The Philadelphia Phillies have made a new addition to their front office. The has named former big league outfielder Sam Fuld their new general manager, the team announced Tuesday. Fuld will work under president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who join the team earlier this month.
Fuld, 39, played eight years in the big leagues with four teams from 2007-15, hitting .227/.307/.325 in 598 games. He stepped into the front-office ranks following his playing career and joined the Phillies as a player information coordinator in 2017. For all intents and purposes, Fuld's job was to take analytic data and disseminate it to players in a way that is easy to understand.
Over the last few years Fuld has interviewed for several managerial openings, including with the Blue Jays in 2018 the Red Sox earlier this offseason. He also declined opportunities to interview with the Pirates and other teams about their managerial openings. In 2019, our R.J. Anderson identified Fuld as an up-and-coming managerial candidate. Now he's in a front office.
Matt Klentak, the Phillies last general manager, was reassigned after the 2020 season, and the team didn't appear to be in a rush to replace him. It wasn't until they hired Dombrowski earlier this month that they brought in a new head baseball operations executive. Dombrowski then acting quickly to promote Fuld to serve as his righthand man.
Typically, the president of baseball operations oversees the department while the general manager handles day-to-day duties. Fuld's strength is on the analytics side, which will complement Dombrowski nicely. Andy MacPhail remains with the Phillies as team president but is expected to leave the team when his contract expires next year, if not sooner.
Philadelphia went 28-32 and missed the postseason in 2020. They have not finished above .500 or gone to the postseason since 2011 and they hired Dombrowski (and Dombrowski then hired Fuld) to get them over the top. Their No. 1 offseason priority remains re-signing star catcher J.T. Realmuto.
