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The general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies silenced his phone on a Friday afternoon in July 2024, a few days before Major League Baseballs trade deadline, and ducked into Huntsman Hall for an accounting class.
He was a student pursuing his executive MBA at the University of Pennsylvania, and he also knew the Phillies had progressed in various trade talks with rival clubs.
Well, Sam Fuld said, I took my studies very seriously.
Advertisement So when the Phillies traded Seranthony Dominguez and Cristian Pache to the Baltimore Orioles for Austin Hays, Fuld did not see the many notifications on his phone.
The deal was finalized without him.
I was not going to be in an environment to be a useful resource for the Phillies then, Fuld said.
So I found out after the world already knew.
That is when Fuld, 44, realized his life had meaningfully changed.
Last month, Fuld graduated from Penns Wharton School and formally assumed his new role as the Phillies president of business operations.
Its a rapid ascent; eight years ago, Fuld was in uniform as a Phillies coach, helping implement data-driven initiatives in the dugout.
Now, the former big-league outfielder is running the business side of a multi-billion-dollar corporation.
It is happening at a consequential moment, as the win-now Phillies contemplate what could lie ahead.
There is so much invested in 2026, as they carry the highest payroll in franchise history, while the specter of a labor showdown looms in 2027.
One of the teams largest sources of revenue, a $2.5 billion television rights deal with NBC Sports Philadelphia that goes through 2041, is in peril because the network is lurching toward an uncertain financial future.
The Phillies could explore forming their own network.
Meanwhile, the Phillies are hosting the All-Star Game in July for the first time in 30 years.
They are seeking a sweeping modernization of their training facilities in Florida and have considered more upgrades at Citizens Bank Park to freshen the 22-year-old building.
Fuld is one of the main executives tasked with navigating these times.
His transition has prompted interest across the league; Fuld was once seen as the successor to Dave Dombrowski, the teams president of baseball operations.
Its possible Fuld could have already been running another team.
Dombrowski, who turns 70 in July, is signed through 2027.
Ownership, headed by John Middleton, has expressed unwavering faith in him.
The Phillies do not make unilateral decisions with Dombrowski in charge, but the inner circle has shrunk; it is not unlike Dombrowskis time in previous franchises.
Following the 2024 season, months after Fuld had begun his Wharton classes, Dombrowski installed Preston Mattingly as a second general manager.
It was akin to the original decision to promote Fuld to GM in December 2020 when Dombrowski joined the franchise.
A younger, inexperienced executive could learn on the job while Dombrowski handles the big-league decisions.
Advertisement For decades, from Bill Giles to David Montgomery, the Phillies operated with a team president who oversaw baseball and business.
Andy MacPhail last filled that role; Dombrowski was hired to replace him and think about baseball only.
At some point, the Phillies may restore the team president role for Fuld.
But that will not happen while Dombrowski is still running the baseball operation.
Dombrowski is expected to retain control beyond 2027, although the two sides have no formal agreement yet.
The broader, longer-term conversations are also a priority.
Assuming everything goes according to plan, how long do you want to be transitioning out from a full-time job into retirement and bringing people along? Middleton said.
Its the kind of organizational planning that really good companies do.
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So Dave and I talk about this all the time, and have for years and years.
Fuld will have a prominent role in the clubs future.
Eight years ago, he was encouraged to experiment with mid-inning switches between the left and right fielders during spring games.
Now, hes part of a group effort exploring technology to make ballpark concession lines more efficient.
Its not orthodox, Fuld said.
I know.
Trust me, I never saw it going down this road.
But life brings you crazy things.
As much as I love baseball, Ive always been interested in the way that the world works.
I like being able to solve new problems.
A different view Fuld still watches the games.
He sits in an executive box adjacent to the general managers box, where Dombrowski and his people reside.
Its about 10 feet apart from where I used to sit, Fuld said, but Id say the focus and the lens through which I look at the game is a little bit different.
But how can you totally depart from the way that you look at a game overnight? Advertisement Other clubs have always been intrigued by how Fuld looked at the game.
He was a self-made player, a 10th-round pick from Stanford University who signed for $25,000 and played eight seasons in the majors.
The Toronto Blue Jays interviewed him for their manager job after the 2018 season, only for Fuld to remove himself from consideration.
The Boston Red Sox nearly hired Fuld to manage their team in 2021.
They were interested in hiring him to run their entire baseball operation before the 2024 season, but Fuld declined to interview.
According to league sources, Fuld was in contention for at least one other head of baseball operations job and opted to stay with the Phillies.
That interest prompted the Phillies to think more about the future.
Fuld was the teams general manager from 2021 to 2024.
He technically still held that title until last month, but ceded most of his baseball responsibilities in February 2025.
Middleton, in conjunction with Dombrowski, proposed this path to Fuld.
It meant attending classes on Penns campus every other weekend for two years while maintaining some job responsibilities with the Phillies.
