Congratulations to the Phillies, Who, Statistically Speaking, Have the Worst Bench in All of Baseball
via FanGraphs
The Phillies are just one giant sad trombone right now.
Email from reader Shane:
Worst bench in baseball! Where are Eric Bruntlett, Greg Dobbs and Geoff Jenkins when you need them.
August Fagerstrom, writing FanGraphs, puts together the best and worst benches in baseball. You’ll never guess who’s last:
30. Phillies
WAR: -2.5
Biggest offenders: Freddy Galvis (-0.9), Tony Gwynn (-0.7), Cesar Hernandez (-0.7).
For some reason this just doesn’t come as a huge surprise. I mean, it probably should. The Phillies are one of the oldest teams in the MLB, with an average age of 30, so conventional wisdom would be to assemble a strong bench to prepare for the frailty of having an old roster. But it just doesn’t come as a huge surprise. Seems like the Phillies have been finding themselves at the bottom of a lot of lists lately. Tony Gwynn Jr. lucked into some playing time due to Domonic Brown being literally the worst player in baseball this year, but wasn’t much better. If there’s a positive to take from all of this, it’s that none of these players play for the Phillies anymore! At the same time, it also means that Reid Brignac, Andres Blanco and Grady Sizemore do.
I never thought we’d long for the days of double-lettered delights such as Dobbs, Geoff and Bruntlett, but alas, Ruben Amaro has assembled one of the most pathetic teams in sports. His inability to plan for the future is outdone only by his inability to construct a complete Major League roster. Wooooomp, wahhhhhhhhh.
