February 17, 2024
Eric Hartline/USA Today Sports
Charlie Manuel was the best manager in team history — bar none.
Over the last few winters, we've passed the time by ranking things. We ranked every Eagles player, and Sixers player by position while also throwing in some other lists that weren't quite as fun.
For the next two weeks, in the lead-up to pitchers and catchers reporting to Clearwater for the 2024 Phillies season, we decided to take a look at each position in the Phillies' storied 100+ year history and come up with a list of the all-time greats at each position.
The Phillies have been a franchise since 1883. They have lost 11,259 games. It's been a rough history.
If the team went 162-0 every season for six seasons straight, they'd still be below .500 over the course of their history.
The organization has played in just 29 total playoff series (seven of these coming in the last two years). They have just two World Series championships and just 16 out of their 140 seasons have resulted in a trip to the postseason (11.4%).
What does all of this mean? Well — the managers have been pretty bad. Maybe not bad as far as the talent or quality goes, but the results speak for themselves. Rob Thomson is just the eighth of 56 skippers to coach a playoff game.
With all of that said, let's a look at the 10 best managers in Phillies history:
Shamus Clancy: Manuel helped deliver the first championship a generation of Philadelphians had ever seen in 2008. He was endearing, oversaw the greatest run in franchise history and was a player's coach. How could you not love this guy?
That whole Phillies era was for Philadelphia, indeed.
Evan Macy: He's a Philly guy (from Delaware) and pitched for the Phillies in a brief MLB playing career. He also had a brief managing career in the city and happened to be manning the dugout when Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt and the rest of the 1980 championship squad was at the peak of its powers. He replaced Danny Ozark midseason in 1979 and turned things around the next season. He was the only man to lead a World Series squad in Philadelphia for over 100 years.
Shamus: Here's a cross-sport comp... Ozark reminds me of Tony Dungy with the Buccaneers. He oversaw a complete transformation of the franchise and nearly got to the mountaintop himself with 101-win seasons in both 1976 and 1977. It just so happened that his successor was the one who won it all immediately upon him leaving.
Evan: I was a little hard on Philly Rob after he made some high-profile and controversial decisions in the Phillies' playoff implosion against the Diamondbacks in October. But clearly, he's a player's manager and has been able to get some incredible production and teamwork from the current club, expected to contend yet again in 2024.
Evan: In 1960, Mauch was voted the manager of the year for leading the Phillies to an 81-80 record. OK, fine. He then led a few more winning squads in the lead-up to the 1964 season. Was it his fault the team blew a 6.5-game lead with 12 games to play and a seven-game homestand ahead? Well, he started Jim Bunning and Chris Short a combined seven times over that stretch. Maybe he overdid it?
Evan: Moran led the 1915 Phillies to a National League title and for that accomplishment alone he belongs on this list. He would go on to get his ring as a manager for the Reds four years later.
Shamus: Fregosi was the man behind the iconic 1993 Phillies squad, the most adored team in this city's history that didn't quite win the big one. Fregosi led the Fightins from a bottom-tier team that finished 26 games out of first place in 1992 to the NL pennant. That '93 team was loaded with wild characters and it's a credit to Fregosi that he got them all to mesh and created a special season that will always live on in Philly.
Evan: Sawyer managed the famous "Whiz Kids" team of 1950, and was manager of the first modern red pinstripe club. He won manager of the year but got swept by the Yankees. He would never have another winning season as a manager.
Shamus: Under the current MLB playoff rules, the Phillies would've actually made the postseason as a Wild Card team in Bowa's penultimate season as manager in 2003. Talk about a butterfly effect that would've reshaped the rest of the decade of baseball in Philadelphia. Bowa was, of course, a stud shortstop in Philly and later returned to the organization in his post-managerial career, too.
Shamus: O'Neill's inclusion says more about the sorry state of a franchise that's lost over 11,000 games than what his Phillies teams accomplished in their own right. O'Neill's best season was when the Phils finished third in the National League standings in 1953, a year in which three Phillies made the NL All-Star team.
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