Should Phillies' Dave Dombrowski be on hot seat?

There are clear tensions between Dave Dombrowski and Bryce Harper

Nobody would deny Harper had a down season in 2025. Harper himself would be happy to admit it. At the same time, he's still a star player on a Hall of Fame trajectory. So, comments made by Dombrowski caught plenty of folks by surprise.

"Of course, he’s still a quality player," Dombrowski said in November. "He’s still an All-Star caliber player. He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past. And I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or if he continues to be good... And, that to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer."

Harper certainly heard those comments and held onto them. With players returning for spring training, he made his frustration with the organization and Dombrowski clear. 

"I don't get motivated by that kind of stuff. For me, it was kind of wild the whole situation of that happening," Harper told reporters Sunday. "I think the big thing for me was when we first met with this organization, it was, 'Hey we're always going to keep things in-house, and we expect you to do the same thing.' So, when that didn't happen, it kind of took me for a run a little bit, so I don't know. It's part of it, I guess. It was kind of a wild situation."

Bryce Harper is entering the eighth year of a 13-year contract worth $330 million. Given some recent deals, it's a team-friendly contract.

The time to win is now in Philadelphia

Wherever he's gone, Dombrowski has been known as a big spender. That's no different with the Phillies. Trea Turner got 11 years and $300 million. Aaron Nola got $172 million over seven years. Then, this offseason, Philadelphia re-signed Kyle Schwarber on a five-year contract worth $150 million. 

This comes at a time when several stars are aging for the Phillies. The team's seven highest-paid players are all going into at least their age-33 seasons. Meanwhile, Zack Wheeler is coming off an injury scare, and his future is becoming murkier. All of that is while the team went from World Series and NLCS finishes in 2022 and 2023, respectively, to back-to-back NLDS losses.

Dombrowski built the Phillies to win in a window during the early to mid-2020s. That window is closing. If it does close in 2026 and the Phillies regress, then a premier executive could be out of a job.