This Phillies Just Made a Ruthless Move...

It is an important offseason for the Philadelphia Phillies as Dave Dombrowski and the front office do their best to maintain the World Series window open around this aging group of veterans. But changes need to be made, and that starts with the coaching staff. While Don Mattingly will be returning as manager after taking over midseason as interim, there have been some changes to the group around him with a beloved hitting coach in Kevin Long officially being thrown to the side. Well, we now know who will be filling the shoes that Long will leave behind him with Peter Fatsy being the name that will step in to the hitting coach role. I do want to dive into those changes. I know we have a lot to get into this offseason. What is the future for names like Alec Boehm? Will Trey Turner be remaining at shortstop? Is Bryce Harper back to being the first baseman? What will the outfield look like? And how do you fix this bullpen? That all of these are conversations that I think have greater importance to the outlook for this Phillies team, but the foundation is beginning to be laid for what next season will look like. Let's jump into the latest news that starts off kicking out from Yahoo Sports here, saying that the Philadelphia Phillies named Peter Fatsy their hitting coach on Tuesday and hired Joe Cronin as assistant hitting coach Eduardo Gonzalez will remain on the Phillies staff as an assistant hitting coach. Fatsy most recently worked as a hitting consultant for the Tampa Bay Rays, a role he began in June. Before that, he served as the hitting coach for the Boston Red Sox for parts of five seasons from 2022 to 2026. Fatsy replaces Kevin Long, who was fired at the end of the season. The Phillies reached the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season, but were eliminated by the Atlanta Braves in the National League wildcard series. Now, I will start off by saying that Kevin Long began to become this sort of polarizing figure on the Phillies coaching staff and really across the Philadelphia media's landscape in general. I am a guy who largely does not put a ton of weight on hitting coaches. that Kevin Long's a guy that's got a ton of respect in the league. I just don't exactly see the direct correlation to what a hitting coach does bring to the team. Do I believe that there are conversations about the approach, shifting things, stylistic, whether that is being aggressive at the plate, taking pitches, all those kind of things, shifting stances. There are real things they do, don't get me wrong, but I'm just a guy that I believe execution matters a ton. Do I believe that Kevin Long told Nick Castellanos a million times not to chase a down-and-away slider? Absolutely. Do I believe that Nick Castellanos ever listened? Absolutely not. Now, that is a unique situation that does not apply to the entirety of this roster, but I do think a lot of times Long ends up being sort of the scapegoat for decisions that are directly made by players on this Phillies team, whether it is poor pitch selection, which I think has been an issue that has plagued this team for quite some time. Now, with all that being said, I also get the value in just shaking things up, bringing in some new blood to the organization, and that is really what I think this has accomplished by making this type of change. The other key factor that I do want to dive into is Don Mattingly should have some say this that we should see Don starting to assemble a staff in the way that he desires and I'm not exactly sure that's what happened here so I want to dive a little bit into the decision to not return with Kevin Long and ultimately what was said by the Phillies organization directly so I want to pull up this article from Todd Zielecki which the headline is Long and Bobby Dickerson will not return to the Phillies staff in 2027 and the write-up and what it states is the Phillies are making changes to the 2027 coaching staff following Wednesday's announcement uh as Don that Don Mattingly is back as manager. Hitting coach Kevin Long and infield coach Bobby Dickerson will not return president of baseball operations. Dave Dombrowski said on Thursday, Long and Dickerson have worked together on the Philly staff since 2022. The Phillies offense ranks seventh in the MLB in runs in 2022, eighth in 23, fifth in 24 and eighth in 25. But the offense struggled in 26, finishing 19th in runs. A hitting coach can only do so much, of course, and Long was respected amongst Phillies hitters. Kyle Schwarber often credited Long for his turnaround after the Cubs non-tendered him in 2020, but somebody had to take the fall for the team's offensive failures. The Phillies hope to have a new voice and philosopher in the batting cages will help. The same can be said for Dickerson, who, like Long, had a stellar reputation in the game. He turned Alec Boehm into a serviceable infielder and helped Bryce Harper transition from a career outfielder to first baseman. Dickerson worked hard to help Trea Turner's defense at shortstop. Turner had 6 outs above average in 2023 and minus 2 outs above average in 2024 before improving to plus 17 in 2025. And obviously last year is when he fell apart, which the article references by stating, but Turner suffered his worst year at shortstop this year with minus 11 outs above average. He struggled so much that there is speculation the Phillies might ask Turner to move to the outfield. If they believe it is a way to improve the roster, it is unclear that they will. The Phillies also will not bring back minor league infielder coordinator Adam Everett and minor league outfielder coordinator Andy Abad. Now, granted, these aren't names that I expect your average fan to be completely in touch with, and I think Dickerson and Long are both guys that are far