, a rarity that if all those three guys are back next year, it should be a lot better. Obviously, Polanco, you can throw him into that mix too. You saw Polanco last year. He hasn't had a lot of good health, but he's a much better hitter and player. Two home runs against Schuble in the playoffs. Two home runs. We saw that with our own eyes. He had a really good year last year. I think the two young players, they give you energy with Benj and Ewing. I like that part of the core with Robert. We'll see if they decide to have him back. I think there's less than zero percent. They can't pick up that option. They shouldn't, right? They shouldn't. $20 million? They did it once. They did it once, and it was a mistake. The question would be, let's say he's playing center field the last two months, and he goes off. You'd have to at least give it some thought. Again, this is not our money. I'm not giving any thought. We're not spending Steve Cohen's money. I like spending other people's money, but I'm not picking up Louise Roberts' option no matter what he does. Beyond that, Ewing is a better center fielder, and they have three outfielders, right? Soto's still an outfielder, right? I don't think they've made Soto a DH. They might need that spot for Polanco anyway. I don't see how he fits. You can't have two years in a row with him, in my opinion. It's hard to figure out a pathway for him to be on the team. I'm just saying, I think it's not a zero percent chance. Maybe it's five percent. Maybe it's ten percent if he has a good the last two months. I'd be very skeptical. I was skeptical when they picked him up because of his injury history. Good for you. You were right. I got it wrong. Yeah, I didn't like it when they picked him up. I was okay when they got it. Then when he had a good first week, I was celebrating his great week. If anyone sees that column, please burn it or something. We'll find it somewhere. One week. Well, you know what? I could do the same thing with Lombardi. He's one week in, or less. There was two games in when I wrote how great he is. I feel better about that one today because he's had a couple more games, so I'm feeling good. I regret the Robert column. He needs to go somewhere else and not make $20 million. Right. He won't anywhere else. I think that part of it. Their offense, there's not as much of a lift. If Bichette comes back, they'd still have to fill some holes. My biggest concern has been and is in the rotation because, not because of McLean or Scott. I like what I've seen out of Thornton so far. I really felt they should have signed Holmes. Peralta, who knows? Can we just chalk it up to it's New York and we've seen this before where guys come to New York and it doesn't work and they were good before that. When you kind of look at it from that angle, you're like, all right, those are three good young players, not counting Peralta. I would have liked to seen Holmes back. They could still re-sign him, but the philosophy that David Stearns has had, it just doesn't work in New York. There's too many variables if you don't get a certain, some certainty in the rotation, like what the Yankees have and what the Dodgers have. They have to sign Scouble. I don't believe there's any other way out of this if they don't get Scouble. I always hate throwing pressure on a guy who's been in that job before. I'm always careful. You don't have Steve Coan's money behind you though. Nobody does, except for one or two places. The Dodgers. The Dodgers, they're the only team. I really feel like of all the starters, they have to change that. They can do it for, they can make an exception. Well, how much are they going to give him? What are they going to do? Because he's with the Dodgers now, right? He's with the Dodgers. Now he said he'd go back to Detroit. I mean, what's he going to say on the podcast? He's not going, they offered him $65 million. Then they upped it to 75 million for four years. I mean, they're not in the ballpark and that arbitration didn't leave a great taste in his mouth. He's not going back to Detroit. I mean, what was he going to say on that podcast? It's got to be Dodgers, Mets. I mean, maybe there'll be a surprise, but basically those are the teams, right? I don't think anybody else is going to. I think it's a two-team race. In the free Asian market, you have to take your shot. Well, what kind of money are we talking about? You got to really, really 50-50 shot, right? They have a 50, maybe it skews more towards the Dodgers because of the winning, right? And he's there. And he's already there. They can butter him up for the next two months. If it's two teams, yeah, let's take a shot at it. But it's going to have to be, listen, is it 400 million? Probably. Wow. It's a lot of money to give up. He's the best. I believe he's the best pitcher in baseball. I think Yamamoto's the second best. So if the Dodgers got him, they have the top, and they do have him now, his top two pitchers. The Mets, to draw even, but to close the gap a little bit. Yeah. Would the Dodgers go to that number? I mean, probably. Where's their limit? He does have a bit of it. And now he's throwing a hundred after elbow surgery, right? I mean, he looks fantastic, but he does have three surgeries at this point, right? Are you giving him 400 million? The bone chips are usually a precursor for something that potentially could be going on beyond that, right? So we don't know that. He's already had a TJ, but you feel like there's another one that could be coming over this period of time. So do I want to spend 400 million on him? No. But I mean, there's also, do I want to see this team lose over 90 games this year spending almost 400 million if I was the owner of the Mets? No, I didn't want to see that either, right? So I think you asked me, how do they turn this thing around? That would be a huge way to do it. And can they do it in other ways? Of course, but there's more risk to it involved in, and maybe they are better off doing it. Remember what the Cardinals did when they spread their money around when Pujols left to go to the Angels, right? They spend their money on, I think it was, they went and got Holiday. I think there was Beltran. My memory may be a little off on this, but they spread it around three different ways. And then that year after Pujols left for the Angels, they got to the World Series again. Maybe that's the better way to do it is spending it in that different way, but they have to spend money to get out of this. Yeah. It feels like they're in an immense hole, right? Immense hole, because