During the decade between 2010 and 2019, the Philadelphia Phillies produced 19 All-Star seasons from 14 different players. Most of those players and seasons were memorable, but a few of them require a closer examination when we look back at the decade.
The 2010s were a complete inverse of the previous decade for the Phillies. Whereas they went from the bottom of the league to begin the 2000s to two-time NL champions to close out the decade, the 2010s saw them go from a powerhouse to an embarrassment back to a team on the rise. During this roller coaster decade, the Phils saw the final All-Star appearances of players like Chase Utley and Cole Hamels and the first All-Star appearance for Aaron Nola. Along the way, they sprinkled in a few others that fans many not recall as easily.
With fewer All-Star seasons in the 2010s than in previous decades, some of those Phillies players and seasons are less remembered as a result
None of these players are forgotten entirely, but their All-Star accolades largely have been. Even though their noteworthy seasons should be within recent memory, it's easy to get wrapped up in the present day and forget their individual success stories from just a few short years ago.
Plácido Polanco, 2011
No self-respecting Phillies fan has truly forgotten about Plácido Polanco, the only decent return piece that the Phillies received in the 2002 Scott Rolen trade. He was a valuable contributor to the team until 2005, when he was traded to the Tigers, ostensibly to finally clear a full-time slot for Chase Utley at second base. The preferable option probably would have been to just let Polanco play third base, but the dead weight of David Bell over at the hot corner was in year three of an ill-advised four-year contract.
At any rate, Polanco was great in Detroit, winning a Silver Slugger and a pair of Gold Gloves, making his first career All-Star team, and even nabbing the 2006 ALCS MVP Award. He would sign back with the Phillies after the 2009 season (to play third base, told you so) and it was during this return trip to Philadelphia that he became an All-Star for the club when he was named to the team in 2011. He didn't play in the game, unfortunately. Polanco stuck with the Phils through 2012, played one more year with the Marlins, and retired with a career .297 batting average and 2,142 hits. A solid career for the two-time All-Star.
Carlos Ruiz, 2012
Good ol' Chooch will certainly be remembered around here for a long time, but fewer will recall his lone All-Star appearance in 2012 that came just as the Phillies began their descent from perennial playoff team to the bottom of the league in a few short years. Ruiz had been a solid backstop for years, and his bat finally caught up to the rest of his skills in 2012 to gain him the attention necessary to be named to the NL squad for the first time.
Chooch delivered an absolutely scorching first half, and he was hitting .350(!) with 13 home runs and 46 RBI by the time the All-Star break rolled around. Ruiz went 0-for-1 in the game, catching the last four innings in relief of starting catcher Buster Posey.
Unfortunately, the second half of the season saw Ruiz miss a month with plantar fasciitis, and he ended the season with 16 homers, 68 RBI, and a .325 average. Still good numbers, but a far cry from the pace that he was on at the midpoint. Even more unfortunately, we found out after the season that Ruiz had tested positive for Adderall, resulting in a 25-game suspension to start the next season. As a result, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Chooch's best offensive season, but it shouldn't take away from his excellent, decade-long Phillies career.
Domonic Brown, 2013
Domonic Brown has become the poster child for one-year wonders around here, but the first half of his 2013 (specifically the month of May) was the stuff of legend. He was named the NL Player of the Week twice in a row and the NL Player of the Month for May. He had a 39-game stretch where he hit .325 with 17 home runs and 39 RBIs, and he was appropriately named an NL All-Star. People were also mad that he wasn't selected for the Home Run Derby. Brown went 0-for-1 in the game, but that was ok, because it was the first of many Midsummer Classics for the Phillies' budding star, right?
Sadly, you know the rest of the story.
Brown suffered a power outage in the second half, with just four homers and a pretty hollow .270 average in 44 games. He also had two brief injury stints. Seeking to put together a fully successful campaign in 2014, Brown struggled to the tune of .235 with 10 homers in 144 games.
Brown found himself back in the minors for a large chunk of 2015, but he was back up with the big club in September when his MLB career came to an abrupt end. In a clip that I feel I am contractually obligated to show anytime I discuss Brown, he flipped into the stands and suffered an injury while allowing an opposing inside-the-park home run. Just two years and change after being an All-Star, Brown had played his last big league game the day before he turned 28 years old. His one career All-Star appearance will make him a franchise footnote for generations to come.
Odúbel Herrera, 2016
You can't deny that Herrera was a talented player. It's a shame he didn't have any brains to match said talent.
The Phillies took a shot on Herrera in the Rule 5 Draft in 2014, meaning that they had to carry him on the MLB roster for the entire next season or else risk losing him back to Texas, who held his rights previously. The move paid off, as Herrera had a nice rookie season in 2015 even as the entire organization seemed to crumble around him. He continued his strong play in 2016, and he was named an NL All-Star as a result. He went 0-for-1 and played three innings of center field in the game, then would ultimately deliver the best season of his career in 2016 – .286 with 15 home runs, 49 RBIs, and 25 steals.
Herrera's 2017 season was similar in many respects, then things changed in 2018 when he produced career highs in home runs (22) and RBIs (71) but saw his batting average and OPS dip quite a bit while he also only attempted seven steals on the year. The cracks were beginning to show, and the bottom fell out during an unproductive start to the 2019 season, which was cut short when he was placed on administrative leave after a domestic violence arrest.
It seemed like we'd never hear from him again, but he somehow resurfaced and played 124 games for the Phillies in 2021 and 62 games in 2022. He was designated for assignment that August and never played in the majors again. It was a steep fall from grace for a player who looked like he could have been a valuable contributor for a long time.
Pat Neshek, 2017
There is no greater ignominy related to the MLB All-Star Game than to have your lone representative be a middle reliever. It means your team stinks, and that's exactly what happened with the Phils in 2017 when Pat Neshek got the All-Star call to fulfill the "every team needs an All-Star" mandate. He did have a sub-1.00 ERA through June, so it was mostly deserved, I suppose.
Neshek got to pitch the second inning of the All-Star Game that year, and he put up a scoreless frame. The Phillies traded him to Colorado later that month for a whole bunch of nothing, then re-signed him in the offseason and saw him pitch only 42 1/3 innings over two injury-plagued seasons that wrapped up his career. His 2017 All-Star appearance was the fourth entry in what would eventually be six straight seasons where the Phillies had exactly one All-Star, which wasn't surprising at the time because of the state of the team. It really makes you appreciate seasons like 2024, when the Phils sent a franchise-record eight players to the game.
Thanks to recent successes, this decade's Phillies will blow past the teams of the 2010s in terms of total number of All-Star seasons in the next year or two. Last decade started with such promise before completely bottoming out until a few rays of sunlight appeared at the very end. The crater in the middle is a black hole of fan enjoyment that didn't have much optimism outside of some of the All-Star seasons we've discussed. In the end, however, let's applaud all of our Phillies All-Stars for their notable achievements no matter the team situation.