Phillies All-Time Team v.2012

Last year's team can be seen here.

The Phillies have compiled a cumulative record of 1065-878 over the past 12 seasons - finishing at or above .500 in 11 of those 12 seasons... the Chase Utley / Ryan Howard / Jimmy Rollins era has been the most successful era in Philadelphia Phillies baseball history.  There are more active players on this All-Time team who are still playing with the Phillies than any other All-Time team we have compiled - five altogether in 2012 - an extraordinary number indicative of just how plentiful this era has been for the Fightins.  To put that number in perspective, going off of last year's FBJ database, there is no other team with more than three players that are still active and still playing for the team for which they were honored (the Yankees have Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera and the Rays have Evan Longoria, David Price and B.J. Upton) and the Phillies have been around since the 1880's so there is plenty of history to go by.  Unfortunately for the Phillies, success has not been a defining characteristic of years past.

In addition to our normal review of prior year selections, we had to add two starting pitchers, an infielder and an outfielder to round out last year's roster.

We decided that it was time to move Chooch ahead of Dutch - so Darren Daulton is no longer on our team.

We had a relatively easy time agreeing on the position players - Del Ennis and Dick Allen were solid choices although we did consider Greg Luzinski and Larry Bowa.

For the starting pitchers, it came down to five names - Cole Hamels, Curt Schilling, Jim Bunning, Chris Short and Roy Halladay.  Take a look at their numbers below and you'll see why this was a tough choice (even Chris Short, who you might not think of as an all-time great... ranks top 5 in many all-time categories).


Here's our team:

C - Carlos Ruiz
1B - Ryan Howard
2B - Chase Utley
SS - Jimmy Rollins
3B - Mike Schmidt
IF - Dick Allen
OF - Richie Ashburn
OF - Chuck Klein
OF - Bobby Abreu
OF - Del Ennis
SP - Steve Carlton
SP - Robin Roberts
SP - Cole Hamels
SP - Jim Bunning
RP - Tug McGraw

Before you get all "Grover Cleveland Alexander" on me, remember that we have a very strong post 1920 bias and Pete spent his first 7 years as a Phillie pre-1920 (and the next 9 as a Cub).  Pete's an all-time great for sure and his career numbers alone would indicate that he would be worthy of a pre-1920 exception but it's not so easy here because Alexander wasn't a career Philllie.  It's hard to ink him to the Phillies all-time team because he spent so much time elsewhere and the majority of his Hall of Fame career as a Phillie was pre-1920.

2 comments:

  1. post 1920 seems like an artificially restrictive limitation. Kick off Bunning and put in Alexander.. Axe Ennis amd Chuck Klein (I'm sorry I refuse to take seriously any player jacking it over a little league fence) and put in Billy Hamilton and Ed Delahanty. Now you have an electric, dynamic team that can compete with the big boys.

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  2. The Phillies are my team. I think Ed Delahanty is an all time great and should be added. You can drop Del Ennis for him. Slight nod for Daulton over Ruiz. Agree with above in dropping Bunning for Alexander (all time great).

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