really they made five big moves last winter and they're basically all for five, right? I mean, Devin Williams has not been worth the 17 million either, right? So Bichette, he looks good now. He was solid defensively, good guy. I mean, you got a 700 OPS, that's not, that's not translated to $42 million, right? That's right. Obviously we covered Robert, right? Palanto we covered, yeah. Right. I mean, and Peralta. So they basically went all for five. That digs you a pretty big hole. And this free agent market is brutal, which that plays into Scooble even further, right? I mean, so that's part of the reason why he's going to get this enormous deal. I think it adds to it a little bit anyway. Well, how about going back three months earlier, like a year ago today at the deadline, then the Mets were all for the deadline too. So it's not just all for five. We'll give them Rodgers. Rodgers will give, but everyone else, it didn't turn out well. It's been on some streak. Yeah. I will say this, Mania is making a surprising comeback. I know when the press box, we were talking about, when are they going to release Mania? Good thing they didn't. I mean, he had an outing that had the same stat line as Schlittler yesterday. So maybe Mania is the third pitcher and maybe, maybe Thornton. So that gives you four pitchers, right? You still need, you're right. But maybe they have four starters. But you know, they didn't do well from the positional standpoint either. They're going to have to get better there as well. I mean, Simeon's shown some things, but he's not been as good as Nimmo, right? No. You know, what do you think it's the, what did they not factor in enough? Was it the New York ability to play in New York? Was it the reliability? I mean, those were two things that Pete gave you. Ability to play in New York and boy, reliability. I mean, he's crazy. I mean, the guy flew out of his Jeep. I don't know. I don't actually know who flew out, but he rolled over the Jeep, right? Or he wasn't his fault. Somebody ran a red light, hit him, rolled over, and he didn't miss a day of spring training. The guy is indestructible. And they didn't seem to value that. They looked at him as a big right-handed guy. He's going to go downhill, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And didn't go for it. Is there a mistake they need to factor in? New York reliability? Because the only guys who've really done well for them, the only signings they did that did well were guys who played with the Yankees, right? Soto, Holmes, Weaver. Yeah. I mean, there've been a few, right? Severino at first, right? So I don't know. They just have to sign guys from the Yankees. I don't know what they have to do. The Yankees cast-offs. No, I mean, I wouldn't say they're all cast-offs, but to your point, going back to the wintertime and the spring, there was a lot of movement and a lot of new players to this team, right? And that takes some time to gel and come together. And when you get off to a slow start, and we've seen this with other teams in New York, you get off to a slow start, that bonding that you have with the team, you can throw it out the window because guys are more worried about getting out of their funk that they're in. And I'm not going to say that they're selfish, but they become more introverted because they don't want to be booed. No one wants to be booed. So they're trying to figure it out. The team concept, it's thrown out the window a little bit. So I think there's some aspect of that, that kind of New York environment. Certainly there's guys that have struggled in New York that have a hard time that start pressing. We've seen over our careers, we've seen a lot of that as well. But I think that not maybe having as much disruption this winter on that front would be helpful for the team going forward. Now they've gotten all the firsts out of the way, the early struggles out of the way. With Bichette, I think if Bichette does not opt out, which I still find it hard to believe that he will because of the money that he'd be given. Oh, he can't opt out. No way. He's got another opt out the following year too. So we'll have that option again. Especially with the uncertainty of the CBA. He's got another 42 million a year for two more years in the bank. He's not going anywhere. There's no way. But I feel better about him in New York next year after watching him here. I do too. He's looked good lately. He's looked really good. And he's been fine defensively. That move to third was not terrible. I think it's probably better for him too. So from that side of it, I think, again, staying healthy is going to be important like it is every team. But I feel like they're better in that area than it seems on the surface. They're catching. Don't disrupt the catching aspect of it. That's been fine. You can add another offensive piece or two. It's just about starting pitching. And like you said, Minaya, the velocity is back. I feel better about him. But if you don't have six quality starters ready to go, and I'm not even counting Thornton, I think they need two more. And then Thornton's your guy coming up from the minor leagues. If they can do that, they'll be in more games than they're not, at least early on. And then who's going to manage the team? There's that aspect too, which I know Andy Green said he doesn't want to do it, but you got to at least give him consideration if it's Beltran or whoever it's going to be. I said, go get Cora. If you can't get Cora, and I'm going to talk to Dave Dombrowski later about that, if you can't get Cora, bring Andy Green back. That's the way I would do it. I wouldn't do Beltran. He already had one stint. It wasn't very successful. I guess I can't blame him for that completely, but it didn't last very long. In any case, that's my two cents on that. All right, let's switch over to the Yankees. What's the deal with them? Why can they not hit? Obviously, you miss Judge, you miss Stanton, you miss Bellinger now, but they have a very good lineup of players, right? I mean, shouldn't they be able to score some runs? What's going on there? You would think so. I mean, they were below average at shortstop offensively, below average behind the plate, which is a mystery to me because Wells was supposed to be an offensive player, and then McMahon, we've seen, he's not a big offensive player. He's more of a defender, so you're short three positions, and now you have your big guns that have been out for a while. Grisham hasn't had a very good season lately. It hasn't been good. When you look at the last, what is