Look back at the Phillies in the MLB All-Star Game during the 2010's

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On right, Victorino, Polanco, Lee, Hamels repped Phillies in 2011

On Tuesday night, Major League Baseball will celebrate many of it’s top names with the playing of the All-Star Game at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

For Phillies fans, this 90th version of the Midsummer Classic will feature just one member of their favorite ball club. That has been the case in most recent years with the team usually in a non-contending position.

However, this second decade of the 21st century did not begin that way. When the decade opened, the Phillies were on top of the National League. The were two-time defending NL champions, had been legitimate contenders for most of the previous decade, and featured a star-studded lineup and pitching staff.

In the 2010 MLB All-Star Game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, the Phillies had three representatives. First baseman Ryan Howard started and batted in the cleanup spot for the NL squad. Second baseman Chase Utley was voted as the starting NL second baseman for a fifth consecutive year, but sprained his thumb in late June and had to miss the game. Roy Halladay was one of the NL reserve pitchers.

Howard went 0-2 that night, striking out to leadoff the top of the 2nd inning against David Price. Halladay came on to pitch in the bottom of the 6th inning. He surrendered a leadoff single to Derek Jeter, but then got Paul Konerko to roll into a double play. After giving up a base hit to Josh Hamilton, the Phillies righty was lifted by manager Charlie Manuel.

The 2011 MLB All-Star Game was played at Chase Field in Phoenix, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. For the first time since 2004, no Phillies position players were voted in as starters. However, Halladay was selected to start on the mound for the National League.

After Doc pitched two perfect innings, he was followed to the mound by rotation mate Cliff Lee. The Phillies lefty would retire the first five batters he faced before Adrian Gonzalez homered with two outs in the top of the 4th inning. It would be the only run allowed by NL pitching in a 5-1 victory.

The Phillies had three more All-Stars in 2011, but none got into the game. Those three were pitcher Cole Hamels, third baseman Placido Polanco, and center fielder Shane Victorino.

Could Cole Hamels pass back through Philly on his way to Cooperstown?

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Hamels built the foundation of his career over a decade with Phillies

Want the latest in a recent series of hot takes that I’ve been espousing? Here goes: former Phillies star pitcher Cole Hamels is going to one day be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He is one of 10 active players in Major League Baseball who, I believe, will be easy choices once the voting members of the Baseball Writer’s Association of America get a chance to cast ballots for them.

Hitters in the group are Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, and Mike Trout. The pitchers are Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, C.C. Sabathia, Max Scherzer, and Hamels.

Now, I’m not saying that these are the only players currently active who will one day end up enshrined at Cooperstown. These 10 will certainly be joined by a number of others. I am really close on calling guys like Joey Votto and Chris Sale no-doubt HOFers. But I’m just not quite there yet.

Hamels should have few questioning his qualifications once the time comes. That will be especially so should he post two more years after this one that are in any way comparable to his career norms. Those will be his ages 36 and 37 seasons, and there is no sign that he is slowing down.

On Tuesday at Wrigley Field, Hamels became just the 10th left-hander to reach the 2,500 career strikeout mark. Four of the other nine, Randy Johnson (4,875), Steve Carlton (4,136), Tom Glavine (2,607), and Warren Spahn (2,583) are already Hall of Famers. Hamels and Sabathia, who has now surpassed the 3,000 mark, will surely join them one day.

Jerad Eickhoff 2019 first trimester report card

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Eickhoff started hot and has cooled of late for the 2019 Phillies

Each season in Major League Baseball is currently scheduled to last for 162 games. This means that the Philadelphia Phillies (30-21) will reach the 1/3 pole with their home game on Tuesday night against the Saint Louis Cardinals.

Over the next few days, I’ll be handing out the report cards for the first “trimester” of the season for each player on the Phillies 2019 roster. There will be a letter grade, along with a brief description of their contributions, including their relevant statistics.

I’ll be back with each player’s grades for the second trimester and the season to that point when the Phillies reach the 108-game mark. That is scheduled to come on July 31, the same date as the MLB trade deadline.

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JERAD EICKHOFF

FIRST TRIMESTER GRADE: B

STATS: Eight games (seven starts), 2-2 record, 3.86 ERA, 1.190 WHIP, 35 hits allowed including seven home runs over 42 innings with a 39/15 K:BB ratio.

REPORT: Eickhoff began the season in the Triple-A Lehigh Valley rotation. Showing that he was healthy over his first two starts after missing nearly all of last season with various injuries, he was promoted and quickly moved into the Phillies starting rotation when Nick Pivetta struggled mightily over his own first few starts in April.

Gabe Kapler used him in relief in his first appearance, and Eickhoff actually earned a Save when he delivered four shutout innings in a 14-3 win over the Mets. Moving into the starting rotation, the right-hander allowed just 15 hits over his first four starts and 26 innings.

