Phillies Madness: Rd. 2 of the All-Time Phillies Bracket

1 Mike Schmidt vs 17 Johnny Callison

There really is no contest in this one and it could be the second unanimous vote in our poll thus far.

Johnny Callison had a respectable, long career with the Phillies with a .271/.338/.457 line, 185 home runs, 666 runs batted in, 774 runs scored, 1,438 hits and a 122 OPS+ in 10 years.

Among all players in franchise history he’s eighth with a 39.5 WAR and is in the top-20 for nearly every offensive category in team history.

Then, there’s Michael Jack Schmidt. The greatest player in franchise history and the greatest third baseman in the history of baseball.

Where do you start with Schmidt’s numbers? He leads all third basemen in baseball history with 548 home runs and is ninth all-time in home runs by a Hall of Famer.

Schmidt resides at the top of 22 all-time lists in Philadelphia Phillies history, including home runs, WAR, games played, plate appearances, RBI, walks and extra base hits. Until recently, he was the all-time hits leader until Jimmy Rollins surpassed him.

24 Greg Luzinski vs 8 Cole Hamels

One of the great home run hitters in franchise history matched up with one of the great pitchers in franchise history. Two critical pieces of their respective World Series runs and both fan favorites.

Greg Luzinski ranks seventh in franchise history in home runs with 253 and 12th in RBIs with 811. Inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame in 1998, Luzinski was a valuable power bat in one of the greatest eras of baseball in the 137 years of playing in Philadelphia.

Then, there’s Hollywood Hamels. The second-greatest left-handed pitcher in Phillies history. The kid who carried the pitching staff to a World Series win.

Cole Hamels ranks among the Phillies top-five in career stats in 11 categories and is sixth all-time with 114 wins. Currently, Hamels, Steve Carlton, and Robin Roberts are the only pitchers in Phillies history with 100 wins and 1,800 strikeouts.

He’s got a no-hitter and a combined no-hitter on his resume along with 1,844 strikeouts.

13 Dick Allen vs 29 Carlos Ruiz

The upset of Carlos Ruiz over Grover Cleveland Alexander came with some heat on social media, but hey, sometimes the 16 seed beats the 1 seed.

Now, the fan favorite catcher faces one of the greatest power hitters in Phillies history.

Dick Allen had a monstrous rookie campaign for Philadelphia in 1964 and was an MVP candidate at the age of 22.

Four additional strong seasons followed for Allen in Philadelphia, averaging 34 home runs per 162 games and a .300 batting average in his first stint with Philadelphia.

Allen remains one of the franchise’s all-time power hitters, remaining in the top-10 in home runs, third in slugging and seventh in oWAR.

Carlos Ruiz would lose a home run derby to Dick Allen on any day of the week. Allen hit 280 more home runs, drove in 704 more runs, and had nearly double as many hits as Ruiz with over 900 more.

Ruiz’s 21.8 WAR is 27th in team history and his 10.4 dWAR is eight-best among all Phillies, though the best among all catchers in Phillies history.  Ruiz caught four no-hitters, including Roy Halladay’s perfect game, the most no-hitters caught by a catcher in baseball history,

19 Garry Maddox vs 30 Roy Halladay

Two different generations with equally great, unique talents meet here in round two.

Roy Halladay was a workhorse in an era where being one was rare.

Just in his first year with the Phillies, Halladay was named an All-Star, threw a perfect game, a postseason no-hitter and unanimously won the NL Cy Young award.

Doc would lead the league in wins, shutouts, complete games, innings pitched, strikeout-to-walk ratio, and walks per nine innings.

Halladay will be just the 11th player in baseball history to have a number retired by multiple franchises.

If Halladay was the greatest pitcher of his era, Garry Maddox was equally as great as a defender in the outfield, earning the nickname “Secretary of Defense.”

Maddox is the best defensive center fielder in franchise history with an 11.1 dWAR, seventh-best in team history.

Playing 1,328 games in Philadelphia, Maddox averaged more than a hit per game while stealing more than 22 bags in his first five seasons.

7 Jimmy Rollins vs 10 Curt Schilling

Jimmy Rollins and Curt Schilling just missed being teammates in 2000 when the Phillies won just 65 games under Terry Francona in his final season in Philadelphia. Schilling was traded on July 26, 2000, to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Omar Daal, Nelson Figueroa, Travis Lee, and Vicente Padilla.

Rollins would make his major league debut on Sept. 17, 2000, going 2-5 with a triple, two runs scored, and a stolen base.

Fast-forward 14 years and Rollins is the all-time hits leader in Phillies history and the only post-Deadball Era player in Phillies history with 2,000 hits and 400 stolen bases. Rollins and Mike Schmidt are the only players in Phillies history with 200 home runs and 400 doubles.

Rollins rates in the top-10 in 26 career categories in Phillies history, including hits, doubles, home runs, WAR, games, played, at-bats, stolen bases and RBI.

Schilling would go on to win three World Series and finish second in the Cy Young three times. He wasn’t necessarily “homegrown” after starting his career in Baltimore and Houston, but Philadelphia is where he grew a reputation for being an All-Star pitcher.