it, month and a half, two months, he's been bad too. Goldschmidt has come back to the pack. There's a lot of... Jazz. Jazz has not had a good season, right? There's so many players that have not had good seasons, so some of that is maybe over-eval, but when you're missing those big offensive pieces, it's hard for them to be in the limelight of going from complementary players to players that you're relying on to win. I thought they did a good job. Even though a lot of people didn't like Garcia's fit, this guy can swing the bat and hit, and maybe they put him at second base a little bit, but first base DH. I'm okay with him as a left-hand hitter. The Ramos one, I'm not sure how that's going to work out. In theory, it seems like it should work because he hits lefties well and he can defend, but again, this is a complementary player. They have to hold the fort down until those big guys come back. Are they coming back? Do we believe they're coming back? It's a guessing game at this point, right? They can tell us all they want. They're optimistic. They feel good about it. He seems like the judge is able to do something now, when they told us a month in that he couldn't do a stationary bike. A stationary bike is for old men like me, right? That was not a good sign. Both of us. Now he can do some light stuff. I talked to Cash yesterday about this. The hard part is, to your point, he hasn't been able to do anything. Now you have to ramp up. You don't want to rush him back where now he has a problem with something else. You can't rush him back. I think the word rush is over at this point. We're two and a half or two months into it at this point. I don't know. It didn't sound like he was going to be back for another month. I saw Bellinger hitting at the stadium the other day. He's doing stuff. They said six weeks, and I think it'll be six weeks, and that's it. The other two, Stanton and Judge, are in this race. It's like a race between two tortoises. No offense to them. Who knows whether we're going to get either back. If they're going to really do anything, they probably need Judge. I don't want to say definitely, because look at the three pitchers threw against Atlanta. You've got Free, Cole, and Schlittler in a playoff, and they'll be in the playoffs. The American League's not good. They'll be in the playoffs, even if Boston does pass them. I'm not going to say that they're dead without Judge, but obviously, it's a huge blow. He's the best player in the league. Don't they have to play the long game like the Dodgers have over the last two seasons? The Dodgers had problems with their bullpen last year, and they got through it with the strength of the rotation and putting starters in the bullpen. Two years ago, they had all those starters that were hurt, and they slow-rolled it and got a couple of them healthy towards the end, but you knew they were getting in. I feel like with Judge, they have to do that same type of mentality. Just slow-roll it, wait until he's completely 100% right, because they're getting in, to your point. They just need Judge healthy, the way I would view it. Yeah, I'd say you're right. I think you're right. It would be nice if he got a couple weeks in September to play. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but if he gets a month, great. That's plenty of time, but if he comes out there September 20th or something like that, is he going to be ready to be in the playoffs? I'm not convinced. That's not ideal, right, for sure. I don't know. Who do you think is coming out of these leagues? I don't know. It feels like the National League has the four best teams, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know. Boston, streaky. Obviously, they were on a great streak there, but then they lost two games to Oakland. Sorry, Sacramento. They're good. They'll be in the playoffs. I don't know. Who do you think is coming out of there? At the moment, I'm going to guess Dodgers, Red Sox are going to come out, but I don't know. It's one of these years Milwaukee's going to have to do something in the playoffs, right? They're the best team in the regular season. It's very weird. It seems like they made a comparable offer for Scuba. It looks like to me from what the reports are, with Pena and two other guys, including Jet Williams in the top 100, they made a run. They did try, but right now they got the Miz. They got Harrison. They just haven't done it in the playoffs. I don't know. The one thing I wonder about, John, is this. Right now, the Dodgers are the third seed in the NL. That means they don't get the bye, and I know they've won the World Series with a lot of bye, but the offense right now looks a little bit run down, a little bit older. We saw that last year, too, and they still won it, but what I wonder is if you get Milwaukee in that second round, and you have to face Mizorowski, and then I don't know what you're going to see out of Harrison, but that rested pitching, is this the year that the Dodgers would be somewhat vulnerable? I feel like it's possible. I would not have said this a month ago, but just recently, you just never know as we've seen. Yeah, I mean, they haven't looked good, but they lost 17 of 18, believe it or not, 117 going into the 2017 and late in the season. I think it was in August, late August and September, and they were the best team in the World Series, not counting the trash Strohs, who actually won the World Series that year in seven games against the Dodgers, but in my mind, you could call the Dodgers champions then. So yeah, the Dodgers don't play to win in the regular season, really, completely. They don't go all out. They're kind of slow playing Snell. I think they're probably slow playing Glass now. They have that luxury to do it at full strength. If you've got Schuble, Yamamoto, Snell, Glass now, and we'll see about Otani. We don't know at this point if he's coming back. It's hard to compete with that. Even if you got four out of the five, you're the favorite. So what do you think on the last thing before we wrap this up? MVP, what's your thoughts on that with Pete Crow Armstrong and Otani? It's going to be a fascinating one. I don't have the vote, so I can talk openly on this, and I've already gotten people mad at me, but go ahead. You give your take on it. Well, I love what PCA has done. Pete Crow, it's a great story, what he's been able to do as an offensive player, and his defense too. He affects both sides from that side of things. I just find it hard to believe, and you've had this vote before. For me, what ends up, I wonder, is