#79T Dave Palmer

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Palmer came to and left Philly as a free agent, pitching one below-average season with them. I'm pretty sure he's the guy who tripped badly on third base for them--anybody remember?

#71T Mickey Morandini

It seems quite fitting to be writing the copy for this card on the morning of the day when the Phillies will play their first NLCS game since 1993 when, you guessed it, Morandini was their starting 2B.

I don't usually comment on the actual physical appearance of players but, man oh man, what an ugly photo! Sort of reminds me of Lenny Dykstra, actually.

IMPACT FACTOR 5/10: Morandini was a pretty good player for the Phillies. He was always good on defense, and by 1994 made himself into an average player on the offensive side of the ball (not bad for a 2B.) Eventually, the Phils traded him away for Doug Glanville, a pretty poor offensive player who was nevertheless good enough to start for the Phillies in CF for several years. Did you know that Glanville's middle name is Metunwa?

Morandini was one of the Phillies' best draft choices in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

#30T Pat Combs

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Combs stuck with the Phillies for parts of 4 years. In 1989, he went 4-0 in a September call-up, giving Phillies fans a bit of hope that the franchise might be coming out of their dark period. After a mostly-mediocre 1990, he showed more promised in September of that year, with 4 straight wins. But that was it for his major-league success. However, I do think the excitement he caused did help out the Phillies organization a little bit, bringing back some of the fans.

#18T Phil Bradley

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Bradley cost the Phillies a lot to acquire, including Mike Jackson, who became one of the top relievers in baseball. He had one reasonable year with the Phillies, and then was traded away. Ken Howell came back to the Phillies, who pitched OK for them.

Bradley got robbed of a bit of history. Late in 1988, Bradley homered leading off what was supposed to be the first night game at Wrigley Field, but rain washed the game away.

#783 Ron Roenicke

Why this card is awesome: Because it's a decent shot showing an alternate jersey for the Phillies, plus we get a free half-shot of Greg Gross.

Cool stat: In 1986, Roenicke amassed one of the highest RBI totals for a guy with at most 275 ABs and a .356 SLG. In part, that's because he drew a ton of walks and actually played more than it might seem.

Just for fun, I looked up to see if he had any bases-loaded walks in 1986, and he had two, including a walkoff walk against Ken Howell. That came after they walked STEVE JELTZ.

#781 Keith Hughes

Why this card is awesome: Because this guy was once really a prospect. What about his minor league numbers (see the back) suggest that he should have been?



See? In 1988, Score thought he was a prospect.

Cool stat: Hey, Hughes did have 7 games with more than 1 hit, at least. Wow.

#756 Mike Maddux

Why this card is awesome: Because, hey, there's Steve Bedrosian in the background!

Mike Maddux had it a bit rough as an MLB ballplayer. He was actually a pretty good pitcher, but is remembered much worse than he was due to his much better brother. (In case you're living under a rock, his brother is one Greg Maddux.)

Cool stat: Maddux is one of just 18 relievers to pitch at least 600 innings from age 29 season onward while compiling no more than 20 saves. Over that part of his career, he had a very nice 112 ERA+. The fact that so few guys lasted long enough to get 600 IP tells you that they either became closers or weren't good enough to stay in the league. The guys on this list were probably not utilized as best as they could have been given the level of their talent. Like I said, Mike Maddux had it a bit rough. Not as good as his brother, but WAY better than most people think.

#731 Rick Schu

Why this card is awesome: Because, loyal readers, as we are getting very close to the end of this set, you should now be able to figure out on your own why THIS card is awesome. Who can be the first to realize why? There's a very good reason why it is awesome.

Schu was involved in a very interesting trade:

March 21, 1988: Traded by the Philadelphia Phillies with Keith Hughes and Jeff Stone to the Baltimore Orioles for a player to be named later and Mike Young. The Baltimore Orioles sent Frank Bellino (minors) (June 14, 1988) to the Philadelphia Phillies to complete the trade.

All four of the big-leaguers involved were often viewed as flame-outs. Schu was supposed to take over 3B from Mike Schmidt when he moved across the diamond, but it never worked out. (And the Phillies didn't have another great 3B until Scott Rolen--sorry Charlie Hayes.) Keith Hughes was, for some odd reason, always considered a prospect but did practically nothing in MLB. Jeff Stone we've talked about already. And Mike Young had that one really good year that he never came close to repeating.

Cool stat: Why all the complaining about Rick Schu? He was totally reliable. Between 1985 and 1990, you could always count on him for 7 or 8 homers.

