Phillies honor Bobby Abreu with place on the Wall of Fame

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Bobby Abreu joins the immortals on the Phillies Wall of Fame

The Phillies are honoring 1998-2006 outfielder Bobby Abreu prior to the game on Saturday night against the Chicago White Sox by enshrining him on the franchise Wall of Fame.

In a special pre-game ceremony, numerous past Wall of Fame honorees are expected to be on hand, including the franchise’ all-time greatest player, Mike Schmidt.

Abreu played in parts of nine seasons with the Phillies from 1998-2006. He is currently 2nd in walks, 4th in doubles, 7th in extra-base hits and stolen bases, 10th in runs scored, 11th in home runs and RBIs, and 14th in hits on the Phillies all-time leader boards.

His .303 career batting average across 1,353 games with the Phillies is the second-highest of any player who has performed with the team over more than half a century, trailing only the .309 mark produced by fellow Wall of Famer John Kruk. His .416 on-base percentage is the fourth-best of any player during their Phillies career, and Abreu’s .928 career OPS with the Phillies is second in franchise history only to the great Hall of Famer and Wall of Famer, Chuck Klein.

Abreu is a native of Venezuela who was signed by the Houston Astros as a 16-year-old amateur free agent in August 1990. He received his first big-league promotion for a 15-game cup of coffee in September 1996.

He appeared twice against the Phillies that month, lining out to center fielder Ricky Otero as a pinch-hitter for Billy Wagner in a 10-8 Phillies victory at the Astrodome on September 11 in his first game against them.

In 1997, Abreu made the team out of spring training, and stayed with Houston through May. He returned for five games in July, and then was called up again in September, appearing in another 14 games. Against the Phillies he went 4-17 with two runs and two RBIs over five games. He would also pinch-hit, going 1-3, in all three games of the Astros sweept at the hands of the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS.

Abreu as a 24-year-old in his first season with the Phillies in 1998.(Roger H. Rangel)

That fall, Major League Baseball expanded to include a pair of new teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now just “Rays”) and an Expansion Draft was held. Abreu, left unprotected by the Astros, became the sixth player chosen overall, the third by Tampa Bay.

Abreu would never play a single game with those original Devil Rays. In fact, he would never get to the Sunshine State at all. On the same day that he was selected in that draft process, the Phillies traded away shortstop Kevin Stocker to acquire Abreu from Tampa.

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.

Some potential nominees for the 2019 Phillies Wall of Fame honors

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Manny Trillo of the 1980 World Series champs is a legit Wall of Fame candidate

Approximately one month from now the Philadelphia Phillies will announce the 2019 honoree who will be enshrined on the franchise Wall of Fame this coming summer.

Last year for the very first time the team honored two individuals, and in a rare occurrence, Phillies fans had no say in either selection. One of those was Pat Gillick, who has served for 14 years as general manager, president, and senior advisor. Gillick was the first “executive inductee” to the Wall of Fame.

The other honored a year ago was former pitcher Roy Halladay, who had died suddenly and tragically in Florida back in November 2017 while piloting his private plane. Publicly released ballots seem to reveal that ‘Doc’ is also about to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame this coming summer.

Those two joined the manager of the 2008 World Series champions, Charlie Manuel (2014), the organization’s all-time greatest pitcher Steve Carlton (1989), and the greatest player in Phillies history, Mike Schmidt (1990) in becoming the only individuals honored without fan voting as part of the process.

The Phillies had honored no one in the prior summer of 2017. That year, Pete Rose had been scheduled to be enshrined on the Wall of Fame. In early-August, less than two weeks before that was to take place, the club cancelled the ceremony after Rose became embroiled in controversy surrounding allegations that he had sex with a minor while a player with the Cincinnati Reds back in the 1970’s.

Otherwise, the Phillies have honored one individual each year other than 1983. That year an entire “Centennial Team” was named and celebrated in honor of the 100th anniversary of the franchise.

Odds are that one individual will be honored when next month’s announcement is made, so who might that be? One thing that should be obvious is that with an increasing number of worthy individuals now retiring from the 2008 world championship team, we are going to see many of those players enshrined in the coming years.