you had Otani, who's pitching so well in the first half. He was in the conversation to win the Cy Young. That's how good the pitching was, and he's still hitting as well as he is. I just find it hard to believe, unless he has a downturn or he goes on the injured list because of the knee or any of that. I find it hard to vote against him. I thought last year, Cal Raleigh, you could have voted for him over Aaron Judge for the position, catcher and all that. It didn't go his way. I feel like it's going to be hard to go other than Otani if things stay the way that they do. What if he doesn't come back and pitch? If he doesn't come back to pitch, it's a little different. It evens it up. He's throwing a great half year. I got a hit, at least from the Cubs fans, on MLB Network. The war is not really accurate in my estimation. Right now, Otani has a 3.4 war for his offense, and Pete Crow Armstrong has a 6.1 war. His war is 80% better somehow, yet they have exactly the same number of home runs. I think it's 26 or 27. They got 71 RBIs. They're within one or two points on everything, or maybe three points. Batting average, slug, on base, OPS. Otani's I think one point better on OPS, something like that. You couldn't find two guys with more similar stats, yet Pete Crow Armstrong has a 6.1 war and Otani 3.4. I don't believe war. That's not accurate. I know he has 30 stolen bases, but that doesn't give you 2.7 points in war. No, no. Defense factors into it. This is just the offensive war. It's 6.1 to 3.4. I don't know how it's figured out. If you go by the war, Pete Crow Armstrong has a fairly significant lead. I think a lot of people will. If the vote is today, I actually think he would win. I think he would win. He's been amazing. He deserves an MVP. A half season of starting pitcher is extremely valuable. This is why starting pitchers get $40 million. You don't get $40 million to be a great defense. He's the best. He's the best defensive outfielder. Did Kevin Kiermaier ever get $40 million? Who's the guy on Nats? Young and $40 million? No, no, no. It's not a $40 million job. Now, Pete Crow Armstrong's been incredible offensively, at least the equal of Otani. He's been incredible defensively. I like the narrative. He's really sparked the team as soon as he got a lead off. He's got a lot of flair to him. I get all that. If a guy's a starting pitcher, I don't care if we've seen it for the last few years. If he's a starting pitcher throughout, it's tough to beat that, in my opinion. If he doesn't come back, we'll see. At that point, we'll see. It is quite a great debate. No doubt. Otani's starting to progress. He's starting to throw again. Maybe he's back to last year. He's several weeks away. It's going to be interesting. He's probably not going to catch Pete in the war. A lot of people go for that. I'm on the wrong side. I thought Raleigh was the MVP last year. Don't go by me. Do the opposite. It's like I'm Costanza or something like that. By the way, before we go, what about the Lombard? I mean, unbelievable, right? I love it. I love it. It's great. He looks fantastic, right? I love the defense. His defense is legit. He's got a better arm than I thought, too. I've seen him video in person once. I didn't think that he had that type of arm. Making the play in the hole the other day, throwing the ball from the basically jump throw and in the air. That was impressive. The offenses look great. The one thing we know this, he's not going to be phased by New York, right? There's the value of him being in the organization. We know because of the old man, he's been around the game a long time. You've seen around I have, too. This guy, it's a special family. Again, is he going to be the long-term guy for the Yankees? I hope so. It's a great look, but it's been a nice first couple of games for him. Certainly, you can feel good about him for the rest of the season at short. We'll have to wait and see. I think there's plenty of things to like with the bat. I'm just not sure that we've seen swing and miss out of him in the minor leagues. That's my only reservation about anointing him the guy. I was a Volpe fan back then when he first came out. We want to talk about taking the opposite. I thought Volpe would be the long-term guy and he hasn't. I'm withholding judgment on Lombard right now. Very good. You're a very rational fellow and I appreciate that. I think Lombard is in. I did say this about Volpe, too, but hopefully nobody remembers that. I think Lombard is the guy for years to come. All right, Jim, I appreciate you. You're terrific. You have to run right now to do a job. I've got Dave Dombrowski, the president of the Philadelphia Phillies, coming up for a nice interview. Then Jim will be back to do hit or error later on the show with John Heyman and Jim Dukas. All right. It's my pleasure to welcome Dave Dombrowski, the president of baseball operations of the Philadelphia Phillies. Dave has been on the show a number of times. Really appreciate it, Dave. Welcome to the show. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I know we talked a little bit beforehand. You're in St. Louis. You are very, very dedicated, as you've always been in your nearly four-decade career as a general manager or now baseball president, obviously following the Phillies around. Looking at the standings now, National League is a little tougher than the American League. You're kind of in a dogfight with Arizona, San Diego, and still hoping for the division. Where do you see the Phillies standing right now? Well, we are in a dogfight. That's where for the wild card race. I mean, the Braves, I'm sure you always hope to catch them. We got close for a while. But after the All-Star break, we've stumbled a little bit and they've played better. So we won a very big game yesterday, which was important for us. But we're in a battle. I think the Cubs have pretty much solidified themselves for one of the wild card spots if they don't catch the Brewers. And then you've got a bunch of clubs after that. Arizona and ourselves are tied. San Diego right behind. And there's still a handful of other clubs that are within three or four games. So I mean, every day is a big game for us. And we just need to go out and win as many ballgames as we possibly can. Where are you now relative to your expectations heading into the season? Did you expect the team to be doing better than this? Well, we haven't played quite as well overall from a record perspective as I thought we would. It's been a little bit more of a struggle. We started off poorly, as we