Dave Dombrowski, Phillies Agree to Contract for President of Baseball Ops

The Philadelphia Phillies have officially hired Dave Dombrowski as their president of baseball operations, the team announced on Friday.

The Athletic's Jayson Stark first reported Thursday that the two sides were in "advanced stages of serious talks."

The team's managing general partner, John Middleton, "approached Dombrowski again this week, after two candidates—the Twins' Thad Levine and the Dodgers' Josh Byrnes—withdrew their names from consideration. This time, after a series of conversations with Middleton and Phillies president Andy MacPhail, Dombrowski decided the Phillies' job was an attractive enough option to revisit."

Dombrowski, 64, had signed a four-year deal to serve as an adviser to Music City Baseball, a group attempting to bring an MLB franchise to Nashville, Tennessee, and told The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal in early November that he wasn't interested in leaving the group to pursue a job with other MLB teams. 

"I'm staying in Nashville," he said. "I gave the individual here (John Loar, the head of Music City Baseball) a commitment when I moved here that as we continue to pursue a new team—expansion, relocation or if it goes nowhere—that I would stay here with them."

In his long and successful front-office career, Dombrowski served as the Montreal Expos general manager (1988-91), the Florida Marlins general manager (1992-2001), the president and general manager of the Detroit Tigers (2002-15) and the vice president of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox (2016-19).

He won World Series titles with the Marlins (1997) and Red Sox (2018) and also reached the Series with the Tigers twice (2006, 2012).

His experience building winners would make him a solid hire for a Phillies team with some talented pieces in place like Bryce Harper and Aaron Nola, but one that has underachieved since bringing Harper aboard in 2019. It would also mean that the Phillies, believed likely to cut payroll this offseason, might commit to spending money after all.