PARADE TO THE WALL COULD CONTINUE FOR '08 CHAMPS

Already on the Wall of Fame from that team, joining general manager Gillick and manager Manuel, is outfielder Pat Burrell. The Phillies already have individual ceremonies scheduled for this summer to honor Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, and Chase Utley due to the announcement of their formal retirements as players.

If the honor goes to another member of those 2008 World Series champions this time around, the leading candidates would be Shane Victorino, Carlos Ruiz, Jayson Werth, Brad Lidge, and Jamie Moyer. The favorite might be Victorino after the popular Flyin’ Hawaiian was fetted just last season at Citizens Bank Park upon his formal retirement from baseball.

But the Phillies could also take another tack, choosing to honor some other worthy individuals before beginning what should prove to become a veritable parade to the Wall of Fame for a half-dozen or more of those 2008 players during the decade of the 2020’s.

2008 Phillies reunite to celebrate Chase Utley's 40th birthday

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Utley ends his big-league career after 16 seasons, 13 with the Phillies

Time and tide wait for no man. That goes for all of us, including our most beloved sports heroes. On Tuesday, December 18, Chase Utley turned 40 years old.

Utley is arguably the most popular Phillies player of the last quarter-century. You would have to go back to the scruffy National League champions of 1993 to find any Phillies player who was and continues to be as warmly embraced by the often difficult to please Philadelphia sports fan base.

Chase is not only popular among the fans, but also among his former teammates. To celebrate the milestone birthday he was joined for a Mexican vacation by Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge and a number of other friends and family members.

Ryan Howard

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Always great hanging with these guys. Love em. Happy B Day to the #Silverfox

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Utley has announced that the 2018 season would be his last. He finishes up a memorable 16-year career, with the most significant and memorable spent in a Phillies uniform.

After spending parts of his first 13 seasons with the club, Utley ranks high on a number of all-time Phillies statistical lists: Hits – 1,623 (9), Home Runs – 233 (6), RBI – 916 (7), Runs – 949 (6), Doubles – 346 (5).

Utley was also a 6x National League All-Star as well as a 4x NL Silver Slugger Award winner at second base. He received National League Most Valuable Player award votes in five different seasons. During his 2005-09 peak, Utley was the best all-around second baseman in baseball.

Remembering Eric Bruntlett, unsung hero of the 2008 World Series champion Phillies

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Bruntlett dashes home as the winning run in Game 3 of the 1980 World Series

It seems somewhat hard to believe, but it has been a full decade now since the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games to capture the 2008 World Series championship.

There were many popular, homegrown heroes on that Phillies ball club. The names and faces jump immediately to mind for every fan who was around to enjoy that incredible team: Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Brett Myers, Ryan Madson, Carlos Ruiz.

But even with all of those great players, the Phillies don’t win the World Series that year without the contributions of those brought in from the outside. Many of those acquired from other organizations became extremely popular and are easily recalled by fans as well: Jamie Moyer, Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino, and Brad Lidge would quickly come to mind.

But there were lesser contributors, players who didn’t get on the field or up to bat as often but who played a pivotal role in much of the drama that unfolded during that season and in that Fall Classic. One such contributor was utility player Eric Bruntlett.

Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Bruntlett played shortstop at Stanford University. He was chosen in the ninth round of the 2000 MLB Amateur Draft by the Houston Astros as the 277th player taken overall that year.

He rose quickly through Houston’s minor league system, reaching Triple-A by the following summer. In late June of 2003, Bruntlett was called up for the first time and would spend most of the season with the Astros from that point as a pinch-hitter and infield backup.

That would prove to be Bruntlett’s primary big-league role over the entirety of what became a five-year stint with Houston. In each of his first four seasons, the Astros finished in second place in the National League Central Division.

He was part of the close-but-no-cigar Houston teams that tried to win the first world championship in Astros franchise history during that run. The team lost a heart-breaking NLCS in seven games to the Saint Louis Cardinals in 2004, and then were swept by the Chicago White Sox in the 2005 World Series.

