Dave Dombrowski and the Philadelphia Phillies have made a lot of right moves over the past few years, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything has worked out as well as the front office has hoped.
Unfortunately, we've seen that happen one too many times over the past few months, as the Phillies decided to cut ties with Nick Castellanos and eat the rest of his money, as well as similar things happening on Thursday, when Philadelphia moved on from Taijuan Walker.
This is a business at the end of the day, but it's also fair to say that Dombrowski has to do a bit of a better job. I think he's one of the best executives in Major League Baseball, but there have also been times when it feels like he simply isn't doing enough.
That typically happens during the trade deadline, as he should be putting better players on the roster. Regardless, it's interesting to see how many things have gone wrong at times, as Matt Gelb of The Athletic touched on.
"It’s disingenuous to pin an 8-16 Phillies record on one player; Walker was just one item on a long list of problems the Phillies face. Zack Wheeler will return to the rotation Saturday, which would have bumped Walker to a long reliever role. Rather than keep him as rotation insurance, the Phillies decided to cut ties. No one will blame them.
"The Phillies have now devoted a large sum of dead money — $19.22 million to Nick Castellanos and $15 million to Walker — to this year’s payroll. Since Dave Dombrowski became the club’s president of baseball operations in December 2020, this is the eighth free-agent signing he has released during a season or spring training. The others: Castellanos, Joe Ross, Whit Merrifield, Josh Harrison, Didi Gregorius, Jeurys Familia and Odúbel Herrera," he wrote.
Those are a lot of players, and while obviously Castellanos and Walker are the two biggest due to how much money they make, there are some decent professionals in there who simply didn't work out in Philadelphia. There can be a slew of reasons as to why, but that doesn't matter now.