know. We were 9-19 at one time. So that was hard to explain based upon our personnel. We just came out slow out of the gate. We decided to make a managerial change at that time. We played better for an extended period. Basically, over the last six weeks, couple of months, we've been basically a 500-type club. Keep looking for us to really get it all together at one time. At times, our start in pitching has been absolutely outstanding, particularly our big three. Our bullpen's been up and down. We've got a tremendous closer, but been up and down. I think probably the biggest surprise for me is how we've scuffled the score runs on a consistent basis. We've been better over the last time period, the last, I'd say, month even in that regard. But early in the year, we were near the bottom, and it really kind of surprised me because we have a lot of good offensive players. But as a whole, we just didn't click at that time. Tell me about the trade deadline. Your best three offensive players are left-handed hitters, obviously, Harper, Schwarber, and Marsh. You ended up getting Luis Uribe, who's left-handed, but he hits both lefties and righties. What was it like for you? I noticed some other teams were looking for righty bats, and there just weren't many out there, or really any out there. What were your other options, and were you pretty pleased to get Uribe, who's really turned into a good two-way player now? Well, we were happy to get Uribe, but going into the all-star break and then coming out of it and going into the trading deadline, our real thought process is we'd like to come up with a right-hand hitting bat if we could. And really, for us, it would have to be in the outfield because our infield was pretty well set. So for us, that's what we were trying to acquire. But the reality was there just were not many people out there, if any, as you mentioned. There were a couple of guys that we thought were more platoon-type outfielders, and we felt somebody like Brian de la Cruz, who just came up in our organization for the month of July, was pretty comparable to those type of bats. So we were open-minded to try to help our offense any way we possibly could, and we explored all those different opportunities. The other thing that comes into play in this situation is that there are very few clubs who are really looking to move players. I think there's still 21 clubs within five games of a playoff spot at this time. So as we looked at that players available list, we just didn't see that impact right-handed bat that we could acquire. So that's where we just, how could we get better offensively? And it led us to Luis Araiz, who was leading the league in hitting, somebody that we like. And I think the key is he hits lefties and righties for us and makes our lineup deeper at this time. And so we kind of, we had to really adjust on the fly there because that wasn't our immediate goal, but we thought it gave us the best opportunity to improve our ballclub. It also took some positional switches with our team, which was very unique, but when we approached it, Bryce Harper helped out a great deal in that regard, volunteering to go to the outfield. We finally, after a couple of years, have taken him up on it and moved him to right, and he's adjusted very well out there. That gives us a big plus in right field and the outfield that we didn't have with this bat. And then the adjustments we felt on the other parts of the infield, Araiz is a very good second baseman. So is Bryson Stott. Bryson Stott's just a very good player. He can play short and he's adjusted to third base. He played it before in the past, so he adjusted to third base and then moving Bohm over to first base. So we didn't think we would really much, much defensively once they get adjusted to their new positions, and that really has been the case even in a very short time period. So that's how we ended up with the rise, and there just were not the right-handed bats out there that we had hoped there would be. Yeah, that is a lot of defensive switching. It's all been pretty seamless though, so far. So far it has been. I give the guys credit. They went into it with an open mind. It was, of course, something that we wanted to communicate before we tried all these things, because you don't want to all of a sudden wake up one day and you say to Bryce Harper, oh, we're moving you to right field without talking it through, even though you don't hear it. But Don Mattingly visited with them. Bryce reached out to me and said it was fine. We talked to Bryson Stott beforehand and Bohm. So it was all a lot of communication, and surprisingly they have adjusted pretty quickly on it, and a lot of it's been the hard work and effort that they put in. You see them going out there before the game, working immediately with Bobby Dickerson, our infield coach. And so I think it's made us a better club. Our offense has been improved, so hopefully we can keep that up. And the one thing, surprisingly for us over the last few weeks, is that our starting pitching, which is our real strength, hasn't been quite as good, and I look for that to bounce back. But we've got shorter starts from some of our guys than we normally do, so it makes your bullpen more vulnerable. You're using them a lot more. And so hopefully that will adjust to where it normally has been, and I think that it will. You mentioned Harper. I wanted to ask you how things are going with him. Obviously, you said something in the winter that was taken hard, apparently, or maybe he was just a little annoyed. I don't know. Tell me how you read it, that Harper didn't have an elite season last year. He didn't have his usual season. That's true on his face, but he obviously wasn't expecting it. And I don't know. I wanted to ask you whether you were trying to get a rise, no pun intended, a rise, two words, out of him, whether you're just speaking honestly, answering a question or what, and how is your relationship now with Bryce? Because I know he had the elite t-shirt or read that, and you know how superstars are. They're not used to hearing any negativity, or at least perceived negativity. Sure. No offense, John, we've talked through that one. I've talked through it many times throughout the year. That one's over and it's done. I have a good relationship with Bryce. We've talked here during this time period. He reached out to me about various events, trying to help us with the ball club and different thought processes. We've had a chance to talk and visit a long time ago about that. So I think we're all on the same