On November 7, 2007 newly hired Astros GM Ed Wade, the former Phillies general manager, packaged Bruntlett with Lidge in a trade, sending both to the Phillies. In exchange, Houston received relief pitcher Geoff Geary and a pair of prospects, infielder Mike Costanzo and outfielder Michael Bourn.

It would prove to be a coup for Pat Gillick, who had been hired as the Phillies GM to succeed Wade almost exactly two years to the day earlier. In fact, it would end up as one of the most important deals in Phillies history.

2018 Paul Owens Award winners as top Phillies minor leaguers

Paul Owens (center) was with Phillies for half-century
(Photo: Matthew Veasey)

The Philadelphia Phillies established the annual Paul Owens Award back in 1986 to recognize the top performing player and pitcher in their minor league organization.

The award was named in honor of Owens, the 10th person selected to the franchise Wall of Fame back in 1988, the first non-player enshrined there by the team.

Owens spent nearly a half-century with the organization from 1955 through his death in 2003 as a minor league player and coach, scout, farm director, manager, general manager, and executive.

The GM and architect of the 1980 World Series championship team, Owens also managed the club during two stints which included guiding the 1983 club to the National League pennant.

The winners of the 2018 Paul Owens Award were announced today. The pitching honors went to David Parkinson, while the hitter honors were bestowed upon Austin Listi.

Parkinson is a 22-year-old left-hander who was the Phillies selection in the 12th round of the 2017 MLB Draft out of the University of Mississippi. A 6-2, 210lb native of Henrico, Virginia, Parkinson went 11-1 across 22 games, 21 of them starts, in a season spent with stints at both High-A Clearwater and Double-A Reading. He allowed just 91 hits over 124.1 innings with a 141/35 K:BB ratio.

Listi also split his season between Clearwater and Reading. The 6-0, 218lb 24-year-old was the club’s 17th round MLB Draft choice a year ago. A native of Huffman, Texas, Listi slashed .312/.412/.502 with 18 homers, 25 doubles, 84 RBI, and 63 runs scored this year. A first baseman and outfielder on defense, Listi actually appeared in more games as a DH than at any defensive position.

Parkinson is currently ranked at #19 on the MLB.com list of top Phillies prospects. He ranked 18th on our own Phillies Nation top 20 Phillies prospects list published on August 8.

The well-respected prospect evaluator John Sickels of Minor League Ball commented in his August 22 review of the Phillies farm system that “Parkinson has gone from a Grade C into the B range somewhere with a brilliant season in A-Ball (1.43, 130/32 K/BB).”

Previous Paul Owens Award recipients include Wall of Famers Mike Lieberthal (1992) and Pat Burrell (1999). Also honored previously were 2008 World Series heroes Jimmy Rollins (1997), Ryan Madson and Chase Utley (both 2002), Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard (both 2003), and Howard again in 2004.

Current Phillies players to take home the honors include Maikel Franco (2013), J.P. Crawford (2014), Andrew Knapp (2015), Dylan Cozens and Rhys Hoskins (both 2016), and Scott Kingery (2017).

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Phillies name 2018 Paul Owens award recipients"

Phillies try to hold off two tough rivals as August unfolds

2018 Phillies hope to hang another flag in South Philly

A glance at the calendar reveals this to be the first weekend of August. That means we have now entered the normally steaming hot ‘dog days’ of summer.

Down in South Philly at Citizens Bank Park, the Philadelphia Phillies are taking on the division rival Miami Marlins in a four-game series. During this particular weekend, the Phillies are glancing back at their past.

The annual Alumni Weekend began with last night’s tribute to Shane Victorino. Tonight will feature the induction of two key figures in recent Phillies history to the franchise Wall of Fame. The general manager of the 2008 World Series champions, Hall of Famer Pat Gillick, will be honored. Also enshrined will be the late, great Roy Halladay.

On Sunday it will be the first full-blown reunion of that 2008 World Series championship team. Gillick and Victorino will be back for that 10th anniversary celebration along with two more Wall of Famers in Pat Burrell and manager Charlie Manuel. Numerous other players from that team will be present as well, including Brett Myers, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Ruiz, Jayson Werth, and many more.

For the first time in six years, honoring the past will not be the only source of excitement for Phillies fans. After a frustratingly long rebuilding program, the present-day Phillies are once again contenders.