However, just when it seemed that he might have returned to the levels that had made him an 11-game winner for the club back in the 2016 season, Eickhoff has hit a major speed bump. Over his last three outings including Friday in Milwaukee, Eickhoff has allowed 17 hits over a dozen innings with a 9.75 ERA and a .333 batting average against. Opposing hitters have slugged seven home runs over those three starts.

Kapler and GM Matt Klentak are going to have some tough decisions to make moving forward with the starting rotation. Aaron Nola and Jake Arrieta are clearly the top two starters. But after that it’s pretty much an open competition among a half-dozen arms. Eickhoff is part of that conversation, but he is no longer the lock that he appeared to be becoming just two weeks ago.

Phillies reel in big Fish in trade for all-star catcher J.T. Realmuto

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The Phillies obtained all-star catcher J.T. Realmuto from Marlins

The Philadelphia Phillies and Miami Marlins have completed a big trade this afternoon in which all-star catcher J.T. Realmuto will be heading north to Philadelphia.

In return the Marlins will receive catcher Jorge Alfaro, the Phillies top prospect Sixto Sanchez, prospect pitcher Will Stewart, and an international bonus slot per ESPN insider Jeff Passan.

Jeff Passan

✔@JeffPassan

Philadelphia and Miami are in agreement on a trade that would send All-Star catcher J.T. Realmuto to the Phillies for catcher Jorge Alfaro, pitching prospects Sixto Sanchez and Will Stewart, and an international bonus slot, league sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

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Realmuto will turn 28-years-old in the middle of spring training next month and is regarded as the top all-around catcher in the game today. He is signed at $5.9 million for this coming season and will be eligible for arbitration this time a year from now. After that he is scheduled to become a free agent.

The Phillies are certain to make early attempts at extending him for at least two-three years, taking him out to his early -30’s. In a piece just yesterday here at PN as these rumors were breaking, I wrote about a recent attempt by San Diego to obtain Realmuto contingent on negotiating just such an extension. The Marlins refused the Padres request.

Realmuto became a National League all-star for the first time last season. He also won the NL Silver Slugger after slashing .277/.340/.484 with 21 homers, 74 RBI, and 74 runs scored. He reached the 30-doubles mark for a third straight season.

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The Argument for J.T. Realmuto as Baseball’s Best Catcher http://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-argument-for-j-t-realmuto-as-baseballs-best-catcher …

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For three decades the Phillies have largely been unable to develop a top prospect

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Pat Burrell has been the Phillies best high draftee to develop into a top prospect

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece on the current standing of the Phillies best minor league players on recently released top prospect lists. For nearly three decades, one of the most respected of the resources tracking and producing such lists has been Baseball America.

The same day as my Phillies Nation article was released, Baseball America was publishing their own piece on the history of their top prospect coverage. Specifically, the BA staff was re-visiting every prospect ranked either #1 or #2 on their annual Top 100 Prospects list.

Before even bothering to look down the entire list, which covered every top prospect and runner-up since 1990, a thought popped into my head – have the Phillies ever had someone finish in either spot? I follow the prospect game pretty closely and couldn’t recall the team ever having a prospect ranked that highly.

Sure enough, the list revealed that no Phillies prospect has been ranked as the best in all of baseball on the annual Top 100 list. Only one of the club’s prospects has ever found themselves in the #2 spot. That would be Pat Burrell back in 2000.

A look around the National League East Division reveals that the Atlanta Braves have seen five of their prospects ranked as the best in the game: Steve Avery (1990), Chipper Jones (93), Andruw Jones (96-97), Jason Heyward (2010), and Ronald Acuna just last year. Jones was also the #2 prospect of 1994.

The Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos organization has produced a pair of top prospects: Cliff Floyd (94) and Bryce Harper in both 2011 and 2012. While still in Montreal, Vladimir Guerrero was the #2 prospect in 1997. After the franchise had moved to D.C., Stephen Strasburg finished in the runner-up slot for 2010.

Two of those divisional rivals, the New York Mets and Florida/Miami Marlins, have fared even worse than the Phillies in placing prospects at the top of the ranking lists.

The Mets had Paul Wilson rank #2 in 1996. Wilson pitched just one disappointing season in the Big Apple at age 23 in 1996 before his career was derailed for four years by injuries. He finally recovered enough to appear in parts of three seasons with Tampa Bay and three more in Cincinnati.

The Marlins, established as an expansion organization in 1993, have never placed a prospect in either of the top two slots on the Baseball America rankings. But despite not joining Major League Baseball until the 1998 season, the best at producing top prospects has been another expansion club, the Tampa Bay Rays.

There have been a pair of Rays at the top: Josh Hamilton in 2001 and Delmon Young in 2006. Five Rays prospects have finished in the runner-up slot: Rocco Baldelli (03), B.J. Upton (04), Evan Longoria (08), David Price (09), and Matt Moore in 2012.

