They Deserved Better
The best Phillies players of the last 50 years without a Phillies World Series appearance.
Life isn’t fair.
The most qualified applicant doesn’t always get the job. The best worker doesn’t always get the promotion. The most talented musician doesn’t always get on the radio, and the best actor doesn’t always get the part.
Life in baseball is no exception. Deserving players are routinely left off All-Star teams or snubbed in Hall of Fame voting. Adam Eaton has a championship ring and Roy Halladay does not. The best players don’t always get the credit they deserve from fans, win championships, or even make it to the postseason.
Life can be particularly unfair when you play baseball for a franchise that wins just two championships in 140 years. Only eight Phillies teams in history even won the pennant. There are countless Phillies players who never played in a World Series game with the team. Here are the best of them, taking into account only what they accomplished with the Fightins:
Catcher: Mike Lieberthal
Lieberthal may be the unluckiest Phillie we’ll discuss today. He played almost his entire career with the Phils, making his major league debut with the team in 1994 and departing after 2006. He’s the face of the playoff drought endured by the Phillies between the 1993 World Series against Toronto and the 2007 National League Division Series against Colorado.
But the drought wasn’t his fault. Lieberthal slashed .275/.337/.446 in his Phillies career. He is a two-time All-Star, and in 1999 he won a Gold Glove while hitting 31 home runs and posting a .914 OPS. Lieberthal is fourth all-time among Phillies catchers in bWAR, behind Darren Daulton, Carlos Ruiz, and J.T. Realmuto and just ahead of Bob Boone.
First Base: Jim Thome
Thome is a Hall of Famer with 612 career home runs, and he appeared in two World Series with the Cleveland Indians (losing in both 1995 and 1997). He’s sixth in career Phillies bWAR among players with at least 100 games at first base, behind Mike Schmidt, Von Hayes, John Kruk, Ryan Howard, and Rhys Hoskins.
Signing Thome as a free agent in 2003 was a turning point for the Phillies franchise as they readied to move into Citizens Bank Park. The slugger posted a .925 career OPS and hit 101 home runs with the Phils. But the team never made the playoffs during his time in Philadelphia (2003 through 2005, plus a short return in 2012).
Dick Allen deserves an honorable mention here. Between 1964 and 2024, Allen is top-five in bWAR among all Phillies, and he trails only Mike Schmidt in bWAR among Phillies with 100 games at first base. Our cutoff is 1973, however, and Allen’s post-1973 years with the Phils were at the tail end of his career. He put up a .712 OPS in 119 games with the team in 1975, and an .826 OPS in 85 games with the team in 1976.
Second Base: Dave Cash
Here’s the Phillies bWAR top-five for second basemen between 1973 and 2023:
Chase Utley has his 2008 ring and played in the 2009 World Series. Juan Samuel played in the 1983 World Series (though he batted just once). That leaves us with Placido Polanco, Cash, and Cesar Hernandez as candidates. I can make a case for any of the three, but Cash is my choice.
Polanco has the highest bWAR, but WAR is a counting stat and Polanco played over 200 more games than Cash with the Phillies. Polanco also split his total time in Philadelphia roughly evenly between second and third base. That doesn’t technically break any rules for this exercise, but it feels like it matters.
Hernandez has a higher OPS, but all three players are within 20 points of each other in that category: Polanco .739; Hernandez .733; Cash .719.
Cash played second base for the Phillies from 1974 through 1976. He played all 162 games in both ‘74 and ‘75, and 160 games in ‘76. Each of those years, he was selected to the All-Star game and received downballot MVP votes. He led the league in hits in 1975 with 213, batting .305. And Cash was excellent defensively.
Perhaps most impressively, Cash struck out only 80 times in his Phillies career, or once every 26 at-bats. Compare that to Polanco (one strikeout per 12 Phillies ABs) and Hernandez (one strikeout per five Phillies ABs).
Third Base: Scott Rolen
This one’s a no-brainer, regardless of how you feel about Rolen on a personal level.
Here are the newly-elected Hall of Famer’s career stats with the Phils: 844 games, .282/.373/.504 (.877 OPS), 150 HR, 29.2 bWAR. Plus a Rookie of the Year Award and a few Gold Gloves.