He lives in Chestnut Hill with his wife and four children, ages 10 to 16.
Its out of the ordinary, Middleton said.
But thats because Sams out of the ordinary.
There are very few baseball players Ive met in my career who have Sams intellectual depth.
Hes really very, very smart.
Hes not a baseball player who went to Stanford.
Hes a guy who went to Stanford to play baseball.
At Wharton, Fuld took a broader approach to his curriculum.
He had classes on finance, management and strategy.
He had a quantitative marketing class that, he said, will have a real direct effect on how we approach things here in this organization.
He met a professor named Cade Massey, who teaches a class called Influence and has ties to the sports world.
They bonded.
Massey is analytically driven, but studies and teaches about how people make judgments under uncertainty.
In baseball and many businesses there is a perennial challenge of blending the difficult-to-articulate wisdom of experience with the objective perspective of data.
It requires something unusual, Massey said.
It requires former athletes to want to go do this kind of high-level stuff.
Thats exactly what I think is needed.
Its not necessary, because there are plenty of good leaders from both sides who cast a wide net and build inclusive cultures.
But its easier to do when youve got people who are credible on both sides.
Its an advantage.
And Sam, I think, has equipped himself to be that kind of person.
Advertisement To Middleton, this is the sweet spot.
When a high-ranking executive does not know the technical side of a businesss product, they can be fooled.
And I count myself as one of those people, Middleton said.
I cant be a scout.
There are scant modern examples of former players running an entire organization Nolan Ryan, as CEO of the Texas Rangers is the most relevant but Middleton sees Fulds perspective as a rare advantage.
He knows how players think and react, and he knows how coaches should think and react, Middleton said.
Now hes going to sit on the business side, but he has an enormous amount of knowledge about the baseball side.
The integration between the two sides is easily done when you have somebody like Sam.
The future now and later In 2020, before Fuld became GM, he helped reshape the clubs medical staff from athletic training to strength and conditioning, and nutrition.
The Phillies have seen immeasurable benefits from those changes.
Players laud the club for its behind-the-scenes efforts to keep everyone on the field.
Its a massive factor in the clubs prolonged regular-season success.
As Middleton commanded more influence in the 2010s, he empowered the Phillies to make more data-based decisions on the baseball side.
Its not known as a cutting-edge franchise in the sport, but that is not necessarily what the Phillies are envisioning.
This organization, whether its on the baseball side or business side, has a really strong reputation in the way that we take care of our people, Fuld said.
The way that we rally around each other.
Its a really close-knit community.
And that, of course, dates back to the David Montgomery era.
Theres just so much culturally that Im excited to help maintain.
But there will be modernizations.
Like any other industry, its incumbent upon us to really stay ahead of the curve and make sound strategic decisions, Fuld said.
Its not entirely different than the way I looked at our group through a baseball lens; you have to make evidence-based decisions.
Theres always going to be room for both qualitative and quantitative inputs.
But I think we have an opportunity to really dive into that direction.
The Phillies have attempted to commercialize every inch of Citizens Bank Park to subsidize a growing player payroll.
At times, that has been met with public backlash.
The cost of attending a game is higher, mirroring the broader economy.
The Phillies have seen a year-to-year dip in attendance 2,285 fewer people per game over their first 42 home dates.
They are still fifth in the majors in average attendance.
Advertisement And, while attendance is a significant revenue source, the TV situation hangs over everything on the business side.
NBC Sports has eliminated all of its regional sports networks but two, Philadelphia and Bay Area.
The annual rights fee paid to the Phillies is one of the clubs largest sources of revenue.
The deal is not halfway complete.
There are legitimate doubts, according to several industry sources briefed on the situation, about how much longer it will last as NBCUniversal divests from its RSN business.
It might not matter; MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is attempting to unwind every local TV deal to centralize revenues.
The Phillies, according to multiple club sources, have done preliminary groundwork on what creating their own network would require.
Middleton and Fuld declined to elaborate on the TV situation.
Its an important part of the business, Fuld said.
We have a fan base that relies on being delivered the product outside of the walls of CBP.
As this landscape changes, its important to find ways to deliver the product in the way people are consuming the game these days.
So its a challenge.
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I think were all optimistic that we can get to a good place.
Middleton is 71, and he considers it irresponsible not to think about a future without Dombrowski and him atop the organizational hierarchy.
There might be larger plans for Fuld, who started his transition to the business side well before his formal graduation from Wharton.
His new office at the ballpark still has blank, white walls.
There is a business to run.
He isnt thinking about the trade deadline at least not in the way he used to.
On the business side, were not shaping wins and losses, Fuld said.
And that stuff matters.
But theres a huge opportunity to continue to make this fan experience special.
Thats the goal.
At the end of the day, the goal is to really appreciate the fan base that we have and make sure they are getting the quality of experience they expect and that we think we can provide.