Phillies: Who’s greater, Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley?

When compiling the greatest Phillies of all-time, finding a spot for Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley isn’t hard, but how to rank them is nearly impossible

We’ve embarked on the treacherous journey to compile the 50 greatest players in Phillies history here at TBOH. In that discussion the impossible task of choosing which legends from the 2008 team belong in the top-10.

Even more impossible is deciding how to rank two of the greatest Phillies of all-time: Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley.

The double-play duo both fall within the top-eight of my list and my co-editor’s lists, and we each have them ranked in a different order compared to the other.

Utley’s career was so plagued by knee injuries, and he may have lost around 600 plate appearances during the 2011-12 seasons. Despite the injury, he finished his career fourth in franchise history with a 61.8 WAR, second to Mike Schmidt among hitters. He’s also second to Schmidt in defensive WAR, much closer here than as a hitter.

While playing the ninth-most games in franchise history Utley ranks in the top-10 in productive offensive stats including hits, home runs, RBI, doubles, stolen base percentage, and WPA.

Utley ranks high across the board, but he’s in the top-five on very few of those lists. On all the analytical stats he ranks in the five, but on traditional stats, his presence isn’t as consistent.

He’s fifth in doubles and just 10 home runs short of Chuck Klein for fifth all-time.

Utley ranks above Rollins in WPA, Base-Out Runs Added, Situational Wins Added, oWAR, and dWAR.

In the trophy case, Utley has three more Silver Sluggers and three more All-Star selections than Rollins.

Where Rollins has a major advantage there is his 2007 MVP award and four Gold Gloves. Utley was criminally withheld from winning a Gold Glove in his career, finishing behind Orlando Hudson and Brandon Phillips.

If not for a broken hand in 2007 Utley may have beaten out Rollins for the MVP. Unfortunately, he played in a league with Albert Pujols, who won three MVP’s during Utley’s peak seasons.

Rollins takes the lead on Utley not just in the trophy case but on the all-time leaderboard as the franchise’s all-time hits leader.

Like Utley, Rollins is among the top-10 for most of the categories for offense, but the analytics don’t favor him like they do Utley.

Rollins is not just the all-time hits leader, but also the leader in doubles and at-bats. He’s second all-time in games played, plate appearances, stolen bases, total bases, and extra-base hits.

Unlike Utley, J-Roll remained healthy for most of his career, but soft muscle injuries did catch up to him.

Rollins also leads Utley in “boldface,” also known as league-leader stats. Outside of hit by pitches Utley only led the league in a category once, leading the league with 131 runs scored in 2006. Rollins led the league in an offensive category 14 times, 5 of which came during his MVP season.

Most of Rollins’ boldface numbers are either health or speed related, and all came in his first nine full seasons. Four times he led the league in triples and once in stolen bases and runs scored. Four times he led the league in at-bats and three times in plate appearances.

Like some on Twitter said, picking between the two is like choosing which kid you like more. I think Utley rates higher as a more complete player who is backed on paper by analytics and by fans for heart and hustle.

Rollins holds the lead thanks to his awards and all-time rankings, most notably as the all-time hits leader. Those put him slightly over Utley, one of my all-time favorite players, but being the all-time hits leader with an MVP has unique weight.