MLB Legacies: Tony Phillips
There is plenty of discussion among modern baseball fans and media about how to properly evaluate big league baseball players. Although we’ve come a long way in being able to assign a relatively fair number to a player’s total on-field contributions through the various iterations of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), even the most ardent stat heads agree there are many contributions a player can make to his team that are ….difficult to quantify.
Historically speaking, many fans feel certain players are underrated because they made contributions to their teams that couldn’t be measured with a number. Conversely, the analytically inclined among us feel many players don’t get their due respect precisely because we have measurements and numbers that tell us they were better players than we initially realized when compared to their contemporaries.
Today we’re going to talk about Tony Phillips, who I can tell you quite confidently, is vastly underrated by both fans who prefer intangibles, and fans who like to assign value through meticulous measurements. Let’s start with the value that is difficult to measure.
Tony Phillips was a switch hitter and with a career 112 wRC+ over 9,110 career PA. He had a seven season mid-career stretch with a 119 wRC+. Of course, we know that switch hitters are valuable. According to Baseball Reference, in 2023 a batter with the platoon advantage gains between 46 and 69 points in OPS, depending on the matchup. That’s a massive competitive advantage that a switch hitter’s manager has before and during every game. It makes it easier to fill out a lineup card as it’s easier to split up lefties and righties, and it makes life far more complex for the opposing manager when it comes time to match up relievers in the late innings, whether the switch hitter is in the lineup or looming on the bench as a possible pinch hitter. So although we can somewhat measure how much the individual benefits from being a switch hitter, it’s impossible to know how valuable that skill is to his manager and team over 162 games.
Similarly, the role of “utility player” is a role that’s very hard to assess, and I’d venture that we as fans underrate the impact a good hitter who can play virtually every position has on a team over 162 games. Phillips, if you’re curious, played at least 97 career games at seven different positions, but played his most common position of second base only 782 times out of his 2,161 career games (so only about a third of the time).
Generally, the utility player is viewed as a part timer who can give many of your starters a day off when necessary. Yet one who is good enough to play every day (as Phillips was) has far more impact than that, particularly when a starting regular position player gets injured.
Most MLB teams are designed similarly. They play their nine best players regularly, and the 10th best position player is one who may have a flaw or two that prohibits him from being a regular, but for the most part is a legitimate big-league player. Eventually you get to position player number thirteen on the roster who far more often than not is a fungible player, who you wouldn’t notice was replaced with a minor leaguer if you didn’t see the name and number on the jersey.
Mister roster spot 13 of 13 can be forced into regular duty when the starter who plays his position is injured. That can be a big blow to a team over the course of a few weeks or a month. Yet that situation – having to give a replacement-level player regular playing time due to another player’s injury – never happens if you have Tony Phillips on your team. A better than average hitter who can play every position competently, as Phillips was and could, allows a manager to put nine real big leaguers on the field every day even when a regular is injured.
For example, let’s say your starting center fielder gets injured, and he’ll be out for a month. Ideally, you’d like to get your next best player (the 10th best player on your team) who as we said, is usually a legitimate major leaguer, into the lineup in place of the injured player. But you can’t do that if he’s a third baseman who’s never played the outfield. Now you’re stuck playing the replacement-level player every day for no other reason than he was an outfielder in the minors.
But if your starting third baseman is Tony Phillips, who can play center field, you can put him in center field and get your 10th best player who can play third base in the lineup instead of the 13th roster spot guy in center every day. Over the course of a few weeks or a month having to play your worst player every day could really damage a team’s chances if they’re contending for the postseason. Again, that situation never comes up if someone like Tony Phillips on your roster, as even if he’s your starting third baseman, starting second baseman, starting right fielder, whatever – he can move to the injured player’s spot so you can get your next best player on the field instead of barrel bottom scraping.
Again, we can assign value to Phillips when he played each position, but we’ll never know the value he brought by allowing his team to avoid playing their worst player for an extended period when a starter is injured.
For those reasons alone Tony Phillips likely brought far more value to his teams than we realized or have the ability to measure. Now let’s get to what we can measure, because he was far better in that regard than he’s given credit for as well.
