Phillies History: Looking Back on Phillies Rookies of the Year
By John Town
1964 Rookie of the Year 3B Dick Allen
1964 was the culmination of a steady rise from the cellar after the Phillies finished 47-107 in 1961. They finished the 1964 season with a 92-70 record and just one game back of the National League pennant. One player that propelled the Phillies to that winning record was Rookie of the Year Dick Allen.
Allen got a cup of coffee at the major-leagues in 1963 after 145 games in Triple-A. Allen started the next year at the major-league level and didn’t miss a single game. He posted impressive numbers in 1964 with a .318/.382/.557 line as he hit 38 doubles, a league-leading 13 triples, and 29 home runs. Allen also scored a league-leading 125 times.
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Allen’s lone area of struggle in his rookie season was strikeouts, as he led the league with 138 of them. However, if we looked at his plate discipline that year from a rate perspective, it was fairly decent. His 19.5% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate are both around average by Fangraphs’ standards.
Nearly every voter for the Rookie of the Year award selected Allen for the title.
Allen received 18 of 20 votes, with Rico Carty of the Milwaukee Braves and Jim Ray Hart of the San Francisco Giants each receiving one. Allen also received some down-ballot votes for NL MVP as he finished seventh in that voting.
Allen bounced between teams after being part of the notorious Curt Flood trade that helped spark free agency in baseball. He eventually landed in Chicago with the White Sox in 1972. He won the American League Most Valuable Player that season as he led the AL in home runs (37), RBI (113), walks (99), on-base percentage (.420), and slugging percentage (.603).
Allen wound up back in Philadelphia in 1975 after the team coaxed him out of retirement. He wasn’t the same player in his second go-round of Philadelphia as he lasted just two years before they let him go. He played just 54 games with the Athletics in 1977, and they released him just before the 1978 season started. Allen retired soon after.