Hall of Fame count: 45

#705 Juan Samuel

Why this card is awesome: Because it's another Phillie, and another crap photo from Topps. I mean, sure, a closeup of Juan Samuel is nice. But this guy was one of the star players for the then-lowly Philly franchise. Couldn't they give any one of their decent players a decent action-shot card?

Cool stat: In 1990, Samuel had a terrible year stealing bases, getting caught 20 times versus only 38 successful steals. That's one of the worst totals for a guy with 40 or fewer SB over the last 30 years. He shouldn't have been allowed to run. Sabermetric data clearly shows that stealing bases at about 75% success rate is neutral in terms of how much it helps your team score. A guy really needs to be at about 80% for it to be worthwhile (although this ignores the leverage of specific situations.) Anybody on that list above with at least 20 CS had a success rate below 67%. TO be fair, Samuel's 1984 ranks in the other direction. He had one of the lowest CS totals for a guy with at least 70 SB.

By the way, Harold Reynolds' career SB% was a lousy 64%. Even Samuel was at 73%. Rickey Henderson was 80% Lou Brock was 75%.

#669 Phillies Leaders

Why this card is awesome: Because the royal screwing of the Phillies continues. Almost all of the individual player cards are bad photos, and now here's one featuring Lance Parrish, who's at least a fairly good player, and somebody else.

Who is that somebody else, you ask? Well it's Mike Ryan, a one-time player for the Phillies who was a coach for them for most of the 1980s. Now don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see players from history on cards. But could they really not find a better photo? One at least where we can actually see these two guys, or maybe one featuring some of the better players on the Phillies team? Like Schmidt, or Juan Samuel, or Von Hayes, or Chris James, or Steve Bedrosian, or Kent Tekulve?

So, by the way, I was wrong when I said that I thought the Brewers Leaders card was the only one in the set to prominently feature a person who wasn't a current manager or player. This one does too.

Cool stat: Still, I'll take this opportunity to comment a bit on Mike Ryan. He finished under .200 for his career, but he hit well off a few HOF pitchers, including Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, and Tom Seaver.

#651 Mike Jackson

Why this card is awesome: Because this is yet another nice hidden gem rookie card from this set. This was Mike Jackson's first Topps card, although he had a 1987 Fleer Update card and a 1987 Donruss The Rookies card.

Jackson had a mostly-brilliant 17-year career as one of the top relievers in baseball. He had a couple of great years as the Indians closer, too.

I have to mention, though, that this card continues the trend of the Phillies getting royally screwed in this set. Jackson's card is yet another one that makes the player look like a dopey minor leaguer. And just wait until you see the Phillies Leaders card coming up shortly.

Cool stat: Only 7 guys have ever had a season with 40 saves, a WHIP under 0.9, and an ERA+ of 300 or better. Jackson, of course, was one of them.

#626 Glenn Wilson

Why this card is awesome: Because Wilson is a symbol of how bad the Phillies were in the mid-to-late 1980s. He was often a featured player for the Phillies, such as getting their all-star selection in 1985 when Mike Schmidt had a slow start. Wilson was certainly not a terrible player, but an all-star he was not. Another sore point for the Phillies is the trade on the back, acquiring Wilson for both Willie Hernandez and Dave Bergman. A year after that trade, Hernandez was MVP and CY and the Tigers won the World Series. The Phillies still sucked.

Cool stat: WIlson had one of 15 seasons in the 1980s with at least 100 RBI but fewer than 20 HR. Our man Bill Buckner did that 3 times himself in the 1980s.

#600 Mike Schmidt

Why this card is awesome: Because I hate this damn card. Schmidt is one of my most favorite players, and this card came after his last great year. Do they get a nice action shot of him batting? No. A great posed shot? No. They get a nonsense shot of him wearing his warmup jacket and fooling around with a bat. Bah.

Cool stat: I love Schmidt and could write about him all day. For one thing, his actual stats were 548 HR and 1595 RBI. But the Phillies were bad most years he was there, leading to neutralized totals of 593 HR and 1711 RBI. I assume that if he had 593 HR, he would have stayed active for the rest of 1989 and gotten to 600 career, which would have made him only the 4th guy to achieve it at that time.

Anyway, Phillies' management needs to get some credit for what happened in 1973. Since 1901, only 18 times has a player 23 years old or younger gotten 300 or more at-bats in a season and batted under .200. Look at that list: lots of recognizable names, but nobody else with a career anywhere close to Schmidt's. Bobby Byrne, Joe Dugan, Bill Wambsganss, and yes, even Spike Owen, went on to do some good things on the field. But none of those guys was even half the player Schmidt turned out to be.

