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Philadelphia Phillies Midseason in Review

At 49-43, the Philadelphia Phillies sit a respectable sixth in the National League. Who's stood out the most after 92 games?

Author:
Ben Silver
Jul 22, 2022 1:00 PM EDT

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Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies haven't been as far above .500 at the All-Star break since 2018, when they were 53-42. That year was marred by a September collapse and the club playing far above their abilities.

2022 has marked a different kind of Phillies. For the first time in years, the Phillies are playing underneath their abilities. When players have fallen to injury, replacements have stepped in to fill the gaps.

Darick Hall, Matt Vierling, Garrett Stubbs and Andrew Bellatti have all stepped in to fill bigger roles while other organizations either would have, or did, see these pieces as expendable in the offseason.

Players in every role have risen to meet the needs of the team since Joe Girardi was fired and Bryce Harper went down with a broken thumb. But who's risen above the rest, and who deserves intra-squad awards?

Mike Schmidt Award: Bryce Harper

This is an easy one. Despite missing more than 30% of Philadelphia's games this year. Harper has been the Phillies most valuable offense player by a landslide.

It goes without saying that he leads just about every Phillie in every rate stat, but even in advanced counting stats, Harper just about matches Rhys Hoskins and Kyle Schwarber.

Runs Created is a formula derived by Bill James that estimates a player's total contributions to a team's run total, the name is self-explanatory. Leading the team on the season is Hoskins with 56, Harper directly trails him at 55, and hot on Harper's tail is Schwarber with 54.

When Harper is in the lineup, he adds an element that cannot be replaced in the aggregate.

Roy Halladay Award: Aaron Nola

With 126.2 innings pitching, Nola is second in MLB behind only Sandy Alcantara. His K/BB leads all MLB pitchers by a wide margin at 8.56. In general analytic terms, K/BB is considered the best predictor of future ERA.

No advanced stat correlates better with future ERA than K-BB%.
via PitcherList

Despite Zack Wheeler's slightly lower ERA, Nola's 27 more innings pitched make up for his slight deficiencies. Four extra starts of 6.2 innings are far more valuable than 24 points of ERA.

Put another way, even if Wheeler had pitched those extra 27 innings, Nola would have given up just one more run in that span. A difference in ERA between 3.13 and 2.89 is miniscule in the grand scheme of a baseball season.

The Brad Lidge Award: Seranthony Domínguez

Could it have gone to anybody else?

Domínguez has given the Phillies all they could have asked for and more in an elite reliever. He's been available all season, appeared in 35 games, and he's limited walks and piled on strikeouts. And of course, his ERA still rests below 2.00.

An 1.85 ERA will get you far coming out of the bullpen. It's possible that Domínguez was snubbed an All-Star appearance, but perhaps it's better to save his arm. Coming off of Tommy John surgery to have him throw innings in an exhibition game seems unnecessary.

The Sixth Man Award: Garrett Stubbs

Stubbs has been a welcome surprise. Coming into a legitimate backup role for the first time in his career, he performed with aplomb.

Mid-way through the season, 68 plate appearances are already almost double what he had seen in any other year of his career. But even given his limited action, Stubbs has yet to cool off from his hot streak.

Dropping bunt singles, playing solid defense and mashing clutch home runs have all become a part of Stubbs' game. Slashing .262/.328/.492 on the year, no one else without regular playing time has come close to his level of offensive production.

Garrett Stubbs is mobbed at home plate by his teammates after a walk-off home run.
© Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Rookie of the Half-Year: Darick Hall

From outta nowhere! Hall blasted his way onto scene in 2022. A 26-year-old career minor leaguer, few expected him to ever crack the big league club, let alone become a key member of the lineup.

Reminiscent of Hoskins' first appearance in 2017, Hall hit three home runs in his first three games and the extra base-hits have come pouring in ever since. He has a double or home run in more than half his big league games.

The only question Hall has yet to answer is plate discipline. With only one walk and 20 strikeouts in 16 games, he'll need to begin laying off the high fastballs before opposing teams exploit his weaknesses.

Worst Loss: May 5 vs New York Mets

Don't forget Hector Neris giving up back-to-back-to-back home runs to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2017 before an error by Maikel Franco enabled a four-run comeback in the ninth. Don't forget 2018 when Adam Morgan allowed a walk-off grand-slam with two strikes and two outs to an aged Jason Heyward in Chicago.

And definitely don't forget James Norwood and Corey Knebel giving up a seven-run ninth inning to the Mets at Citizens Bank Park to blow a six-run lead.

Punctuated by home runs from Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos, the Phillies had hammered the Mets pitching that night through four innings, putting seven runs on the board.

The lead seemed all too safe even deep into the ninth inning. Norwood and Knebel allowed just three runs to cross the plate before recording the second out of the inning. With the score 7-4, the Phillies' defense needed but one more out to get back within two games of .500.

We all know how the story ends. A double from J.D. Davis, then a single from Brandon Nimmo tied the game before Starling Marte scored Nimmo with a double of his own to take the lead.

The Phillies were lifeless in the bottom half of the inning and blew what seemed an insurmountable lead. Joe Girardi lost his job June 3, but May 5 was the night he lost the team.

Best Win: June 5 vs Los Angeles Angels

The third game of the Rob Thomson era was also the third win of the Thomson era. The Phillies climbed back from two separate deficits the afternoon of June 5.

Kyle Gibson had a characteristically Gib-sian outing. In 2022, he's been unhittable or the opposite, and that afternoon, it was the opposite when he let five runs cross the plate through 3.1 innings.

The Phillies were put in a hole, but started to crawl back on sacrifice flies when an RBI groundout and sac fly from Nick Castellanos and J.T. Realmuto tightened the deficit to just three.

Put back in a four-run hole by Jeurys Familia in the eighth, Harper answered in the bottom of the inning with the loudest grand slam Citizens Bank Park has seen since August 15, 2019.

Alas, Knebel allowed a RBI single in the top of the ninth to give away the lead again. But somehow, during that nine-game win streak in the beginning of June, the Phillies were invincible, the game was never in jeopardy.

With two outs and two runners on, Harper's roommate and fellow Las Vegas native strode to the plate. With the expectations of the world upon his shoulders on Opening Day, Bryson Stott had faltered out of the gate.

But that June was going to make the rookie Stott much more a Major Leaguer. With an OPS below .350 coming into the month, he slashed a very respectable .238/.315/.413 in June . And the perfect way to tee off that hot streak was a six-pitch battle between the rookie and Angels pitcher Jimmy Herget, concluding with a three-run, walk-off home run, sending Citizens Bank Park into raptures.