Donnie Baseball did an excellent job in Philadelphia to save the Phillies’ season this year – and now he’s being shown the door.
Mattingly will not be brought back as the Phillies’ skipper after he took over midseason, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported after Thursday’s 6-2 Braves victory in Game 3 of the NL wild-card series.
The Phillies and Mattingly will reportedly announce a mutual parting of ways and give the former Yankee great a chance to stay with the team in an advisory role.
After taking over a 9-19 Phillies team that looked like a disaster when led by Rob Thomson, Mattingly did a stellar job to right the ship and lead the team to a playoff berth.
He led the team to a 79-55 regular-season record before the 1-2 postseason showing, and he knows his future is far from certain.
“It’s not the time to talk about anything like that,” Mattingly said after the game. “I’m not concerned about myself in this situation. I want the Phillies to do what they need to do to set themselves up for success. Yeah, I’m not really — it’s like, my stuff doesn’t really matter.”
Mattingly said hasn’t talked to Phillies general manager Dave Dombrowski about the pending offseason.
“No, I haven’t talked about it, haven’t worried about it,” Mattingly continued. “Just trying to win games, honestly, and put us in the best spot to win games and move forward from there.”
The Phillies’ team construction is the real problem, considering they have a bunch of major free-agent signings who are getting older while on big contracts with many years remaining.
Trea Turner represents what looks like one of the worst contracts in all of baseball with seven years left on his contract as he enters his age-34 season.
Bryce Harper and Aaron Nola are also entering their age-34 seasons as a part of an aging core that may need a youth injection.
If Mattingly does depart, expect the Phillies to pursue fired Red Sox manager Alex Cora to be their skipper.
The Phillies actually offered Cora the position earlier this year before turning to Mattingly.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