Mike Schmidt was one of the finest ballplayers to ever step onto a diamond, and if you don't believe me, look at all the text in italics on the back of his card. (Or note that his HOF Monitor is 249.5, and a likely HOF is 100 or greater.)

Hall of Fame count: 38

#572 Chris James

Why this card is awesome: Because that, my friends, is a level swing. Look at that bat--damn near parallel to the ground. You don't see that too often. Plus, another mention on the back of Mr. Gassaway!

James was part of two fairly lopsided trades. First, the Phillies traded him away and got John Kruk, a key member of their 1993 NL championship team plus Randy Ready. Later, he was packaged along with Sandy Alomar Jr. and Carlos Baerga by the Padres in order to get Joe Carter. Carter was very overrated, and Alomar and Baerga were two of the biggest reasons why the Indians became playoff contenders in the 1990s. (Carter was of of course traded with Sandy's brother Roberto just a year later.)

Cool stat: James once had 3 extra base hits in a game, a double, triple, and a homer. Unfortunately he missed the cycle by just a single. Here's a piece about missing the cycle by a single.

#543 Kent Tekulve

Why this card is awesome: Because, hot damn, what a great photo of Tekulve. It captures him with those awesome photogray sunglasses about to go into his submarine delivery.

Cool stat: I just love Tekulve. He was a hell of a pitcher. Here's a small piece I wrote on him about most losses in games where the pitcher didn't allow any earned runs. Here's one about how good he still was at age 40. And did you know he once played in the outfield in a game in which he also pitched?

#518 Greg Gross

Why this card is awesome: Because of the great shot Topps got of the jumbo helmet the Phillies had specially made in order to fit Gross' humongous eyeglasses in there. Compare to this, this, this, this, and the mother of them all, this.

Cool stat: Greg Gross is widely remembered as one of the best pinch-hitters of his era. I'm not sure so sure that's the case. Check out his career splits and you'll see that his line as a PH was .240/.362/.282. That's a .282 SLG over 733 PAs, with 0 homers, 15 2B, 5 3B, and just 64 RBI. Poo. Since 1970, Gross has the 3rd-most games with a pinch-hit.

#494 Wally Ritchie

Why this card is awesome: Because, hey look, it's another Cincinnati Reds logo front and center where it doesn't belong! If I recall, Veterans Stadium had really large instances of other teams' logos, so that may have made it really tough to avoid getting them in the shot.

Cool stat: From 1988 to 1992, Ritchie is one of 36 pitchers to have at least 4 seasons with 26 IP and an ERA+ of 113 or better. And he did that despite pitching only 4 of those seasons. He wasn't in the majors in 1989 and 1990. And he met those criteria every single year of his career!

#468 Darren Daulton

Why this card is awesome: Because I believe Daulton is peeking way off to the side at what I would guess is the Mayan calendar.

Cool stat: From an offensive standpoint, Daulton was the top catcher in the game for 1992-1993. Each year, he had 20+ HR and 100+ RBI, while only one other catcher had a season like that in either year (Mike Piazza in 1993.) He was even better in 1994 until his season ended early due to injury.

#440 Steve Bedrosian

Why this card is awesome: Because this is one of the best Phillies cards in the set, given that they aren't just posing on a minor league field, like Carman or Frohwirth or Thompson or Toliver.

Cool stat: Bedrock gave up 4 career game-ending homers to some pretty good hitters.

#415 Don Carman

Why this card is awesome: Because all the Phillies cards in this set make them look like minor leaguers. And that almost looks like a windmill behind Carman on the left.

Cool stat: Carman had sort of a sad, gradual career trajectory. He had a great rookie year in 1985 with the Phils, going 9-4 in 86.1 IP with a 178 ERA+. He was solid again in 1986, at 10-5 in 134.1 IP with a 120 ERA+. By 1987, he was just a bit above league average, at 13-11 in 211 IP with a 101 ERA+. (Didn't help, I'm sure, the that Phillies were bad.) In 1988, he flip-flopped to the other side of average, at 10-14 in 201.1 IP with an 83 ERA+. His WHIP went continuously up every year too. And it was downhill from there. A very slow but linear decline.

Carman was an absolutely horrid hitter. In fact, since 1901, he has the second-fewest career hits for a player with at least 200 ABs. Or, another way to look at it: since 1901, he has the fewest times on base for a player with at least 230 career PAs. But at least he never tripped over third base.