Shortstop: Freddy Galvis
The Phillies shortsop position since 1973 is a two-man story: Larry Bowa amassed 17.4 bWAR between 1973 and 1981, and Jimmy Rollins was good for 47.6 bWAR between 2000 and 2014. Both are ineligible here because they have rings.
After that, pickings are slim: Jean Segura, 8.4 bWAR but ineligible because he played in the 2022 World Series; Dickie Thon, 4.7 bWAR; Luis Aguayo, 3.6 bWAR; Kevin Stocker, 3.6 bWAR but ineligible because he played in the 1993 World Series; Galvis, 3.4 bWAR; Ivan de Jesus, 2.9 bWAR but ineligible because he played in the 1983 World Series. No other Phillies shorstop has over 1.0 bWAR in the last 50 years.
So Galvis is our guy, if only for his outstanding defense. His Phillies slash line (.244/.287/.373) is unimpressive, but it’s not much different than Thon’s (.259/.302/.374). You can make an argument for Aguayo and his .729 Phillies OPS, I suppose. But Aguayo played in an average of just 52 games/season in his years with the Phils.
Left Field: Andrew McCutchen
We’ve seen several talented Phillies left fielders since 1973, but most of them played in a World Series with the team:
Seven of the top eight are ineligible under our rules. Gregg Jefferies is the exception, but his Phillies OPS is just .751, lower than both Ron Gant (.801) and McCutchen (.787). No other eligible left fielder has a Phillies OPS over .733.
McCutchen’s defense during his time with the Phillies works against him. But the numbers are close enough to allow us to play favorites, so I’m taking Cutch.
Center Field: Aaron Rowand
Odubel Herrera has the most bWAR with the Phillies out of the options in center. But he’s not going to be on my team.
Garry Maddox, Von Hayes, Shane Victorino, Milt Thompson, Del Unser, and Brandon Marsh played in a World Series with the Phils. Doug Glanville, Jason Michaels, Ben Revere, and Marlon Byrd are reasonable options.
But Aaron Rowand has a higher Phillies OPS (.832) than anyone on the list, including the players who went to the World Series. I’ll take the guy who almost killed himself to catch a ball.
Right Field: Bobby Abreu
Right field is another easy decision. With apologies to Phillies legends Nick Williams, Peter Bourjos, and Chris James, Abreu’s bWAR (47.2) is higher than all of the other eligible Phillies right fielders combined.
Abreu is a borderline Hall of Famer. He posted a career Phillies slash line of .303/.416/.513. That’s a .928 Phillies OPS, higher than Bryce Harper (.926) or Jayson Werth (.885). Hunter Pence has the next-highest OPS at .842, but Abreu’s 195 home runs and 254 stolen bases with the Phillies dwarf Pence’s totals (28 HR, 5 SB). Jay Johnstone (.303 AVG, .823 OPS) deserves a mention here, but Abreu is clearly the guy.
Starting Rotation: Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Vance Worley, Kevin Gross, Shane Rawley
If we sort Phillies pitchers by bWAR over the last 50 years, the biggest takeaway is that good starting pitching tends to land this team in the World Series. Most of the Phils’ best pitchers are ineligible for our team:
Roy Halladay is a notable, heartbreaking exception. He’ll lead our rotation with these stats as a Phillie: 55-29, 3.25 ERA, 3.17 FIP, 1.12 WHIP, 1.8 BB/9, 8.0 K/9.
Kevin Gross, Randy Wolf, and Shane Rawley would be up next if we made our decisions based solely on bWAR. But if we sort by ERA (minimum 25 starts), we spot a few more options:
Roy Oswalt started just 35 games for the Phillies, but his 2.96 ERA with the team is hard to ignore. Similarly, Mike Krukow made only 33 starts with the Phils (all in 1982), but his 3.11 ERA puts him under consideration in this group.
For our purposes, I cross-referenced the two lists, looking for pitchers with both low career ERAs and a reasonable number of starts with the Phillies. Sprinkle in consideration of some other stats, personal preference, and a little recency bias, and we can round out the rotation behind Halladay like this:
Oswalt: 16-11, 2.96 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 1.17 WHIP, 2.2 BB/9, 6.7 K/9
Vance Worley: 18-13, 3.50 ERA, 3.57 FIP, 1.35 WHIP, 3.1 BB/9, 7.7 K/9
Gross: 60-66, 3.87 ERA, 3.97 FIP, 1.37 WHIP, 3.5 BB/9, 5.9 K/9
Rawley: 59-48, 3.88 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 1.40 WHIP, 3.2 BB/9, 4.4 K/9
Relief Pitchers: Jonathan Papelbon, Steve Bedrosian, Billy Wagner
Papelbon is the Phillies’ all-time saves leader with 123, and his 2.31 ERA and 1.02 WHIP with the team make him a lock for a roster spot.
