Philadelphia Phillies Tommy Joseph Showing Off His Might
By Jason Burke
The Philadelphia Phillies have been a pleasant surprise this season, and while they likely won’t be participating in the postseason festivities, there have been some nice bright spots for the club, like 25-year-old first baseman Tommy Joseph.
Tommy Joseph was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies by the team that drafted him in the San Francisco Giants at the age of 20 after clubbing 16 and 22 home runs in his first two seasons in the organization. Having already made it to Double-A Richmond at the time of the trade, it seemed that Joseph would be a quick return in the Hunter Pence deal, but injuries kept him off the field from 2013-2015, as he managed just 121 games played in those three seasons.
After putting up some big numbers in the minors, and leaving catching behind in 2016, Joseph finds himself in the middle of a rebuilding Phillies club.
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After topping out at eight home runs in any of his injury-plagued seasons, which came in 58 games last season, Joseph belted six long balls in 100 plate appearances with Triple-A Lehigh Valley in 2016, and has actually improved upon that pace in his brief time in the big leagues–smashing 13 homers in 167 at-bats–which is what drew my eye to Tommy Joseph in the first place.
According to the Phillies game notes before yesterday’s game, Joseph had the best home run per at-bat rate in the big leagues at 12.54 (13 homers in 163 ABs) for players with at least 150 at-bats. Since then, Todd Frazier went deep one more time and Joseph has accumulated a few more at-bats, so Frazier has taken the lead, which currently sits at 12.4 to 12.8. Brandon Moss (12.9), Kennys Vargas (13.0), David Ortiz (13.1) and Mark Trumbo (13.3) are also among the top of the list, so this is obviously some pretty great company to be keeping.
It’s because of that home run rate that he is already third on the rookie leaderboard for dingers, with his 13 tied with Trayce Thompson and Aledmys Diaz of the Dodgers and Cardinals and trailing just Trevor Story (23) and Corey Seager (17). Thompson has the fewest at-bats between himself and Joseph with 69, while the latest disparity is with Seager at 202.
There is almost no chance that Tommy Joseph will win Rookie of the Year, unless he can somehow lead the charge for the Phillies into the postseason, which isn’t entirely likely. That said, a fun stat that I came across had the Philadelphia rotation ranked 7th in WAR at 8.8, behind the usual suspects, but just a tick ahead of the San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays at 8.7, so they have the arms to potentially make a mini-run, but will likely be unloading some talent at the trade deadline as the rebuild continues.
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Joseph also made Phillies history by slugging his 12th home run in his 48th game, which was the fastest to start a career in team history. The previous record was 12 in 51 games, held by Darin Ruf, who was optioned to the minors to clear a spot for Joseph on the 25-man roster back on May 13.