page to try to win a world championship and to do it together. So that's our real goal at this time. Yeah. And Bryce actually came out before the deadline and said we need to do some things or whatever. And Don Mattingly kind of suggested he didn't really love that because it kind of reflected on a couple of the players. He was considering their feelings. How did you take that as the guy who needed to do things in his words? We've been doing this for a long time. Guys used to do that all the time. Now I guess we're all sensitive and I guess it does kind of reflect on some of the other guys. How did you take that for the other guys and for yourself? Well, I think it's two different factors. First of all, he was speaking from the heart and how he felt. And from Don's respect, you'd have to ask Don in that case, but I think it was really a situation where there's always sensitivity to teammates. I don't think Bryce was saying it along those lines. But I know from my own perspective, I did not take it and did not feel it was personal. And the reality of it is I've been through trading deadlines a long time. That's what we were trying to do anyway. So we're trying to get our club better, try to get it happen. And sometimes when you lose, you get frustrations, you say different things. Sometimes you say things publicly. I've done it myself. I often say for me, as many years as I've done this in the game, if I was a manager and had to address the media immediately after the game, 10 minutes, I wouldn't be very good at it because my emotions are on my sleeve at that time and I need to settle down and it would be a learned skill. And then in 20 minutes or 25 minutes, I'm fine in dealing with those things. So sometimes emotions speak. And really for me, it had no effect because we are already working on those types of things months in advance. And we had addressed different things that we know that we needed to do. So the reality is that's what we were already trying to do. And I've tried to do that every time at the trading deadline. And hopefully you've been able to achieve it with some of the acquisitions we've made. Yeah, you're not one who needs to be encouraged to make trades to improve the ball club. So I'm sure you were working on quite diligently. And last year, you got Duran, who's been terrific as the closer and you have a history of making trades for great players, whether it be sale, price, whomever. Don Mattingly, how's he done? I know it's kind of suggested he wouldn't mind continuing doing this at some point. Although I saw him at the all-star game, he didn't say anything like that to me, but he was mostly interested in the all-star game at that moment. And Philly's continuing on. He didn't want to talk about himself, but how's he done so far? And could he be back next year? Well, he's done great for us by all means. He's really helped turn us around. We were nine and 19 at the time in which he took over. We're now in a position where if the season ended today, we'd be in a playoff spot. We were far from that at that time. So he's helped a great deal with the ball club. We've played well under him all in all. I mean, the last, like I said, six weeks or so, we've been a 500 club, but he's done a really good job at steadying the ship for us and making sure we're playing to the best of our capabilities. And as far as the future is concerned, that's something that we tackle at the end of the season. Haven't really given it much thought. And I'm not sure from Don's perspective, even I read the one comment, but really our focus has always been, let's deal with this year. Let's try to win this year. Let's try to win a world championship together and let's hope we're celebrating at the end of the season. One thing I think you're very good at beyond player procurement is picking the managers. Obviously you've hired Jim Leland a couple of times, but Rob Thompson worked when you hired him and Mattingly has worked so far. You did try to hire Alex Cora, who you want a world series, one of your two world series championship. You've been in the world series five times, which I should have mentioned at the beginning with four different teams. So that's pretty darn impressive, but you did try to hire Alex Cora and he wanted to take the summer to be with his family, which is only admirable. What are your thoughts? Would you think Cora could be a possibility for the Phillies down the road? Well, we really haven't thought anything, like I said, about that. Alex Cora did a great job for us in Boston. He's to me, a very good big league manager. He's a friend of mine at this point, but really all of those things are for future topics at the end of the season. And really we haven't gotten into those at all because I don't think that it's ever good to not focus on what we need to do, which is right here on the field. So a tremendous person. And when you mentioned those good managers, he's right in that same topic of conversation, but we'll wait and see what happens after the season goes as far as the Phillies in 2027. Back to Mattingly for a second. His son is your assistant, basically, is the general manager of the team. That's a little unusual. How is that dynamic working out? Does Mattingly realize that his son is one of his bosses or does that work? Yeah, well, it is unusual. There's no question it's never been done before, but I think because of the character of both individuals, it's had a chance to work out in the very beginning and it has done that. Preston is an outstanding baseball man. He's helped me a great deal, helped the organization a great deal. He'll be head of baseball operations for many years to come. His relationship with his father, it's unique because we do have a professional relationship. We have conversations on a daily basis. We talk about different things. And Don gives Preston the courtesy of being his boss at that time, as he would. But then there's also a time where they can have a nice relationship as father and son. And it's tremendous to see that they have that opportunity to do that. But it's one of those where they're both cognizant of not overstepping any type of bounds in their jobs. They realize that there's nothing that's spoken in the clubhouse between Don and Mitchell that he brings to Preston, nor me. That's the type of respect that he has if something's confidential. So it's unique, but it's worked. It's worked well, and they work together very well. And I think it really got two outstanding baseball people, but also two outstanding individuals with high moral and