more involved with the inner workings of the organization. What I do think there are hints to is that there is shakeup within the organization, and that is necessary. There has been a level of complacency, stagnation for the Phillies at all, that they're just comfortable with being a very good team, but not a great team in the way that they must aspire to. Now, the storylines that I think are notable here are what do these changes indicate moving forward? And in particular, with the hitting coach conversation, it does feel to trend a bit more to a youth movement. Beyond that, I would love a little bit more context between what is the relationship between him and Don Mattingly? Was this Mattingly's guy that he once brought in? And is this a real world in which Mattingly is the man assembling his staff around him? Because I can't lie and sit here and act like I don't feel like they're completely setting up this man to get backdoored by Alex Cora one more time. Now, granted, Alex Cora has rejected this franchise twice now. Dave Dombrowski reached out during the process in which he fired Rob Thompson, and Cora said, I want to spend time with his family. Dave Dombrowski reached out again this summer, in which, obviously, before Don Mattingly did sign on the dotted line and get that interim tag removed, and Alex Cora said, no, I'm still not interested. It does feel like this is laying the foundation for Alex Cora is Dave Dombrowski's guy, and he's just going to wait it out until he's ready. I think that is a huge reason why Don Mattingly is back. But nonetheless, to bring it back to the youth movement conversation, And I did want to highlight this article here, which states the Philadelphia Phillies finally fired entrenched hitting coach Kevin Long after a dreadful 2026 campaign. It took less than two weeks to find his replacement in the form of former Boston Red Sox hitting coach Peter Fatsy. It remains to be seen what the 39-year-old will do with an aging Phillies core, but bringing in a fresh young perspective is a healthy step towards a revitalized offense. Phillies president of the baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski, loves his veterans. The 70-year-old has earned a reputation for shelling out big bucks to keep established stars in town while bringing in big-name free agents to augment the current core. The same approach has largely been applied to the coaching staff in recent years, Long being the most notable hanger-on. That finally changed on October 14th, when it was announced that the Phillies were parting ways with Kevin Long as well as infield coach Bobby Dickerson. Long's outing signaled an end to business as usual, and justifiably so, given the club's dreadful performance at the plate in 2026. Long's Phillies finished in the bottom third of the league in key offensive statistics, OBP and slugging, and dead last in the catch-all stat, OPS+. It's hard to place the blame entirely on Long. Hitting coaches can't swing the bat for players, but the Phillies' offensive malaise seemed infectious in 2026. Either way, it was time to move on. And the subcaption here stating, Peter Fatsy can be the fresh voice that the Phillies desperately need. Fatsy is an Alex Cora disciple, appointed Red Sox hitting coach by the free agent manager Dombrowski has pursued for more than a half a calendar year. Dombrowski's skipper of choice may have spurned him twice now, but that didn't stop Cora's hitting coach from coming to town. Fatsy was fired by the Sox this past April after a dreadful start to the season, but he quickly caught on with the Tampa Bay Rays, who led the American League with 98 wins and are currently playing in the World Series. That impressive resume should give Fatsy enough clout to work with the Phillies hitters on a new team-wide approach, something they showed flashes of in August, but couldn't sustain through the rest of the season. It'll be interesting to see how established veterans like Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trey Turner take to the new coach, who's only a few years older than they are. So obviously, this is a young voice that they brought into the organization, a little bit of a different perspective. And I will say from, you know, watching what the Rays do as a baseball team, that is a team that wants to play a far more contact approach, play smart baseball, take pitches, small ball. That's something that Don Mattingly wants to embrace, and Fatsy seemed aligned in that. So this could be something that is completely directly aligned with Mattingly's vision, and I'm willing to give the dude a chance. But I will say, my biggest takeaway, or the biggest, like, eh, that has caught me here is Alex Cora still seems to be the man that Dave Dombrowski is chasing to run this franchise, and that only furthered my sort of level of commitment to that take right there. So we'll see how things do go down. Welcome to Philadelphia to Peter Fatsy there. We will see what ultimately kind of difference he makes for this offense, but the wheels of the offseason are starting to turn. Obviously, the World Series is still winding down. We'll see how much longer that that action can continue on. does feel like this one is wrapping up uh quite quickly and i do think the entire offseason will from the mlb perspective will begin to hit it hit its gear at that stage but ultimately we'll be breaking down the action here on Phillies Digest we'd love to hear your thoughts on this move do you have any reaction to it do we care are we more focused in on the players drop those thoughts below so appreciate you guys for tuning in as always if you have not just yet make sure you smash that subscribe button drop a like on this video give me your thoughts below i'll be back talking to you next time right here on Phillies Digest peace