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Look out playoffs, here come the Phillies!
...is what no one will say during this post season. But we'll certainly be thinking it as some of our former allies jog onto the field in new uniforms. While not every team can boast that they have players who used to be Phillies, this year there are more prominent names than ever out there thanks to some high magnitude trades.
Yankees
There were no former Phillies on the Yankees. The Yankees were an abomination and it is good that they are gone.
Mets
Travis d'Arnaud's brother briefly played for the Phillies this season. Sadly he was quarantined and never seen again for fear of a Mets infection. In the end, I think even Travis would agree it was the right thing to do and not at all insane.
Cubs
There is a man named "Kyle Hendricks" on the Cubs, who I assume is the name-brand version of whatever generic impersonation of a thing Kyle Kendrick was supposed to be.
Cardinals
Here's a fun bit of Phillies trivia I only just learned now - did you know that Jonathan Broxton has never played for the Phillies? He's just so linkable to some of their best moments as a playoff team you forget he was never actually on the roster, despite being responsible for so many runs they scored.
Royals
Ryan Madson
The Phillies closer of the future of the past is still around, and what do you know, he has been a valuable commodity for Kansas City as their once airtight bullpen suffered inevitable, you know. Air.
The 35-year-old Madson has thrown over 63 innings for the Royals this season, and kept his ERA at a perfectly healthy 2.13, and this after his career was deemed over by so many people who didn't know what they were talking about. Let Madson be a lesson to everyone on the dangers of believing in yourself.
Blue Jays
Ben Revere
Every time I see a picture of Ben Revere I want to say "Hi Ben!" as if the image of him is going to turn and smile and nod at me. Who would this be creepier for? Me, the man having his perception of reality forever shattered by a picture coming to life, or Ben, having a grown man who is actually a few months his senior talking to a picture as if it is human?
Good luck in the playoffs, Ben. We miss your spirit.
Astros
Chad Qualls, Jonathan Villar
The Phillies once traded 2011 international signing Jonathan Villar to the Astros for Roy Oswalt. Today, Villar is on his way to the ALDS while Oswalt is watching the ALDS from a couch made to look like a tractor.
Qualls' Phillies legacy is far longer, yet far worse, and can be explained via this poem I have composed entirely out of Facebook comments on a video called "Chad Qualls discusses his role and expectations heading into 2012."
He's gonna fail horribly
Living here in AZ, got to see Qualls pitch a lot. They would have done better bringing in the machine they have in coin-op batting cages.
I cannot wait until the phillies
He blows.
hey chad
Rangers
Cole Hamels, Jake Diekman
The Rangers will taunt Toronto by holding Hamels for game two, while also allowing Yovani Gallardo to act as a human shield, absorbing the brunt of the horrifying Blue Jays offense so that Hamels can pick up the pieces. It's a bold strategy, one that makes so little sense, they probably aren't even really doing it.
Hamels is re-branding himself from his softer Philadelphia image to a colder, harder, Texas-er Cole. Now instead of raising a family in a luxury tower casting a shadow on the city's slums, he's giving ice cold quotes and then throwing a complete game.
Incredible quote from #Rangers Cole Hamels (via @Evan_P_Grant ). Read the full article here: http://t.co/1hdq94S4u3 pic.twitter.com/gCWSlfvv2K
— Ace of MLB Stats (@theaceofspaeder) October 4, 2015
Dodgers
Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins
You know, you'd think it'd be difficult to see two players that any Phillies fan spent the last few years idolizing play for another team; like deep inside, in your warmest guts, feelings of such devotion and joy that you saved just for watching two top middle infield talents of a generation would be ripped out and strewn all over the place, leaving you traumatized and totally vulnerable.
You'd think that would happen, I'm saying. It's so cool that it didn't and we can all look each other in the eye and speak about this issue in calm, unwavering voices, without our voices slowly rising and disturbing all the other patrons of the coffee shop.
Ha ha, go Phillies!
Pirates
A.J. Burnett, Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ, Vance Worley, Antonio Bastardo
The Pirates are a graveyard of former Phillies starting pitching heroes. Remember when we convinced ourselves that hey, Cole Hamels-Cliff Lee-A.J. Burnett may be the best top three in the NL East? That wasn't even that crazy of a thing. It went crazy, though, but Burnett, bless his heart, devoured so much of the 2014 Phillies season (34 GS, 96 BB, 109 ER, 18 losses) that there is a barely visible, possibly nonexistent shrine made out of twigs constructed in his honor outside the left field gate at CBP.
Former key acquisition Joe Blanton is also technically on the Pirates roster. He retired. Remember that? He left. Now he's back. And he threw 34.1 innings for Pittsburgh this year. And his ERA is 1.57! Joe Blanton! He might be the reason the Pirates are in the playoffs. We can round out this almost-and-entire-rotation of ex-Phillies starters with Happ and Worley, who represent two different generations of overhyped youngsters that eventually imploded, reminding us that the faster you spend money on a trend, the better.
Bastardo, the sole reliever of the group, adds to the plethora of excellently-named players who have pitched for the Pirates in 2015, joining Bobby LaFromboise and Arquimedes Caminero.