character. And so it's been able to work very well. You've been known to be aggressive at the trade deadline and make a lot of bold trades. You did pick up two relievers along with a rise. You didn't really address the pitching. You have a big three that's really terrific. One of the best in baseball, which could bode well, assuming or if you make the playoffs, because it is tough in the National League. How aggressively did you pursue the starting pitching market? And do you have any concerns at this? I mean, Aaron Nola just got his 2,000 strikeout. He's been a remarkable Philly, just a great, great Philly. One of two, I think, Phillies to get 2,000 strikeouts. But his ERA is up over five again this year. Do you have concerns about Nola at this point going forward? And did you look pretty aggressively at the starting pitching market? Well, two different. Aaron Nola actually in recent times has thrown the ball well for us. I mean, he's not a top of the rotation one type of guy at this point, but he's still pitched very well for us in recent time periods. I think he's had to make one of those guys that have more adjustments with the ABS system than most because he lives on the edges. And some of those strikes that might have been called in the past have not been, but his stuff is still solid. So he's done a nice job for us in that regard. Our fifth starter, that's really been an issue for us. Early in the year, did not perform very well. We ended up releasing Tyon Walker at one time. We were in a position, Andrew Painter came up to us, and Andrew has had his ups and downs and really scuffled for a while. Since he went down to AAA, he pitched his last two games that were very good. He's pitched two good games for us now. We feel very encouraged. He has quality stuff. He's still in averages in the upper 90s with premium break and stuff. So there's been some adjustments that need to be made with his delivery in order to throw more consistent strikes, have better command of the pitches. And he's been doing that. So with that said, we did try to still pursue starting pitching. And I think there's different qualities of starting pitchers out there. One is, okay, are you talking about a guy who would definitely be one of your top five guys in your rotation? And then that would move Andrew Painter down to AAA. We explored some of those, probably not as hard as some other clubs would have done because we felt our top three guys are still set. And we felt that when we talked about those, that the price of acquisition of those individuals were very, very high. And really in our situation, we didn't think merited the return that they were looking to. Other organizations felt differently in their situations, maybe understandably. As far as then where you get to the fifth starter on your club, that was really a hard question for us to look at because for us, we said, okay, if we get this guy, we pay a price to get him. Well, they may not be as good as Andrew Painter right now. So we'd send Painter down to AAA for a guy who wouldn't give us a good chance to win at the major league level. So we ultimately decided to not do that with the guys that were available. A little bit concerned about our starting pitch and depth. We do have a guy that's pitched well for us at AAA and come up in Allen Ron Howell for us this year. So he does give us some depth and we've been able to piecemeal that together. But we're vulnerable, like a lot of people, if you have injuries at the wrong spots. And hopefully these five guys can stay healthy and go out there and pitch well for us because if they do, it's a real strength for us. And we think that they can do that. Yeah, your top three is excellent with Sanchez, Wheeler, and Lizardo, who you signed to an extension. Did you at least make the call? I guess I would probably assume anybody in the race, did you make the call on Schuble, but figure it wasn't likely to happen as it wasn't a priority and it was going to take a lot? Well, I mean, we called on anybody, anybody that was a pending free agent without getting into specifics, but you can just by that word, by the wording, just know that I think you properly do your job by touching base with everybody. And so when you're at that time with us, we had 29 other organizations that we were in touch, had a pulse of what was taking place. Some organizations didn't like our players as well as they liked other organizations. Some of them, we just decided we didn't want to give up what they were asking at that particular time. And it was really a, which was unusual for me this year is that two month rentals brought back more than they normally do. And so for me, that was a difficult situation when you looked at our scenario and say, we're going to give all that up for a guy for two months that may not pitch for us in the post-season. That was a difficult one. Now we still have to get there. So that was the choice between the two, but we touch base with everybody. And unfortunately we didn't make a move, but hopefully again, our guys, if they stay healthy, we feel very confident that they'll pitch well for us. Yeah. I'm not sure you want, what you want to say about it. It's kind of come out since that Milwaukee made a good offer or at least quote unquote, good offer for a school ball and that the Yankees were in there. You never really got close there. You never really felt like there was a, probably not a priority for you anyways. Yeah. Well, we talked to them, like I said, but it was not a situation where you're going back and forth. It was very cut and dry what they would like in a trade. And, and I think there were other people that were probably much more aggressive in that situation than we were just due to the circumstance we've discussed. Something I probably should have said at the open, but Joel usually does the introduction, but I do want to mention Dave Dombrowski has made the world series five times, five times with four different clubs. Is that a record? Do you know, is that must be a record for different clubs in the world series? I, I assume it is, but I don't, I don't know that that's pretty good. It's gotta be a record. I won two world series, right? So you've had a hall of fame career. I do want to ask you your contract, at least publicly stated has another year to go. You're still a young man. You still have very good hair as we see in a good shape. How are you looking at your future right now? And I, and I think you were dabbling with not dabbling. You're probably working, knowing you, you were probably working