Cliff Lee: he never wanted to leave Phillies in the first place

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Cliff Lee came and went in 2009 and came back in 2010

During what all fans of the Philadelphia Phillies have been led to believe will be one of the most significant off-season periods ever for the franchise, I’ve been taking a look back at the team’s ‘Hot Stove’ history.

So far we have recalled the signings of Pete Rose (1978), Jose Mesa(2000), and Jim Thome (2002) in free agency. We have also revisited key off-season trades: the 1981 three-way deal that resulted in Lonnie Smith leaving and Bo Diaz arriving, the 1982 trade of future Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, and the trading away of Thome.

Probably the most recent important Phillies move during a Hot Stove season came in the middle of December back in 2010. It was then that general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. began trying to reverse a huge prior mistake from exactly one year earlier. Both decisions were among the most influential during the 2009-11 period when the club was trying to get back to the World Series.

Those two moves involved a left-handed starting pitcher named Cliff Lee. His pro career had begun after he was drafted three times. Lee finally signed after being selected by the Montreal Expos with their fourth round selection in the 2000 MLB Amateur Draft.

In June 2002, Lee was dealt to the Cleveland Indians as part of a four-prospect package that also included Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips in an overall six-player deal that brought starting pitcher Bartolo Colon to Montreal.

LEE DEVELOPS INTO AN ACE

In Cleveland’s minor league system, Lee showed enough with Buffalo of the Triple-A International League that he was given a two-start cup of coffee with the Indians in September 2002. He went 10.1 innings allowing just six hits over those two outings.

Lee won the 2008 AL Cy Young Award with Cleveland

After beginning the 2003 season back at Triple-A, Lee received a spot start with Cleveland in late June. Then in mid-August he was called to the big-leagues for good. Lee would enter the Tribe’s starting rotation and remain there for the next six years.

Lee would develop into one of the top starting pitchers in the game, culminating in a memorable 2008 season. While the Phillies were driving towards their first World Series crown in nearly three decades, Lee was putting together a Cy Young Award-winning season in Cleveland.

In that 2008 campaign, Lee went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA and 1.110 WHIP. He also had a fabulous 170/34 K:BB ratio over 223.1 innings across 31 starts. In addition to the Cy Young honors, he was an AL All-Star for the first time, and even received AL MVP votes.

Lee was scheduled to become a free agent after the 2010 season, and it became obvious that the Indians would not be able to get him to sign a contract extension. Looking at a rebuilding situation, Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro decided to find a deal for him a year early.

LEE ACQUIRED BY CHAMPS IN-SEASON

As defending World Series champions, the Phillies were struggling to open up a lead in a tight NL East race in July 2009. A big reason was that the team’s starting pitching was looking a bit fragile.

Phillies agree to 2019 contract with pitcher Jerad Eickhoff

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Eickhoff will provide rotation insurance to the 2019 Phillies

After reaching a one-year deal with arbitration-eligible reliever Hector Neris this afternoon, the Phillies have now reportedly agreed to a contract with another pitcher as well.

This time it was 28-year-old right-hander Jerad Eickhoff, who missed nearly all of the 2018 season due to a lat injury that had also bothered him early in the 2017 campaign.

A native of Evansville, Indiana, Eickhoff was the Texas Rangers pick in the 15th round of the 2011 MLB Amateur Draft out of Olney Central College in Illinois.

Rising through the Texas farm system, Eickhoff reached the Double-A level. Then at the trade deadline on July 31, 2015, Eickhoff was one of four prospects dealt to the Phillies from the Rangers in exchange for pitchers Cole Hamels and Jake Diekman.

Eickhoff quickly reached Philadelphia, making his big-league debut with the Phillies by tossing six shutout innings at Miami less than a month after the trade. He would make eight total starts over that final month-and-a-half, with the last four of those as seven-inning Quality Start efforts.

As a member of the starting rotation in 2016, Eickhoff went 11-14 with a 3.65 ERA and 1.160 WHIP. He allowed just 187 hits over 197.1 innings across 33 starts that year with a 167:42 K/BB ratio.

During a 2017 season interrupted first by the lat injury and later by an injured finger, Eickoff slipped to a 4.71 ERA and 1.523 WHIP over 24 starts.

Eickhoff made eight starts across three minor league levels as he worked his way back in the 2018 season. Then over three September appearances with the Phillies he allowed 10 hits over 5.1 innings, striking out 11 opposition batters but walking none.

On October 1, Eickhoff underwent carpal tunnel surgery. In her fine piece on that situation, Meghan Montemurro of The Athletic quoted new Phillies pitching coach Chris Young: “…with Eick, it’s how much trust we all have in the person that gives me very little doubt that he’s going to come back and be as good or better than he was."

Jim Salisbury at NBC Sports Philadelphia reports that Eickhoff received a $975,000 deal for 2019. That would nearly double his salary from what he has earned in each of his first three big-league seasons.