"I don't feel like our window is closing" - Dave Dombrowski confident Phillies will continue challenging for top honors despite ageing core group
Dave Dombrowski, the president of baseball operations for the Philadelphia Phillies, believes the franchise will continue to contend for the World Series title in the near future. Although the Phillies currently have a slightly aging group of core players, Dombrowski feels there is also a strong foundation of younger players on their roster, along with some exciting prospects in the pipeline.
The Phillies appointed Dave Dombrowski to the post at the end of the 2020 season, and they earned their third straight postseason appearance in 2024 after a 10-year drought. However, most of the star players of this current crop, like Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, are already in their early to mid-30's, so there seems to be a limited amount available for them to clinch the elusive World Series crown.
On Tuesday afternoon, Dave Dombrowski held a 25-minute interview session with reporters, including Tim Kelly of Phillies Nation.
"So first of all, I don't feel like our window is closing," Dombrowski said. "I keep hearing that. But what I think happens is that sometimes it closes with the current players that you have, but it doesn't mean that it closes overall.
"And I'm not saying that this is the time period, but we have young players coming that we really like," Dombrowski added. "And we also have ownership that's very kind to us with our expenditures on payroll."
The average age of the current Phillies roster is 29 years, while they have the fourth highest payroll in the MLB at just over $217 million.
We have some really good young players coming within the system: Dave Dombrowski
During his interview on Tuesday, Dave Dombrowski said that the Philadelphia Phillies have already incorporated the next generation of core players for the franchise and have a few more promising talents to join the team in the next couple of years. The Phillies did not have a particularly strong farm system before, but they have taken big strides forward in this aspect under Dombrowski.
"So I think if you're in a position where some players age and they get older," Dombrowski said. "Some of their skills diminish at times. That's just a fact. And some at different paces and all. But what you need to be doing is having young players coming in the meantime. And we think that we have some really good young players coming within the system.
"And some of them are here. I mean when you see guys like [Bryson] Stott and [Alec] Bohm and [Brandon] Marsh and then [Cristopher] Sánchez ... who's going to be around for a while ... and [Orion] Kerkering and [Johan] Rojas. But we have another group of people behind it," he added.
The two top prospects for the Phillies, right-handed pitcher Andrew Painter and 2023 first-round pick Aidan Miller, could get called up to the big leagues next season. Starlyn Caba, Mick Abel, and Eduardo Tait are also expected to join the team in the not too distant future.