The Philadelphia Phillies already brought Don Mattingly back as manager in just about the least inspiring way imaginable. It was seemingly the worst-kept secret in baseball that Dave Dombrowski had attempted to woo his former Boston Red Sox colleague, Alex Cora, down I-95, only for Cora to politely say thanks but no thanks. And even when the Phillies came crawling back to Mattingly as their plan B, they only gave him a two-year contract — very much leaving the door ajar for Cora to take the job next winter (or sooner) if he wanted it.

That door is even more wide open now that Dombrowski has reportedly hired Peter Fatse as the team's new hitting coach, replacing the embattled Kevin Long. If Fatse's name sounds familiar, it's because ... he was most recently Cora's hitting coach in Boston, where he worked for several years before being ousted along with his manager (and seemingly half the Red Sox' coaching staff) back in April.

It would be one thing if Fatse had a resume that made him hard to deny. But his underwhelming track record in Boston makes clear that this move was about Cora and Cora only, and creates one heck of an awkward situation for the Phillies — and their manager — to deal with once next season rolls around.

Alex Cora is the only explanation for Phillies hiring Peter Fatse as new hitting coach

Fatse came to Boston in 2020, and was promoted to hitting coach in the winter of 2021. In four full seasons under his leadership, the Red Sox slashed .255/.322/.419 as a team, good for a wRC+ of 104 — certainly not terrible, but also not exactly setting the world on fire. The 2024 season was the only one in that span in which Boston finished in the top 10 in wRC+, and the team was so bad offensively to start 2026 that it prompted an internal (and external) revolt.

The Red Sox offense was never awful under Fatse in his four full years at the helm. But they were never exceptional, either, and while Chaim Bloom and Craig Breslow made their share of personnel mistakes, it's also hard to argue that Fatse ever managed to overachieve what he was given. And that's not even taking into account the start to the 2026 campaign, during which Boston ranked among the very worst lineups in the sport.

That's a small sample, of course, and Boston's subsequent improvement as the season went on probably would've happened under Fatse too. Still: Looking at Fatse's track record in its totality, and allowing for how difficult it is to really evaluate a hitting coach from the outside, you can't really understand why Dombrowski would view him as the choice to replace Long. Unless, of course, you remember who his boss used to be.

Again, it's not like the Cora-Phillies connection was merely idle speculation. Cora was Dombrowski's manager when the latter got fired in Boston. Trusted reporters around the game had it on good authority that Cora was Dombrowski's preferred choice as manager, and it's not a coincidence that the team only pivoted to Mattingly after news broke that Cora had turned them down.

It's worth remembering that Dombrowski has never gotten to conduct a proper manager search during his time at the helm in Philly: He inherited Joe Girardi, and he had little choice but to stick with Rob Thomson after the latter led the Phillies all the way to the World Series in an interim capacity in 2022. Given how the 2026 season ended, he almost certainly wanted to hit the reset button and do things his way for once — until Cora had other ideas.

With all that context in place, would it really be that shocking if Dombrowski hired a Cora confidante with 2028 in mind? The best-case scenario is that Dombrowski's Rolodex doesn't extend beyond the guy who used to serve as his manager, who undoubtedly referred his old hitting coach for the Phillies gig. The worst-case scenario is that he's just biding his time until Cora finally relents and says yes, no matter the impossible spot that puts his actual manager in for 2027.