hard at one point on, on Nashville. Is that still something that's in your mirror? Something that you could look at in the future? But are you planning on being a general manager beyond the next year? Well, I like very much what I'm doing very much. The Phillies McRae with me, enjoy working with John Middleton. The organization's tremendous. Love being in Philadelphia and the organization, the people with whom I work. So hopefully that will last beyond next year and my health. And fortunately at this time allows me to do it. And again, still have the passion and love for it. And if I didn't, I would quit doing it because the reality is it's, it takes a lot, but I enjoy doing it. So in that case, you drive forward. And I think again, the health allows me to do so. Nashville, I think is going to be a friend, a city that gets a major league franchise whenever it gets to that point that they start discussing expansion. I think probably at this point it's been a long time since I've been involved, even though I have friends there and still have, we still have a home there, but I would think that's beyond where I am at this time because I'm happy with the Phillies organization. And hopefully if I continue to stay in the game, ownership allows me to do that. It'll be in Philadelphia with the Phillies. All right. Very good, Dave. I really appreciate you joining me. You've come on many times and do it at the last minute. Thank you so much and good luck the rest of the way. I really do appreciate it. We've got Jim Duquette coming back to do hit or error. He's been working on his regular job at MLB network radio for these minutes. So he wasn't able to join us. I apologize for that, but he will be back for the rest of the show. But thank you very much, Dave. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. Please give Jim my best. All right. I will. Thanks. Thanks, Dave. Take care. All right. It's time for hit or error. We're going to have a guest here do our hit or error. I don't know if we've done that too often, maybe once or twice, but hit or error, Jim, what say you? All right. I'm going to go. I'm going to go error for the Detroit Tigers on trading Tarik Scouble. I would not have traded Tarik Scouble. You were this far. Like if I was going to trade Scouble, I'm going to re-litigate this with you. I would have done it last winter when you could have affected your team in a positive way. You could have gotten whatever you got this deadline. I don't think you would have gotten worse than this. You would have gotten more if you had made them available to other teams last year. And you could have built around that, you know, the team. And I didn't think that they're out of it. And they're clearly not out of it when you look at where they are now. They're more in it than some of the other teams in the division. In fact, I think I like their chances to beat out Cleveland, probably beat out Minnesota, and maybe chase down the White Sox. So, you know, this has been a hotly debated, I just didn't think, would I have traded Mize? Yes, I would have traded Mize, but I would have held on to Scouble. So I'm giving the Tigers an E. I like that. I like that starting off with an error. I like that. Look, the Tigers right now, they're only a game and a half out of the wildcard. They're only two games under and they have the best run differential in the American League. It's better than the Yankees in the race. They have a good team. Obviously, you got Joe back now. You've got Milton doing well. If you had Scouble, maybe you'd do something. Look, it may be a repeat of 2024. They may sneak in there. Are they a World Series contender? I don't think so anyway, but hey, I get what you're saying. I think that's what Scott Harris said too. He doesn't think they're a World Series, even with Scouble. That's what he was telling us. Maybe that's the difference. It's hard to debate that. Like 2024, they got in after being a seller. Now, of course, they only sold Flaherty last time. He became an important piece for the Dodgers in their World Series championship. This year, obviously, he traded a lot more than that, right? You've got Mize, who's better than Flaherty, and you got Scouble, who's better than anyone. The American League is not that good. I would have taken my chances on that, right? American League with Scouble. Anyway, that's why I gave him that. Well, I like that overriding point. Mine's a little sillier, but I'm going with an error too. I'm giving it to Jazz Chisholm. He's got to stop with the ABS challenges. I'm tired of watching him challenge balls that are right in the middle of the strike zone. He is now 7-14 on his challenges. He's lost two-thirds of his challenges. There are two that are worse than him. Raphael Cedana, or is it Cedan Raphaela? Sorry. And Naylor, Josh Naylor. That's it. There's two guys who are worse than him at challenging. He's got to cut it out. He's got other things he's got to worry about. No more challenges from Jazz Chisholm. That's my thought. I like that. There is a reason why position players shouldn't be challenging, nor pitchers. The guys who are the best at it, the catchers. There are some really good catchers out there that are doing great. Wilson Contreras, for me, has been outstanding. There have been others as well. But I'm with you on the hitters. Mark Vientos, for the Mets, is probably worse. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he might have challenged Jazz for the worst challenges. He challenges right down the middle. He's won a couple more times than Jazz, I think. Actually, the guys who came up, they said rookies shouldn't do it. They were actually better at it. Sal Stewart won a bunch of them. He was used to it being in the minor leagues last year. And some guys have turned around a strikeout into a walk. So that's valuable. But the catchers are really the ones who are good at it. I'm with you on that 100%. Anyway, Jim, it's a pleasure having you on. I thank you so much for joining me today. You're the man. I really appreciate that. I want to thank Tommy Hogan, our excellent producer, does it week in and week out. Fantastic job. And of course, thanks to Dave Dombrowski for joining me for the interview earlier as well. Easy for me to say. I want to encourage you to go look at the New York Post YouTube page. Read the California Post. Of course, read the New York Post. Joel will be back next week. So it'll be me and Joel back again next week with an interview subject. And it's been my pleasure. This is Jon Hammond signing off for the show this week.