It was nothing personal.<\/p>\n
That was, essentially, the money quote when the two most visible faces in the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 cosmos \u2014 Bryce Harper and Dave Dombrowski \u2014 finally had That Talk last Friday night in Baltimore.<\/p>\n
Or at least that\u2019s how Dombrowski, the Phillies\u2019 president of baseball operations, recounted it to me and Doug Glanville during his upcoming appearance on The Athletic\u2019s Starkville podcast. The full show will drop Saturday morning, but you can hear Dombrowski\u2019s take in the clip below.<\/p>\n
Dave Dombrowski on his conversation with Bryce Harper<\/p>\n
Jayson Stark<\/p>\n
So why did Dombrowski and his biggest star even need to have That Talk? Let\u2019s recap how they got there, for those who haven\u2019t kept track.<\/p>\n
Last fall, after the Phillies got bounced from the postseason by the Dodgers, Dombrowski publicly questioned whether Harper was still an \u201celite\u201d player<\/a>. Though Dombrowski said the two had a \u201cgood conversation\u201d about it weeks later, the storyline has persisted. And, nine months later, Harper flipped that challenge back onto the shoulders of his boss<\/a>.<\/p>\n On July 28, just a few days before their chat in Baltimore, it was Harper\u2019s turn \u2014 to seemingly suggest it was time for Dombrowski to prove that he, too, was elite at what he does.<\/p>\n The Phillies\u2019 soon-to-be right fielder stood at his locker after a painful loss in Miami. The trade deadline was less than a week away. His words were pointed: \u201cI think we need some help<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Those words spent a few days ricocheting off every sharp angle in Philadelphia, from Independence Hall to the pizza ovens at Chickie\u2019s & Pete\u2019s. But three days later, Dombrowski sought out Harper after another difficult defeat, in the Phillies\u2019 series opener against the Orioles. Here, Dombrowski said on Starkville, is how that conversation went.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to him on (Friday) night when we were in Baltimore, and just had a chance to chat with him,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Dave, I didn\u2019t mean \u2026 that wasn\u2019t a personal comment. I just felt we needed help.\u2019 And I said, \u2018You know, I get it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Was that really how Harper meant those words? Was it really that easy for Dombrowski to accept that explanation? Only the two of them truly know. But Dombrowski used one adjective over and over to make it clear that he at least understands the context of Harper\u2019s message:<\/p>\n Emotional.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I\u2019ve done it for a while, I think you learn that \u2026 that\u2019s just today\u2019s world,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cI mean, guys, when they say things, they\u2019re so much more emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n So when those words spill out, he went on, \u201cyou need to make sure that people aren\u2019t saying it from an emotional perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Dombrowski is in tune with how emotional he is himself in the moments after a difficult loss, he said. So he \u201cgets it,\u201d that \u201csometimes people can say things, when they\u2019re being interviewed or they\u2019re texting something, that could be emotional. And I just want to always make sure that I confirm that with people, to make sure that\u2019s the proper way they\u2019re feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n Their chat, at a makeshift dining table outside the visitors\u2019 clubhouse, may not have brought them to a place of kumbaya. But it opened a critical line of communication.<\/p>\n And they needed it. Dombrowski made it clear that his exchanges with Harper, over the next few days, were a pivotal ingredient in the Phillies\u2019 team-rattling trade to acquire second baseman Luis Arraez<\/a> from the Giants before the deadline.<\/p>\n Dombrowski acknowledged that was not the deal he went into this deadline expecting to make. When he grabbed his shopping cart, he was looking for an outfielder who hits right-handed. He came out of it with the exact opposite: an infielder who hits left-handed.<\/p>\n It turned into one of the boldest, most outside-the-box trades Dombrowski has ever made. But \u201cit started with Bryce Harper,\u201d the veteran executive said.<\/p>\n Dave Dombrowski on Phillies’ position shifts for Arraez trade<\/p>\n Jayson Stark<\/p>\n Suppose we could poll all the two-time MVPs on Earth to see how many would willingly make a dramatic position change in midseason. Let\u2019s just say if you started counting yes votes, you probably wouldn\u2019t need all five fingers on your counting hand.<\/p>\n But Harper opened the door to the Arraez trade by telling Dombrowski multiple times he\u2019d make that move, from first base to right field, if they needed him to. And when your team\u2019s biggest star pulls up stakes and switches positions, the rest of the roster follows. Bryson Stott told the Phillies he was cool with moving from second base to third. Alec Bohm signed off on relocating from third to first. And the lineup\u2019s spin through the baseball blender was complete.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s how one huge piece fell into place to make that trade possible. Here are some of the other highlights from Dombrowski\u2019s appearance on Starkville, which shed light on the other pieces. (Quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.)<\/p>\n Why he passed on the right-handed bats: \u201cWhen you look at a right-handed hitting outfielder, as far as an everyday guy that would be a force in the middle of the lineup, we could not find one out there,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cThere were guys that we liked that we thought would make us better, but they were almost all platoon guys. \u2026 We just couldn\u2019t find that guy. And then you start saying, \u2018OK, well, how are we going to make our offense better?