Peter Fatse is stepping into Philadelphia with a clear assignment and a complicated backdrop. The Phillies finished with MLB’s worst OPS+ even while carrying the game’s fourth-highest payroll, and the issues in the lineup go well beyond a few mechanical fixes.
There’s the mental side, too. Trea Turner’s end-of-season comments about his own hitting raised real concern about his confidence, and the roster has also been short on right-handed punch since Rhys Hoskins left. By the end of September, only three right-handed hitters were regulars in the starting lineup.
Fatse can’t solve the roster construction problem by himself - that part falls to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski - but he’s aware he may be working with limited options because of the Phillies’ financial constraints. Still, he’s already diving in.
“I’m kind of drinking through a fire hose right now with information,” he told reporters on Friday.
One of his first moves was reaching out to Turner. The two have texted, and Fatse wants to help get Turner back to his 2025 production. For Fatse, that relationship-building piece matters just as much as the swing work.
“We’re starting to work through what those trips [to visit Turner] are going to look like,” he said. “That is all in the works within the next couple of weeks.”
He already has history with Kyle Schwarber. Fatse was the Boston Red Sox assistant hitting coach in 2021 when Schwarber arrived there at the deadline, and he described him as “one of the best teammates I think I’ve been around.”
Fatse is also looking forward to working with Justin Crawford, whose rookie season had its rough stretches but also some real encouraging signs. The center fielder posted a .289 batting average from June 29 onward, and his whiff% and K% stood out in a positive way despite a sub-league-average offensive season overall.
“I think it ultimately comes down to how do we leverage a player's strengths when they're up here early?” Fatse said of Crawford’s skills.
“That's more of a confidence thing. But just from my experience with players, you [don’t want to be] chasing down something you don't do well.
That thinking was sharpened by his time in Boston and by a short stint with the Tampa Bay Rays this summer as a consultant in their research and development department. He spent most of that run without players, but he did join the team a few times and got a look at how the AL pennant winners operated.
“The thing that I would say that struck me was just the culture from top to bottom. It just seemed like everybody was aligned and on the same page and trying to find ways to get better in whatever department they were in,” Fatse said. “It just seemed like everybody was pulling from that end of the rope.”
Some Phillies fans have been hard on Dombrowski, and if the conversation is limited strictly to personnel moves, there’s room for that criticism. But Fatse’s arrival also points to something else Dombrowski has helped shape: an organization that speaks the same language from top to bottom.
That wasn’t always the case. In previous regimes, instruction could be scattered, with minor leaguers getting different messages as they moved from level to level. That has changed in recent years, and the farm system has been more productive because of it.
Fatse’s role will stretch beyond the big-league dugout, too. He’ll have a hand in the minor leagues, especially in spring training when players like Aidan Miller and Bryan Rincon are in big-league camp.
His influence starts before those players reach Philadelphia, and his approach will differ from what Kevin Long has brought over the last four seasons. For Fatse, it comes back to the same core idea: attack with a plan, especially before two strikes, and stay flexible when the game demands something different.
“It just comes down to the conversation around what you're swinging at, but it's more specifically before two strikes. How do you prioritize what parts of the zone you want to attack? And having a game plan for that and then ultimately being able to be agile when the game tells you something else is needed,” he said.
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