• March 29, 2024

Phillies Announce Pete Mackanin Will Not Be The 2018 Manager

The Philadelphia Phillies announced on Friday that Pete Mackanin will not return as the team’s manager for the 2018 season, and will instead move into an advisory role in the front office.

I think the Phils are making a good decision by shaking up the coaching staff. While Rhys Hoskins has made the last month and a half bearable, the fact is that very few players developed positively under Mackanin this year. Odubel Herrera, Maikel Franco, and Cameron Rupp all either regressed significantly or failed to take steps forward, while guys like Jerad Eickhoff and Vince Velasquez failed to make improvements in the pitching staff.

This isn’t all Mackanin’s fault, but the expectation was that the Phils were taking some steps forward, and should have been better than a bottom-three team in the major leagues.

It’s just hard to justify returning a manager that came close to losing 100 games. Plain and simple, its just time for a fresh voice from outside of the organization, which is something that has been overdue by about half a decade for this franchise.

The change at the managerial position will represent the first time the Phils have gone into an offseason looking to fill the role with a guy not previously involved with the organization since the end of the 2003 season when the team would eventually hire Charlie Manuel to replace Larry Bowa.

Since then, the Phils have twice fired their manager and replaced them for multiple years with the guy who took the interim tag. Ryne Sandberg, who ranks up there with former Sixers’ disaster Eddie Jordan as one of the worst disasters this town has ever seen, took over for Manuel as the team’s interim manager before taking on the role permanently. And Mackanin would eventually replace Sandberg halfway through the 2015 season before being granted the job on a full-time basis by management.

The pressure is now on General Manager Matt Klentak to start kicking this rebuild into high gear. With pieces like Hoskins, Nick Williams, and Aaron Nola, along with a plethora of money to spend in free agency, the Phillies shouldn’t have trouble luring a pretty well-qualified candidate to town.

Denny Basens

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haveacigar
haveacigar
September 29, 2017 6:50 pm

Galvis, Hernandez, Altherr, Herrera, Nola, Morgan, Knapp all progressed. This is continued cheap shot lazy fandom instead of thought out journalism

haveacigar
haveacigar
October 1, 2017 8:17 am
Reply to  Denny Basens

In the last couple of years galvis has gone from a barely serviceable utility guy to a potential gg Ss, leader, and solid pro. By the way you talk the manager is responsible for regression in players but the players are responsible for growth… can’t win.

haveacigar
haveacigar
October 1, 2017 9:51 am
Reply to  haveacigar

Bottom line Pete was retained to keep the ship steady during tough times. The team never quit, played hard through the bad times, learned to be professional etc. players matured and for the most part got better. On to the next chapter. He was never going to be the guy at the helm when they started winning…the GM wants his own guy for that as it should be.

haveacigar
haveacigar
September 29, 2017 6:51 pm

Herrera hitting 290 top five hitter in baseball since June and that’s called regression

eagles0superbowls
eagles0superbowls
September 29, 2017 7:57 pm

Who I don’t want them to hire as manager is Ruben Amaro —
Who I would hire is Raul Ibanez, I think he does a decent job at ESPN.
Who I think they want is current Oriole manager Buck Shoewalter.
Who probably deserves the job, Juan Samuel.
Who I think they hire is their double A and Triple A manager Dusty Wathan.

haveacigar
haveacigar
September 29, 2017 8:06 pm

I think they hire a nerd… young and analytical guy.
Not sure how a guy at espn is a candidate? This in the city where an OC with one team is not qualified to be a HC…. duh.
Buck is Petes age and there is no way
Sammy is possible given the Latin players…. dunno a thing bout triple A guy
My bet is some nerd we don’t know