Popular ex-Blue Jays coach takes over Phillies after firing of Canadian manager Rob Thomson

Donnie Baseball returns as manager, takes over the struggling Phillies

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Published Apr 28, 2026  •  3 minute read

Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson looks to the field before a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs earlier this season. AP Photo

It didn’t take long for Donnie Baseball to return to managing in the big leagues.

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Just 28 games into his first season since leaving the Blue Jays as bench coach, New York Yankees legend Don Mattingly has taken over as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, who on Tuesday fired Canadian Rob Thomson.

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With the Phillies off to a horrendous start, Thomson’s job was rumoured to be in jeopardy. With a 9-19 record, the Phillies share the basement in the NL East with the woeful New York Mets and have already endured a 10-game losing streak.

A native of Corunna, Ont., Thomson took over the Phillies job from Joe Girardi in 2022 and had a record of 355-370 over parts of five seasons.

A former coach in the New York Yankees system, Thomson was under contract with the Phillies through the 2027 season.

As recently as five days ago, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said that Thompson’s job was not in jeopardy. But as the team’s struggles continued, the club opted for a change, the second big-market managerial firing in the past four days.

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Thomson led the Phillies to four consecutive post-season appearances, including the 2022 World Series. As well, the 62-year-old baseball lifer owns the best winning percentage in Phillies history at .568.

Why Don Mattingly as Thomson’s replacement?

Though his immediate hire is as the interim skipper, Mattingly has extensive experience as a manager with a pair of Major League Baseball franchises. He also has strong family ties in the Phillies front office where his son, Preston, is the general manager working under Dombrowski.

In fact, the opportunity to work with his son was one of the reasons that the Phillies were attractive to Mattingly when he left the Jays.

His managerial career is extensive, however. He was the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2011-2015, guiding them to a record of 446-363. In 2016, he took over the same post with the Miami Marlins, where he worked until 2022, eventually leaving with a record of 889-950.

Saying he no longer wanted to manage, Mattingly took over as John Schneider’s bench coach in Toronto the following season and was an important part of the coaching staff that led the team to the 2025 World Series.

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He informed Schneider prior to last year’s World Series that his plans were to move on.

“I think the way he put it, he said ‘I’ve done everything that I can do for you and you don’t need me. I’m good with how I’m going to leave this organization,'” Schneider said at the Winter Meetings in Orlando.

In other words, Mattingly’s work in Toronto was done. He was hired essentially to help teach Schneider the ropes of managing at the big league level.

Rob Thomson’s Canadian legacy

An inductee of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019, Thomson has long been proud of his roots in the game.

He competed for the Canadian team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where baseball was a demonstration sport and soon after was drafted by the Detroit Tigers.

Though he never made it to the big leagues, Thomson switched to coaching in 1988 and gradually climbed the ranks in the Yankees organization, eventually making it to the big league coaching staff in 2004.

While primarily a third base coach with the Bronx Bombers, he was elevated to bench coach in 2015.

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Following the 2017 season, he was hired as bench coach by the Phillies and partway through the 2022 campaign took over as manager.

Thomson joins Alex Cora on the fired list

The firing of Thomson comes days after the Boston Red Sox rocked the sport by firing manager Alex Cora and a number of his coaches.

Cora, who guided the Sox to a World Series title in 2018, had also seen his team struggle out of the gate into last place in the AL East.

Interestingly, according to a report by USA Today’s Bob Nightingale, Cora was offered the Phillies job but declined saying he wants to spend time with his family.

The Red Sox have won three in a row — two since Cora was axed — including a 5-0 blanking of the Blue Jays on Monday at the Rogers Centre.

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