Rob Thomson’s Firing Proves Even Top MLB Managers Have a Short Leash Now

Gone are the days of Bobby Cox. The Red Sox and Phillies have already sent accomplished skippers home after tough starts.

Rob Thomson is out in Philadelphia as Phillies make drastic managerial move. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

It is not yet May and two marquee MLB franchises have broken the glass to smash a big red emergency button with gusto.

On Saturday, the Red Sox cleaned house by sending Alex Cora and several other members of the coaching staff home after a 10-17 start. Three days later the Phillies have sent another shockwave through baseball by parting with Rob Thomson in the face of a 9-19 record and 10 1/2-game hole to climb out of in the National League East. These moves represent stunning detours for each organization as they both entered 2026 with high expectations. For them to come so quickly out of the starting blocks just increases the whiplash.

But perhaps the drastic measures should be expected in this new era of baseball where the question "what have you done lately?” has never been asked so quickly or aggressively.

Cora and Thomson won a lot. It took years for them to establish track records and less than a month for all that data to not matter at all in the face of panic. After the Braves won a single World Series in 1995, former manager Bobby Cox was allowed to stay in the dugout until he retired in 2010 despite a clear downward trend in results.

If one wants to quibble about the trajectory Cora's time in the dugout was headed, then they'd have an argument. After winning the World Series with Boston in 2018, the Red Sox missed the playoffs with 84 wins in '19. Ron Roenicke assumed the reins for the pandemic-shortened year after Cora was suspended for his participation in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal. Upon his return, Boston put together a 92-win season in '21 before falling to the Astros in a six-game American League championship series. Following that came three straight years of missing the postseason, including two last-place AL East finishes. Last year, Cora and the Red Sox earned a wild-card spot only to get bounced by the Yankees with haste.

Thomson does not have the ultimate trophy to his name like Cora but his résumé may be even better, at least recently. He's overseen a golden era of Philadelphia baseball that has featured four consecutive trips to the postseason. In 2022 that included a National League pennant before falling to the Astros in the Fall Classic. A year later he was back in the NLCS only to get outlasted by Arizona in seven games. The past two seasons have seen the Phillies win 95 and 96 games, respectively, before suffering early playoff exits. Thomson stands with Charlie Manuel as the only Philadelphia skippers to navigate such a prolonged postseason streak.

All of that is not to argue that the Red Sox and Phillies are making mistakes. It's entirely possible that these big moves pay off when trying to stay the course wouldn't have paid off. Time will tell on that.

It's just that winning seems to not buy much slack or security anymore.

Dave Roberts of the Dodgers is the only active manager still with the franchise he guided to World Series glory.

Manager	Team	Championships	Depature
Dave Roberts	Dodgers	2020, 2024, 2005	--
Bruce Bochy	Rangers	2023	2025
Dusty Baker	Astros	2022	2023
Brian Snitker	Braves	2021	2025
Dave Martinez	Nationals	2019	2025
Alex Cora	Red Sox	2018	2026
A.J. Hinch	Astros	2017	2019
Joe Maddon	Cubs	2016	2019

Obviously, there are a lot of different circumstances at play in that list. Yet the fact remains: there's no guarantee that a manager that wins it all is going to stick around to be feted for any amount of time. Like in Thomson's case, they may only have a few more shots to reach the pinnacle because the first sign of real trouble is increasingly turning into the one and only sign of trouble before dismissal.

The Phillies' offense currently ranks 29th in wRC+ (83), batting average (.219), OPS (.656), and offensive runs above average (-20.8) and 28th in runs (102). The pitching staff is dead last in opponents batting average (.286), 29th in WHIP (1.48) and 28th in ERA (5.13). There aren't many silver linings in there, though we did try hard to find some.

Two things matter in baseball and that's the present and the future. What happened in the past is carrying diminishing weight. Thomson and Cora's firings highlight that.

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