For the Statistically Inclined
As mentioned, Phillips could play every defensive position besides pitcher and catcher competently which brings measurable value, and he was a good player in the batter’s box, which we can also measure. Driven by an elite ability to control the strike zone* from both sides of the plate, he was a good player for Oakland in the eighties, but really hit his stride In Detroit after signing with them as a free agent prior to the 1990 season.
(*Generally, players who aren’t home run threats don’t draw many walks, yet Phillips’ career walk rate of 14.8% is the 10th best in MLB since divisional play began. And although his 160 career home runs are nothing to sneeze at, that’s 128 fewer than Bobby Abreu’s home run total, and Abreu had the next fewest bombs on the top ten walk rate list. For even more eye-opening perspective about strike zone control, since the advent of divisional play, only Wade Boggs has both more career walks and fewer career home runs than Phillips.)
In Phillips’ five seasons in Detroit from 1990 through 1994, he averaged a phenomenal 5.1 bWAR per season with remarkable consistency, posting between 4.7 and 5.6 each year, essentially giving Sparky Anderson an All-Star season every year. Yet not even in the strike shortened 1994 season when his 4.7 WAR in 114 only games (a 6.7 WAR pace over 162 games) was fifth best in the AL, did Phillips receive an All-Star nod at any point.
All told over that five season span, Phillips’ 25.3 bWAR was seventh best in MLB, amazingly trailing only Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken, Frank Thomas, Rickey Henderson and Ryne Sandberg. Future Hall of Famers Barry Larkin, Jeff Bagwell, Roberto Alomar, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn and Craig Biggio all played over that stretch and weren’t over the hill – and none of them was as valuable as Tony Phillips, without even factoring in the value from being a switch hitter who played all over the field.
Even if you want to expand the sample size through 1995 when Phillips moved on to California and then through 1996 when signed with the White Sox as a free agent, he was still not only one of baseball’s best players, but still produced more value than many future Hall of Famers did. From 1990 through 1995, Phillips 29.7 bWAR was eighth best in MLB, ranking ahead of 11 future Hall of Famers and from ’90 through ’96 he was 10th in MLB in bWAR with 32.9. That was better than too many great players with bigger names to list, but for some reference, second basemen (Phillips’ best position) Roberto Alomar and Craig Biggio, who were both in their prime during that span, fell short of Phillips’ seven season WAR total from 1990-1996.
He called it quits after a 1.7 WAR, 108 OPS+, 1999 season in Oakland at age 40. When it was all said and done, he’d produced 50.9 WAR with a 34.1 seven season peak WAR which ranks 25th all time among second basemen in the Hall of Fame ranking JAWS. That puts him just a tick behind Nellie Fox who is in Cooperstown, and Jeff Kent who many feel should be. It must also be noted that Cooperstown inductee Tony Lazzeri, who played in an eight- team, non-integrated league, falls short in both career and peak WAR to Tony Phillips.
That’s among second basemen. Phillips’ 50.9 career WAR is more than six more than Ben Zobrist’s 44.5 career WAR. As you’re reading Off the Bench Baseball, I don’t need to remind you that Zobrist – who had three All-Star appearances and finished in the top 20 in MVP voting three times – is considered the gold standard for the role and type of player under discussion – and even his considerable career value falls short of Phillips’.
It’s likely we under value versatile players who don’t spend their careers at primarily one position and Phillips’ legacy is hurt by his own talent. Also, Phillips was a very good hitter, but in part due to drawing so many walks (led the league twice) and the absence of big home run totals, he doesn’t have gaudy counting numbers. That said, 2,023 hits and 1,319 walks are nothing to sneeze at – only 11 players reached base more often than Phillips did from 1982-1999 – one is Barry Bonds and eight others are in Cooperstown.
I’m a strict hypothetical Hall of Fame voter and although 50.9 WAR is a monster of a career, it’s not Hall worthy. Sure, it exceeds the career total of many Hall of Famers including Kirby Puckett, Jim Rice and Lou Brock, but let’s not compound missteps.
Tony Phillips is vastly underrated as a baseball player both in ways that we can measure and those that we can’t. His career holds up against many players that we rightly consider Hall of Famers. His legacy has suffered as a result of his own talent.
-Jon Rimmer