Schilling ranks fourth in strikeouts per nine innings, fifth in pitching wins above replacement, strikeouts and strikeout-to-walk ratio, seventh in wins, starts, and WHIP among all Phillies pitchers.

Unfortunately, Schilling was never the Hall of Fame-caliber player he turned out to be while he was with the Phillies. When he does get into the Hall of Fame, it’ll be interesting to see if he goes in with a Phillies, Red Sox, or Diamondbacks hat. He did win two championships with Boston and grew his postseason legacy there.

5 Richie Ashburn vs 12 Bobby Abreu

This second round matchup pits two of the greatest outfielders in Phillies history against one another.

First, we’ll start with the greatest outfielder, second-greatest hitter, and greatest color commentator in Phillies history, Richie “Whitey” Ashburn.

Over 12 seasons in Philadelphia Whitey has a .311/.394/.388 line with 2,217 hits, 1,114 runs scored, 499 RBI, 22 home runs, and 2,764 total bases.

Ashburn won two batting titles, was named to six All-Star rosters, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame alongside Mike Schmidt in 1995.

Bobby Abreu came to the Phillies four decades after Ashburn left for the Cubs.

In nine years with the Phillies, Abreu had 1,474 hits, a .928 OPS, 139 OPS+, 195 home runs, 814 runs batted in, 891 runs scored and 2,491 total bases.

If you compare their numbers only in Philadelphia against each other, here’s what you get.

Ashburn: 2,217 hits, 1,114 runs scored, 499 RBI, 22 home runs, .311 average, 199 SB

Abreu: 1,474 hits, 891 runs scored, 814 RBI, 195 home runs, .303 average, 254 SB

Where Abreu beats out Ashburn is the run production and speed, but Ashburn had more hits, Granted, Ashburn played more than 400 additional games with the Phillies compared to Abreu. Had he stayed with the Phillies for the entirety of his 18 year career, some of Abreu’s numbers are close to Ashburn’s.

Whitey only has 104 more hits, a batting average three points higher, and more “bold type” on his stats. Power wasn’t his game, so Abreu walks away with much better numbers there.

2 Steve Carlton vs 15 Jim Bunning

If we had taken this bracket and done the traditional 64, these two might be meeting each other in the semi-finals. In our current format of going with the top-30 players in franchise history, they meet in the second round.

There were no better pitchers in their respective eras. Jim Bunning won 224 games and was a nine-time All-Star in his 17 seasons with the Phillies, Tigers, Dodgers, and Pirates.

Jim Bunning put together three consecutive years with 19 wins and had two more double digit win seasons as a Phillie in his six seasons with the club. With the Phillies Bunning had a 2.93 ERA with 65 complete games, 23 shutouts, 1.111 WHIP and a 3.64 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 226 games and 1520.2 innings pitched.

The former U.S. Senator ranks fourth in Phillies history for WHIP, is fifth in shutouts, sixth in strikeout-to-walk ratio and seventh in strikeouts.

Steve Carlton remains one of, if not the, greatest left-handed pitchers in baseball history. Among all southpaws, he’s second in wins with 329, second in strikeouts with 4,136, and third in shutouts with 55.

When it comes to the Phillies, Carlton is the franchise leader in career wins, strikeouts, and starts. He won four Cy Youngs in Philadelphia, a Triple Crown in 1972, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994 with all but 20 votes.

11 Ryan Howard vs 6 Chase Utley

Two of the greatest players in franchise history and the greatest ever to play their respective positions. One of the toughest matchups in this bracket emerges with Chase Utley vs Ryan Howard.

Howard emerged as one of the greatest power hitters in franchise history, now second all-time in home runs with 382, third in RBI with 1,194 and fourth in extra-base hits with 680.

The Big Peace would finish in the top-five for the MVP for four consecutive years with three top-three finishes. During that stretch, Howard had no fewer than 45 home runs and led the league in home runs twice. Howard also led the league in RBIs three times and drove in at least 136 runs.

En route to a Hall of Fame career, Howard’s achillies gave out in the final game of the 2011 season. Had he stayed healthy, maybe come up a season earlier and kept his season-average 39 home runs he’d be looking at a spot in Cooperstown.

Utley was a much more all-around player whose career was also derailed by injuries, in his case, bad knees.

Utley’s career as a full-time player started with four seasons of at least 100 RBI and hit at least 20 home runs in five consecutive seasons. He also surpassed the 30 home run mark three times.

He’d make five straight All-Star teams and won four consecutive Silver Slugger Awards.

During his 2005-09 run Utley averaged (per 162 games) 189 hits, 43 doubles, 32 home runs, 110 RBI, and had a .301 average. Project that over 15 seasons and he’s also being inducted into the Hall of Fame with nearly 3,000 hits and nearly 500 home runs.

Here’s how Utley and Howard’s numbers in Philadelphia stack up against each other.

Howard: 382 home runs, 1,475 hits, 277 doubles, 1,194 RBI, .258 batting average

Utley: 233 home runs, 1,623 hits, 346 doubles,  916 RBI, .282 batting average

Utley and Howard played nearly as many games as each other, Howard playing just 21 more games.