It’s still not completely official, but the Philadelphia Phillies have reportedly hired Dodgers‘ farm director Gabe Kapler as their new manager. Jon Heyman and Robert Murray of FanRag Sports were the first to pass along the news, not long after the completion of Game 5 of the World Series in the wee hours of Monday morning.
According to the report, Kapler will be named manager as early as the conclusion of the World Series, which will end no later than Wednesday evening.
Kapler was among three finalists for the position, which also included former Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell and Dusty Wathan, the manager of Philadelphia’s Triple-A affiliate, Lehigh Valley.
The Phillies began a search for a new manager in late September, after the club announced that Pete Mackanin would assume a new role in the front office after the conclusion of the 2017 season.
The 42-year-old Kapler played 12 seasons in the big leagues as an outfielder with the Tigers, Rangers, Rockies, Red Sox, Brewers and Rays. He hit .268/.329/.420 with 799 hits in 1104 games during that span.
The Hollywood native signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in January of 2011 with an invitation to spring training, but decided to retire from playing after he was unable to earn a spot on the club’s 25-man big league roster.
As far as his managing experience goes, Kapler was skipper of the Single-A Greenville Drive, a Boston Red Sox affiliate, and guided the squad to a 58-81 record before resuming his playing career the following year. He also served as coach of Team Israel during the 2013 World Baseball Classic.
Kapler joined the Dodgers’ front office in 2014 as director of player development, and has been highly admired around the league regarding the growth and progress of the Los Angeles farm system. He’s also known as a huge advocate of nutrition and fitness, as he has been instrumental in many players’ offseason fitness routines, as well as recreating the nutrition and diet plans in the big league clubhouse.
Kapler’s strong background in sabermetrics was one of the primary reasons for Philadelphia’s initial interest.
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Think Blue Planning Committee 
A good hire for the Phils. Do you have any idea who might replace Gabe here? Do you think it will be someone internal or more likely someone from the outside? I guess we can expect some trades between the two teams going forward as Kapler has intimate knowledge of our farm system and will, no doubt, try to get some of our hidden gems.
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The first person who I thought of was Billy Gasparino, but I’m not sure if he would trade in the confines of the baseball field for a white-collar job. You never know with Friedman and his group—sometimes they think so far out of the box that they’re totally unpredictable.
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Just realized the other day that Raul Ibanez is part of the Dodger organization, I think his title is something like assistant to the GM. I’ve always been impressed with his intelligence and ability to communicate. I know he’s been talked about as future managerial material. In other words, he has a lot of Gabe Kapler-like qualities. Maybe he’ll get a shot. With regard to Gasparino, I didn’t realize that this job is considered white collar. Didn’t Kapler spend a lot of time with the players and traveling around to minor league teams? Whomever they hire will just have to make sure that his answer to “do you like donuts and pork rinds?” is “absolutely not”.
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Not sure if you heard, but Matt Herges took a spot on the Giants pitching staff. Big blow, I think, with Honeycutt not returning to the field.
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Yes, I did hear about Herges. I guess Honeycutt not coming back isn’t official but it looks like it will probably happen. Some of the better possibilities to replace him have already signed on with other teams, so what do you think of convincing AJ to retire and come back to be the pitching coach? Honeycutt can head to the front office and oversee AJ’s learning process. Without a doubt, the next pitching coach will be heavily into stats and I think AJ might be a really good candidate. Would certainly make Kershaw happy.
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I can’t see Ellis becoming a pitching coach. Bullpen coach, maybe, but I think he’ll probably enter the ranks as a bench coach somewhere.
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