Phillies Players Should Be Playing Themselves, Not Rob Thomson

(Dale Zanine-Imagn Images)

The Philadelphia Phillies made a very unsurprising decision on a Tuesday morning, letting go of skipper Rob Thomson.

The Phillies reportedly offered Thomson a chance to stay in the organization as a special assistant, though Thomson is taking some time to decide what he wants to do.

I agree with the Phillies' decision to move on from Thomson, and as crazy as it might have sounded a year ago, I actually think they should have gotten rid of him during the offseason. The Phillies won a lot of games over the past few years, but it just felt like something had to change last year.

I think a lot of this can also be blamed on the players, and I'm glad that some of the players, instead of hiding behind the fact that they haven't played well or coming out and standing up for their former skipper, are admitting that they haven't done enough on either side of the baseball to suggest it was anybody else's fault besides the players.

“I haven’t been doing a great job pitching-wise, been giving up too many runs,” said Aaron Nola, per MLB.com. “Giving up a lot of three-run homers and putting the guys in holes and not giving them a great chance to string up some hits. The game could be 0-0. Like today, we went down 6-0 really quick. It’s hard to come back against a really good pitcher on the opposing team, when I’m putting them in a position like that…

“I never thought we would go on a losing skid like this,” Nola said. “It’s baseball, though. We’ve got to get out of it and we’ve got to stay out of it.”

It's unfortunate that the Phillies have played the type of baseball they have to start the season, and getting rid of Thomson doesn't necessarily mean everything is going to be fixed.

At 9-19 and 1-9 over their last 10 games, the Phillies have a lot to fix on both sides of the baseball. No manager is going to completely change that, so it'll be interesting to see what the guys look like with Don Mattingly leading the way now.