2015 Philadelphia Phillies 10th Anniversary: Part 2 - One-Year Blunders

In Part 2 of our three-piece look at the 2015 Philadelphia Phillies on their 10th anniversary, we continue our examination of the final transition from the best era in team history to a dark period that didn't see them make the playoffs again until the next decade.

ICYMI: Read the first installment of this series, 2015 Philadelphia Phillies 10th Anniversary: Part 1 - End of an Era

In addition to seeing the Philadelphia Phillies shed the final vestiges of their veteran core, the 2015 season saw them bring aboard a number of other players whose tenures in town were brief and extremely unsuccessful as the club stumbled through a 99-loss campaign.

After back-to-back 73 win-seasons in 2013 and 2014, the Phillies still entered 2015 with some hope of returning to contention. They figured that their seasoned veterans, coupled with upcoming young players such as Domonic Brown and Maikel Franco, would give them a shot at being competitive, with room to grow in future years.

And, as with any team, you also have to supplement with short-term additions that can help the club during any given season. The Phillies brought in numerous such players prior to 2015. Let's just say that none of it really went according to plan.

The 2015 Phillies featured numerous 'one and done' players who failed to make their mark during a lost season

The rotation featured two such newcomers in veterans Chad Billingsley and Aaron Harang. Following the 2014 season, the Phils let longtime rotation fixture Kyle Kendrick walk into free agency, and they also lost A.J. Burnett, whose one season in town saw him make a major league-leading 34 starts while compiling a major-league leading 18 losses. Harang and Billingsley didn't necessarily represent an upgrade over Kendrick and Burnett, but the organization figured they could at least steady the ship behind ace Cole Hamels and alongside the returning Jerome Williams.

Billingsley was a calculated gamble, as he was coming off of Tommy John surgery early in 2013. He missed all of 2014 as well after his elbow flared up during rehab, and so the Los Angeles Dodgers allowed him to enter free agency. So, the Phillies scooped him up with the expectation that he would get a late start to the season.

Unfortunately, the team was already 10-17 and dead in the water by the time he debuted in Phillies pinstripes on May 5. After his third start, he hit the shelf again and was out until July. During his fourth start back from injury (so, his seventh overall with the Phils), he exited early when his surgically repaired elbow started bothering him. He never pitched in the majors again. Oh, and his ERA that year was 5.84. So much for that.

While Billingsley's health prevented him from contributing to the rotation, Aaron Harang's Phillies experience went to the other end of the spectrum. Taking the mound 29 times that year, the 37-year-old Harang delivered a 4.86 ERA and a 6-15 record over 172 1/3 innings. The six wins actually tied for the club lead, which really spoke to how futile the team was that year. Incidentally, the other pitchers to post six wins were Hamels (traded in July), Aaron Nola (did not debut until July), and reliever Ken Giles.

On the hitting side of things, the Phillies' most notable addition to the lineup was veteran outfielder Jeff Francoeur. It was a dirt cheap deal for the aging Francoeur, so you can't really blame the Phillies for taking a flyer on him. But the end result was a negative WAR season in which Francoeur's most notable contribution may have been pitching two full innings in a stupendous loss that we'll discuss further in Part 3 of this series. The Phillies got a season out of him, and then he signed back with his hometown Braves in the offseason.

The Phillies trotted out 14 different pitchers to start a game in 2015. This included a "blink and you'll miss it" five-game cameo by former all-star Kevin Correia, who went 0-3 with a 6.56 ERA and never pitched again after that. Dustin McGowan also started one game and made 13 other appearances in relief for the 2015 Phils, putting up a 6.94 ERA. He managed to milk a few million dollars out of the Marlins after that season, and he pitched much more effectively in a relief role for them for two years until he retired.

The 2015 season also featured the final appearances as a Phil for the very polarizing Ben Revere and oft-injured outfielder Grady Sizemore. Revere somehow managed to lead the NL in hits in 2014, but the Phillies could only get two throw-away minor leaguers for him when they traded Revere to Toronto at the deadline. Sizemore was underwhelming in 60 games with the team in 2014, and it was a mistake from the jump to bring him back for 2015. He was predictably released after two underwhelming months. These guys weren't "one and done," but their 2015 seasons go hand-in-hand with the other moves made by the front office that season, all of which seemed to fall well short of expectations.

When you have a season as disastrous as the Phillies did in 2015, there's always going to be a lot of turnover from one year to the next. And so it's unsurprising that 2015 saw so many "one and done" players for the team, in addition to the final Phillies appearances of non-entities like Sean O'Sullivan, David Buchanan and the colossally disappointing Phillippe Aumont.

All told, 50 different players pulled on the uniform for the Phillies in 2015, and it's prime territory for informed fans to play "remember some guys" because most of them made a minimal or negative impact on the season. 2015 also served as a sad starting point for a crop of failed prospects, reminding us that there are no sure things when we discuss the future wave of potential Phils stars in our midst.

In the third and final installment of this anniversary series, we'll look at how things completely fell apart around manager Ryne Sandberg to set the Phillies up for several more years of mediocrity. Once again, even when the 2025 edition of the Phillies has its struggles, let's remember how far things have come for the franchise in a decade.

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