Charlie Manuel: Joe Girardi’s firing, Bobby Abreu’s trade gave the Phillies a similar jolt

On the last weekend of July in 2006, the Phillies traded away All-Star outfielder Bobby Abreu, pedigreed third baseman David Bell, and Cory Lidle, the No. 3 starter who ran the all-night poker games in the clubhouse. They were seven games below .500 and 14 games out of first place in the National League East.

Abreu, Bell, and Lidle were well-liked, professional, and productive, but they were big, veteran personalities.

“Everything changed that weekend,” Jimmy Rollins told me the next year. “It was, like, Bobby’s team, and some of the other older guys, since I came up [in 2001]. It was like we were finally able to be ourselves.”

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Those Phillies proceeded to score 32 runs in their next three games. They won them all. They were 15 games over .500 the rest of the season and were in the wild-card race until the second-to-last game, thanks largely to the emergence of MVP winner Ryan Howard. Rollins took the MVP when they won the NL East in 2007, then they won the World Series in 2008, went back in 2009, and combined for 199 wins in 2010 and 2011.

It was the Phillies’ Golden Era.

“I felt that, after the trades happened, we definitely had a different tone,” former manager Charlie Manuel told me Wednesday.

That’s what’s happened when the Phillies fired manager Joe Girardi on Friday. They were 12 games out of first in the NL East and 5 1/2 out of the final wild-card slot. There has been a different tone. Players are playing with less pressure on them. That’s all it took.

The Phillies won their first five games after Girardi’s departure. They scored 39 runs. They beat Milwaukee, the top team in NL Central, Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving them 3 1/2 games behind the Giants, who hold the final wild card spot.

When Bryce Harper landed in Philadelphia in 2019, manager Gabe Kapler and general manager Matt Klentak had instituted a suffocating, slavish devotion to management by analytics. Girardi replaced Kapler in 2020 and brought with him powerful name recognition, a 2009 World Series title, the cachet of having been a Yankee in some capacity for 15 seasons, and a huge binder that dictated How To Manage.

Rob Thomson, Girardi’s bench coach and his replacement on an interim basis, has replaced Girardi’s oppressive intensity with a more relaxed culture. He has no binder.

Both Kapler and Girardi are good managers. Both Kapler and Girardi are fine men. Neither was the right fit for Harper, catcher J.T. Realmuto, ace Zack Wheeler, and starter Aaron Nola.

Could Girardi’s departure and Thomson’s ascension trigger a new Golden Era?

“Yes,” Manuel said.

Thomson, a comfortable Canadian, stressed that he would communicate better than did Girardi, a good friend of Thomson’s but a tucked-in, standoffish dogmatist. His players, Thomson said, would know that “I’ll have their back.”

As such, he has given his younger players more chances. When shortstop Didi Gregorius, a longtime Girardi foot soldier, came off the injured list on Saturday, he did not start. Rookie Bryson Stott did, and he walked twice and scored two runs. The next day, Stott hit a walk-off, three-run homer. On Wednesday, Stott collected four hits and another homer.

On Tuesday in Milwaukee, third-year third baseman Alec Bohm hit his first homer in 15 games to tie it in the ninth just before second-year outfielder Matt Vierling hit his first homer of the season to put the Phils ahead for good. Bohm doubled Wednesday.

In the first three games after Girardi’s departure, Stott homered twice, drove in six runs, and scored five. Bohm went 4-for-8 in the two games entering Wednesday night’s contest in Milwaukee. Outfield prospect Mickey Moniak had a hit in his three starts after Girardi was dismissed.

It’s not just the kids. In the first five games of the post-JG era, Kyle Schwarber, an eight-year veteran, hit two homers and reached base in 12 of his 24 plate appearances. Harper accelerated the defense of his MVP award with four homers, a double, 12 RBIs, and three walks in the five games under Thomson.

Harper feels the changes, especially as it pertains to including the young players.

“Being able to put our trust in our young guys the last couple days and really just let them play, it’s been great,” he said Sunday. “Our young guys have got to play.”

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The bullpen remains an adventure, particularly closer Corey Knebel, but, after a shortened spring training, most bullpens are sketchy right now. Harper missed a game last week when his right forearm developed soreness, an issue the Phillies say is unrelated to the torn ligament in his right elbow that has kept him out of right field and in the DH spot since Game 10.

But Seranthony Dominguez has been a bullpen revelation and Connor Brogdon has given up one run since April 13. Nola pitched eight scoreless innings Wednesday and has been outstanding in five of his last nine starts, and No. 5 starter Ranger Suárez finally looked locked in Tuesday night.

So no, it might not have been Girardi’s fault that the Phillies didn’t achieve to the level they should have, any more than Abreu’s excellent play impeded the Phillies’ progress in 2006.

But Girardi and Abreu might, in fact, have been the biggest obstacles to greatness.