Bedrosian is third all-time on the Phillies’ saves list with 103. He won the NL Cy Young in 1987, and his Phillies ERA is 3.29.
Jose Mesa is second in franchise history in saves, but I passed him over for Wagner. Wagner is only 10th in saves, but a 1.86 ERA and 0.81 WHIP with the Phillies are too good to pass up.
Looking over the roster, I think we’re in good shape offensively and solid on defense. We’ve got some lights-out relievers. The top of the rotation is strong, and the back of the rotation is questionable. The suspect pitching is right in line with the last 50 years of Phillies baseball.
All in all, this squad is talented enough to just miss out on a Wild Card spot. I probably left out a few deserving candidates, but hey… Life’s not fair.
Special thanks to Melissa Amour for the idea behind this article.
Who did I snub? And who do you want off the team? Can you fix the starting pitching? Let me know in the comments!
Exclusive new artwork from Dhwani Saraiya.
Taijuan Walker has a 0.69 ERA in his last four starts. 26 innings pitched, 14 hits allowed, two runs allowed, six walks, 26 strikeouts.
Tweets of the week.
If, like me, you love Jose Alvarado and AHpod, then you will love this:
Here’s the eighth inning of Sunday’s Mets collapse:
https://twitter.com/_piccone/status/1673112797347999746?s=20
Guess which MLB team has the biggest increase in attendance since last year:
https://twitter.com/CodifyBaseball/status/1672996724720435202?s=20
Where my real I-95 heads at? Here’s the rebuild livestream on Phanavison at Citizens Bank Park:
https://twitter.com/chrisoIIey/status/1671324799480602626?s=20
The starting rotation was awful and now it’s putting up stats like this. Makes no sense, I love it:
https://twitter.com/BobWankelCB/status/1672412210079965185?s=20
This week (and last week) in 2008.
We have two weeks to cover because last week’s free newsletter strayed off the usual format.
The 2008 Phils were 43-36 at the end of June 25, in first place by two games.
The Phillies beat the Marlins 3-0 on June 12 to salvage one win out of a three-game series in Florida. Jamie Moyer threw eight shutout innings to improve to 9-0 in nine career starts vs the fish.
On June 13, the Phillies went off on the Cardinals in St. Louis, winning 20-2. Utley, Howard, and Burrell hit back-to-back-to-back home runs in the first inning, and things spiraled out of control from there. The Phils led the division by four games at the end of that day, and were starting to look like they might run away with the division.
However.
The rest of June was a disaster. The Phillies lost their next two games in St. Louis, then lost two of three back home against the Red Sox. They lost three straight at home against the Angels, then went out to Oakland and lost again. Athletics pitcher Joe Blanton held them to one run and four hits over seven innings in that game.
On June 25, mercifully, the Phils won for the first time in seven games. Kyle Kendrick and J.C. Romero combined to shut out the Athletics.
Phillie you forgot about.
Yacksel Rios pitched for the Phillies from 2017 through 2019, appearing in 53 games as a reliever. He ended up with a 6.38 ERA in 55 innings with the team.
Rios struck out 9.0 batters per nine innings with the Phils, but walked 4.4 batters per nine and had a 1.66 WHIP.
In August 2019, the Pirates claimed Rios off waivers. He posted a 6.28 ERA in 13 appearances with Pittsburgh in 2019 and 2020, then bounced around the Rays, Mariners, Red Sox, White Sox, and Braves organizations before landing with the Athletics in 2023.
This year with Oakland, Rios has allowed six earned runs in 1.2 innings (32.40 ERA).
Rios helped make World Baseball Classic history on March 13, 2023, when he and three other pitchers for Puerto Rico combined to throw the first perfect game in WBC history.
This is the section of the newsletter where I make you look at dogs.
Thank you for reading and go Phils!
Great list ! I think the team is accurate . Maybe Joe table could’ve been considered