All True Phillies Team

by Chris St. John on Nov 29, 2011 6:13 PM EST

Over at Beyond the Box Score, I came up with a "True Phillies" team. Basically, what is the best 25-man roster you can put together with players who have played for the Phillies their entire career? 9 of the players are current Phillies. A few players didn't quite make it because they weren't eligible, but I tried to give them a shout out at the end. Come on over and start a conversation about the team!

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The problem I have with this formula is that you end up with too many younger current players on the team because everyone else has been on multiple teams. And you have things like Ryan Madson being the closer on the team even though he’s likely to be gone next year. Or John Mayberry being there purely because he hasn’t been around long enough to be on another team.

That said, Mike Schmidt as Mr. Phillie is obvious, appropriate, and awesome.

by Rujasu on Nov 30, 2011 11:00 AM EST reply actions

Yeah. I’d been following the series, finding it odd that he kept saying that it was difficult to search the data for anything other than 100% service time. I don’t do such data searches, but I found that hard to credit, given some of the searches I’ve seen others come up with.

That said, not only is Schmidt as Mr. Phillie perfect, the makeup of the entire infield is.

by yolacrary on Nov 30, 2011 11:29 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah, I would have rather set a minimum bar for eligibility or simply left the position blank. Also, if it was hard to mine for data, maybe it would be best left undone, as the flaws in this are fairly big.

by Cormican on Nov 30, 2011 12:02 PM EST up reply actions

I’d say it’s still an interesting premise, though in some ways it would be more interested if it only included retired players, to avoid the situation of “this guy is pretty good but has only been around three years and will be with another team before too long.” On the other hand, if you did that, you’d have a starting infield with Pancho Herrera and Heinie Mueller.

by Rujasu on Nov 30, 2011 12:17 PM EST up reply actions

I think it should be something like: Retired guys who played at least X games with the Phillies, comprising at least Y % of their careers. Otherwise you get a list of “True Phillies” that doesn’t include Richie Ashburn, which seems wrong.

by taco pal on Nov 30, 2011 12:33 PM EST up reply actions

To get Ashburn, you have to set the bar at 84% of PAs coming with the Phillies. Not sure what that does to the rest of the team, but Mayberry is gone at that point.

by Phrozen on Nov 30, 2011 12:50 PM EST reply actions

I think that would replace Mayberry with the Bull, at least.

by Cormican on Nov 30, 2011 1:32 PM EST up reply actions

No, the Bull comes in at 71% PAs with the Phillies, which is actually really surprising to me.

by Phrozen on Nov 30, 2011 2:49 PM EST up reply actions

Same here. I thought he only played 2 or 3 years in Chicago and 10 in Philly.

by Cormican on Nov 30, 2011 5:14 PM EST up reply actions

Blame that on the DH. And Cheesburgers.

"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP

by Joecatz on Dec 3, 2011 5:30 PM EST up reply actions

an 80% minimum would give you Ed Delahanty (85%) in left field and Chuck Klein (80.5%) in right. (Johnny Callison could arguably be better considering defense, but he just barely misses with 79.7%.)

you’d also get deadballer Jack Clements (86.9%) at catcher over Ruiz, but it wouldn’t change any of the infielders I don’t think.

by perfectdepth on Nov 30, 2011 4:37 PM EST up reply actions

if we’re sticking to the Ashburn Line, make it Cactus Gavvy Cravath in right field (91%).

by perfectdepth on Nov 30, 2011 4:39 PM EST up reply actions

What about Dutch or Lieberthal? They had to play at least 90% of their careers here.

Some people don't think it be what it is, but it do.

by TheOrangeCone on Nov 30, 2011 5:53 PM EST up reply actions

Lieberthal had 27 total ABs as an ex-Phillie.

by Cormican on Nov 30, 2011 9:55 PM EST up reply actions

typo

That should say 77, not 27.

by Cormican on Nov 30, 2011 9:55 PM EST up reply actions

I was just going by rWAR:

Clements 29.5 WAR
Daulton 21.9 WAR
Lieberthal 15.8 WAR

although it looks fWAR has Daulton edging out Clements.

by perfectdepth on Dec 1, 2011 7:36 AM EST up reply actions

Daulton should definitely count. He played all but 52 of his 1161 career games as a philly. only had 126 AB as a Marlin in 1997. (And I beluieve he only went to FLA after being released, if memory serves..

"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP

by Joecatz on Dec 3, 2011 5:35 PM EST up reply actions

He was traded in a salary dump for this guy.

I remember the trade, I don’t remember the guy they got back.

by topherstarr on Dec 6, 2011 10:25 AM EST up reply actions

I remember him. Man, he sucked. Looked great, caught every catch in practice and preseason, then the regular season comes along, he never dresses for any real games, and gets traded for the exact same guy in Hank Baskett.

Oh wait, wrong guy.

by Rujasu on Dec 6, 2011 11:29 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs