Cincinnati Reds: Brandon Phillips wants to retire as a Red
Former Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips wants to come back.
The dream isn’t over for former Cincinnati Reds multi-time All-Star and Gold Glove winning second baseman Brandon Phillips.
In a recent interview with Joe Danneman of FOX19 Now in Cincinnati, Phillips, who is currently playing independent baseball, said that his dream is to close out his 17-year career with the Cincinnati Reds, an organization he spent parts of 11 seasons with.
Q: "Retire as a Red, that's the dream?"
— Joe Danneman (@FOX19Joe) September 7, 2020
BP: "That's the dream."
Brandon Phillips is playing summer baseball in Lexington. He's dropping bombs and dropping hints about how much he wants back in Cincinnati. pic.twitter.com/dBbEJLcxIO
Phillips is currently playing for the Lexington Legends as part of a summer showcase called The Battle of the Bourbon Trail. Consisting of four teams, two in Lexington, Kentucky and two in Florence, who play each other every Wednesday-Sunday for a seven-week schedule.
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The league consists of independent ballplayers from the Frontier League and a number of minor league players, including a handful of top prospects from MLB teams.
Phillips has spent his summer playing for the Lexington Legends, along with former major leaguers Ben Revere, Ivan De Jesus, and Eric Young Jr. He considered playing overseas in 2020, but found himself playing in Kentucky for his brother, who is the manager of the Legends team.
A second-round pick of the Montreal Expos in the 1999 MLB draft, Phillips appeared in just nine games for the Boston Red Sox in 2018 before hitting free agency. His last full season in the big leagues came in 2017 when he hit .285 with 13 home runs and 34 doubles in 144 games with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels.
The now 39-year-old wants one last chance to play with the Cincinnati Reds and go out on his terms.
Across his 11 seasons with the Reds, Phillips slashed .279/.325/.429 with 191 home runs, 311 doubles, 1,774 total hits, and 194 stolen bases. He won four Gold Glove Awards, one Silver Slugger Award, and was a four-time All-Star.
The Cincinnati Reds are currently in a fight for a 2020 playoff spot, sitting at 18-23 entering play on Monday, five games behind the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs, and two games out of a Wild Card spot.
In a year full of weird and unexplainable moments, the Cincinnati Reds should bring back Brandon Phillips for one last hurrah in a Reds uniform.
He might even be able to help out a little bit. Reds second basemen currently rank 27th in baseball in combined fWAR at -0.5. They are hitting a combined .190 with a .272 OBP.
Unless this team goes on a run within the final three weeks of the regular season, the odds for the Cincinnati Reds to make the playoffs are a bit low. According to Fangraphs, their odds sit at 28% with a projected record of 10-9 the rest of the way.
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Why not have some fun to close out this unique season? Bring back Brandon Phillips and let him retire as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. Give the fans something to feel good about before entering the long, cold winter months of the offseason.