Phillies president of baseball operations Sam Fuld has declined the Athletics’ offer to become the team’s new president of baseball operations, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Fuld’s name surfaced in connection with the A’s job earlier this week, but Fuld has now removed himself from the running and will remain in Philadelphia.
Nine names have been linked to the A’s job, although Passan (in another article) echoes an earlier report from Patrick Mooney and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic stating that Cardinals assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio is expected to stay in St. Louis rather than pursue the top job in Sacramento. Passan described both Cerfolio and Red Sox assistant general manager Taylor Smith as finalists in the search, and it’s unclear how many other names were on the Athletics’ shortlist besides Fuld.
Fuld spent the last of his eight major league seasons with the Athletics in 2015, and after retiring in 2017, he joined the Phillies organization in November 2017. Starting as a player information coordinator, Fuld served in that role until he was promoted to general manager in December 2020. This placed Fuld behind PBO Dave Dombrowski on the depth chart of Phils decision-making, although an interesting twist occurred in 2024, when Fuld took a leave of absence to pursue an MBA at Wharton. Fuld returned this year as Philadelphia’s president of business operations after graduation, and Preston Mattingly served as general manager under Dombrowski for the past two years.
Dombrowski is expected to receive another contract extension once his current deal ends after the 2027 campaign. Since Dombrowski turned 70, there has been speculation that either Fuld or Mattingly would be tapped to succeed Dombrowski. Given that Fuld is turning his attention to business rather than baseball, the Phillies’ plan may well be for Fuld and Mattingly to each remain in charge of one side of the organization.
This longer-term path could be one of the reasons Fuld turned down the A’s, beyond many other possible considerations. It could be that Fuld didn’t want to uproot his family to move halfway across the country, or maybe he wasn’t interested in the inherent uncertainty facing the Athletics as they prepare to move to Las Vegas, or maybe it was something as mundane as Fuld and the A’s not agreeing on contract terms.
Whatever the situation, Athletics always finds itself searching. The A’s reportedly plan to fill the PBO position within a week, but that timeline could be adjusted now that Fuld (presumably the top pick) has declined the offer. The remaining list of known candidates beyond Smith and Cerfolio includes former Nationals president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo, former Astros general manager James Click, A’s assistant general manager Billy Owens, Cubs assistant general manager Jared Banner, Brewers assistant general manager Matt Kleine and Red Sox assistant general manager Mike Groopman.
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