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n What made him willing to blow up four positions to make room for Arraez? The Phillies knew they needed a difference-maker, Dombrowski said. But the more they explored their options, the more convinced they were that Arraez was the one bat who could give them what they needed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t find that guy that was available that we thought was a legitimate upgrade of our club \u2014 but we felt that Arraez was,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cAnd then how could we make it work? Well, that\u2019s when all the other conversations came into play. But we really explored all of the different markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Once they\u2019d sorted through all the options, Dombrowski gathered opinions \u2014 from his front office and most trusted scouts, from his coaching staff, even from Harper and other impacted players. That, he said, is something he would never have done earlier in his career.<\/p>\n But he has done this a long time. So he knew that if his players and coaches weren\u2019t all in, that would have been a problem.<\/p>\n \u201cIf somebody had jumped up and down,\u201d Dombrowski said, \u201cand said there\u2019s no way that we would be willing to do this, you would then need to approach: Well, how are we going to go about doing it? Is it the right move to make? So there were a lot of steps and thought processes beforehand. And then I think, when push came to shove, when you\u2019re talking about a hitter and what we needed with the Arraez situation, they all fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n The tense Sunday night when it all almost fell apart: By Sunday, the day before the deadline, Dombrowski and the Giants\u2019 president of baseball operations, Buster Posey, were locked in conversation. But this was no peaceful sail in McCovey Cove. The deal almost didn\u2019t get done, Dombrowski revealed.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, you have to make last minute-decisions,\u201d he said. \u201cWith San Francisco, for example, I thought at \u2026 8:30 (Sunday night) we were going to make a deal that was close to what we made. At 9 o\u2019clock, when they got back to me, I didn\u2019t think we were going to make that deal, and it kind of fell apart.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then Buster reached out to me once again and said, \u2018Well, what about this?\u2019 And I proposed something back to him. And then he said, \u2018OK, let\u2019s get it done.\u2019 And then \u2026 you\u2019re talking 10:30, 11 o\u2019clock on Sunday night.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to exchange medicals. They\u2019re on the West Coast. We just got back (home from Baltimore). I mean, our trainer\u2019s fine (with the reports on Arraez and reliever Caleb Kilian<\/a>), but you want your doctors to look at some things. And so there\u2019s a lot of steps that are involved, and you\u2019re always hoping that something doesn\u2019t happen where all of a sudden, it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n Weighing the risks: By the time we recorded this interview Wednesday afternoon, I\u2019d done enough research to conclude that no team had ever made a midseason trade for any one player that forced that club to uproot nearly half the positions on the field<\/a> in the middle of a race.<\/p>\n So I asked Dombrowski this question: \u201cIt feels like it could be a little scary to disrupt a team as much as you just did \u2014 but it can also be energizing. It\u2019s like you\u2019re basically challenging your players to win and play baseball in a whole different way. I\u2019d be curious about how much you pondered both those aspects of this deal.\u201d<\/p>\n He conceded that both of those elements were hot topics in the Phillies\u2019 trade room.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our trade room, we talked about that a lot,\u201d Dombrowski replied. \u201cAnd there were some people that said, \u2018Oh, we should not do that. We should just plug in an outfielder and just leave it at that, even if it\u2019s a platoon outfielder.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI think a couple factors came into play in finally deciding it. One is, you watch your club play, day in and day out, and when I looked at the move, I don\u2019t think it was substantially going to hurt us defensively at any of the positions that we\u2019re moving players.\u201d<\/p>\n He then explained why he felt that way. But was he also interested in challenging his players to make this work?<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, you know what? In a way, with the club \u2014 and you would never do it for just this reason \u2014 it might be energizing, too,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cI mean, I watched them the first time they were all out there on Tuesday for their early work. I was sitting upstairs (in the executive box) like we do a lot of times, and there was a hop in their steps that I haven\u2019t seen the guys have.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, it\u2019s just, you know, you can get into that routine, especially with a veteran club, that sometimes a little bit of adjustment \u2026 maybe it\u2019s a risk. I get it. But sometimes those risk-rewards are worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n There was much more in our conversation. Dombrowski provided many fascinating insights into the things the Phillies did and didn\u2019t do at the deadline:<\/p>\n Why they never made a trade for a veteran starting pitcher<\/a>. It was as candid a conversation with a team\u2019s chief decision-maker as I\u2019d ever heard in the wake of a trade deadline that didn\u2019t go the way anyone expected, including him. So I highly recommend you find this show this weekend on YouTube<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was nothing personal. That was, essentially, the money quote when the two most visible faces in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2365,85],"class_list":["post-847014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhy they never reeled in a proven set-up reliever<\/a> to pitch in front of their All-Star closer, Jhoan Duran.
\nOther behind-the-scenes pre-deadline conversations with his coaches and players.
\nOn the sense of urgency he feels to win a World Series with this group of players.
\nOn why he thinks the Phillies can match up with the Dodgers if they meet in October.
\nOn how much longer he wants to do this job.<\/p>\n