The 2018 Phillies team enters tonight’s contest in first place in the National League East Division. Their 61-48 record comes out to a .560 winning percentage. The second place Atlanta Braves are 59-47, a half-game behind the Phillies with a .557 winning percentage.

But as you can see from the records of the two teams, the Braves actually have fewer losses than the Phillies. They have played three fewer games to this point in the schedule. Those games will be made up over the next three weeks as Atlanta will get little rest during the month.

Vince Velasquez pitched the Phillies past the Marlins on Friday night. As quoted by Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, Velasquez is enjoying this weekend’s celebrations of the team’s championship past, as well as the fan reactions.

“The whole excitement and hype going around the stadium generates the momentum that we thrive to have. It drove me to come out on top today and pitch a little better. My whole mentality was to attack hitters. But the fact that we saw fans get on their feet the way they do is a solid inspiration of what we’ll be having the next couple weeks, few months. It’s something I can’t wait for it to happen.”

The Braves will enjoy an off-day on Monday. But that will be followed by a Tuesday doubleheader at Washington as the Phillies two closest current division rivals square off in a huge four-game series. This begins a stretch of 22 games over 20 days before finally, on August 27, the Braves will get their next scheduled day off.

The Nationals have won four of the last six NL East crowns and are currently in third place. Due largely to injuries, the Nats have underachieved for much of the season.

While it has been a frustrating season in our nation’s capital, the Nationals have showed some signs of late that they may finally be getting healthy. With victories in six of their last eight games, they appeared to finally be pulling it together.

2008 Phillies first World Series reunion will take place without Chase Utley

Chase will be back for future 2008 reunions

Just a little more than a week from now the Philadelphia Phillies will return from a six-game road trip to Cincinnati and Boston. 

When they get back, the club has a big party weekend planned for the organization and its fans.

During a four-game long weekend series with the Miami Marlins from Thursday, August 2 through Sunday, August 5 the Phillies will hold their annual “Alumni Weekend“, paying homage to a number of heroes from the franchise’ past.

Those honors begin with the Friday night game during which the Phillies will fete former all-star Shane Victorino, who recently announced his formal retirement from Major League Baseball.

“The Flyin’ Hawaiian” spent eight of his dozen big league seasons in a Phillies uniform, including as the starting center fielder for the 2008 World Series champions. Victorino produced 998 hits, won three Gold Gloves, and was a two-time all-star during his time with the Phillies.

On Saturday night, the Phillies will induct two men to their Wall of Fame. The general manager of those 2008 world champions, Pat Gillick, will be inducted that night along with the late Roy Halladay.

The weekend concludes on Sunday with a 10th anniversary reunion of the memorable 2008 World Series championship Phillies team.

Returning for that day’s festivities will be a pair of Wall of Famers in manager Charlie Manuel and outfielder Pat Burrell. Also expected to return are players such as Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Brett Myers, Brad Lidge, and more.

One vitally important piece of that title-winning team who won’t be present is Chase Utley. He is now playing out his 16th and final season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will be hosting the current world champion Houston Astros that weekend.

“I am disappointed I am not going to be able to be here with all the guys,” said Utley per Evan Macy of The Philly Voice. “I’ve seen a handful of guys more recently and more guys I haven’t seen since that year. I look forward to sitting down and talking to them and seeing what they’re doing with their life.”

Utley, who is in town this week with the Dodgers for his final regular season visit to Citizens Bank Park, still keeps in close contact with Rollins, Werth, Howard, and others from his time with the Phillies according to Macy.

This will only be the first of what are sure to be numerous reunions of that unforgettable 2008 World Series championship team over the coming decade. At some point within these next few years there will be ceremonies honoring at least a handful more of those players as they are each added to that Wall of Fame.

One of those ceremonies will surely be for Utley himself, who over parts of thirteen years left an indelible mark on the team and in the hearts of its fans. 

Those fans will show up in droves to heap some more love on “The Man” on that night and will continue to visit his Wall of Fame plaque for decades to come.

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Chase Utley disappointed he won't be at 2008 Phillies reunion"