Selecting the Philadelphia Phillies’ All-Time Free Agent Team
November 21, 2012 by Greg Pinto
Filed under Fan News
Signing a free agent isn’t easy.
It’s a transaction process in Major League Baseball made out to look like a piece of cake. Have a team offer a player as much money as they can and hope that he signs on the dotted line, but it’s so much more than that.
Free agency was designed, at it’s core, to give players options—rights. After accruing the necessary amount of service time, players are allowed to hit the open market and make a decision for themselves on where they want to play next.
From a team perspective, it’s a bit different. Free agency becomes about retaining your own players and trying to better your club by making offers to others. It becomes a parade of why a given player should sign with your team; how they can make you better.
Some people will make it out to be easy from time to time. It’s not. If any team knows this, it’s the Philadelphia Phillies.
Free agency has not been kind to the Phillies in the past because while they have found some real keepers, free agency has broken their hearts more than once.
So while Ruben Amaro Jr. and company attempts to restock the Phillies through the free agent market this winter, let us take a look at the past. I’ve assembled the Phillies all-time “free agent” team.
That means that I have assembled a 25-man roster of players who signed exclusively as free agents. For the sake of fairness, this list will not include amateur free agents.
*All statistics refer to a player’s career with the Phillies only.