Rob Charry Is Crazy

Jacked Up

Rob Charry is all jacked up about Cole Hamel’s no hitter over the Cubs on Saturday. Please note that I said “jacked up” and not “jacked off.”

Despite the fact that I only agree with about half of Rob’s opinions, Rob Charry is – and always will be – one of my favorite hosts on WIP.

Anyway, I was listening to Rob and Hollis Thomas late Sunday afternoon, and Rob was going on . . . and on . . . and on . . . about Cole Hamels. It got to the point where Rob declared that Cole Hamels was one of the Top-10 Phillies in the team’s history – which, of course, is a preposterous statement.

I immediately tweeted to Hollis that Rob was crazy.

Not Top-25

After performing a quick look-up and some subjective juggling, I determined that Cole Hamels isn’t even on my list of Top-25 Phillies of all time.

To begin with, I’m going to exclude 12 Hall of Fame position players because they only played for the Phillies for two years or less. Those players are ex-Reds Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, Ryne Sandberg, Jimmie Foxx, Casey Stengel, Hack Wilson, Lloyd “Big Poison” Waner, Dan Brouthers, Roger Connor, Johnny Evers, Hughie Jennings, and Tommy McCarthy.

I’m also going to exclude four Hall of Fame pitchers for the same reason – those pitchers being Ferguson Jenkins, Chief Bender, Tim Keefe, and Kid Nichols. And I’m going to exclude Eppa Rixey because his record with the Phillies was sub-500 at 87-103.

More Exclusions

I’m excluding three outstanding players because they spent the bulk of their careers with other teams – Dick Groat, Jim Kaat, and Jerry Koosman.

And I’m going to exclude 11 Phillies who were good players but – in my opinion – don’t outrank Cole Hamels Those 11 players are John Kruk, Cliff Lee, Brad Lidge, Jim Lonborg, Garry Maddux, Manny Trillo, Shane Victorino, Billy Wagner, and Bobby Abreu. And I’m going to exclude Papelbon solely because I don’t like him.

You may disagree and rate some of them above Hamels.

Better Than Hamels

There are seven Hall of Fame position players who automatically rank higher than Cole Hamels – Mike Schmidt, Ed Delahanty, Richie Ashburn, Chuck Klein, Dave Bancroft, Billy Hamilton, and Sam Thompson.

And four Hall of Fame pitchers who automatically rank higher than Cole Hamels – Robin Roberts, Steve Carlton, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Jim Bunning.

So that makes 11 Phillies who rate higher than Cole Hamels before I get into non-Hall-of-Famers.

25 Position Players

After adding these players into the mix, here’s my Top-25 position players. Most of them easily rank above Cole Hamels – while some may or may not. In either case, Rob Charry, you tell me who to remove – and why?

Mike Schmidt
Ed Delahanty
Ryan Howard
Pete Rose
Richie Ashburn
Chuck Klein
Greg Luzinski
Dave Bancroft
Billy Hamilton
Sam Thompson
Jimmy Rollins
Chase Utley
Larry Bowa
Del Ennis
Johnny Callison
Dick Allen
Tony Taylor
Dick Sisler
Lenny Dykstra
Juan Samuel
Nap Lajoie
Elmer Flick
Stan Lopata
Bob Boone
Andy Seminick

And here’s the Top-10 pitchers who rank above Cole Hamels.

Rob, you tell me who to bump from that list – and, once again, why?

Robin Roberts
Steve Carlton
Grover Cleveland Alexander
Curt Schilling
Jim Bunning
Jim Konstanty
Chris Short
Curt Simmons
Tug McGraw
Roy Halladay

Bottom line

The Phillies began playing in the National League in 1883. While you may have never heard of some of the players on these lists, they did exist, they did play, and they did excel.

The way I see it, Cole Hamels ranks #11 just amongst the pitchers. And when taking all Phillies players into consideration, he’d be lucky to crack the top 25.