Marsh looks good in Phils uniform heading into reunion with Angels
Somewhat risky trade deadline deal is working out a year later
PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Marsh brought a careerhigh eight-game hitting streak to work Saturday. The timing was ideal, as by Monday, he could have been dragging around even more.
That’s when the Angels will be in for three, and when the defining moment of Marsh’s still-developing career will be cracked back open for analysis. That came around the 2022 trade deadline, when he was sent by the Angels to the Phillies. The technicalities were that he was acquired for Logan O’Hoppe earlier in the day, with Mickey Moniak going to Los Angeles a little later for Noah Syndergaard. But after the fine print had dried, it was as close to a two-for-two swap as there can be, and so, it will commonly be remembered that way.
It will also be remembered this way: Without contributions from everyone late in a tight wild-card race and through three postseason rounds — Marsh and Syndergaard included — the Phillies would not have reached that World Series. And without Marsh, who has been one of Rob Thomson’s better hitters on a roster where it didn’t originally project that way, the Phillies would not be in as strong a position to return to the postseason in the encore.
“He’s swinging at good pitches,” the manager was saying Saturday, before a night game against the Cardinals. “So he’s not chasing and he’s using the entire field. Usually, that’s where every hitter has success. But that’s what he is doing right now.”
Marsh was hitting .286 Saturday, having gone 6-for-14 in his previous five games. If that wasn’t more than the Phillies expected in exchange for O’Hoppe, a top catching prospect, it was close. And it also made him a better hitter than the .278-hitting Moniak, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft. But largely because of how famously he failed in multiple opportunities in Philadelphia, yet also because of his pedigree and because he did enjoy a nice start to the season, Moniak has been receiving high praise and intense attention mostly for no longer being inept in a batters’ box.
Fairly or not, there likely will be a reason for healthy Marsh-Moniak debate for years, for how many times do teams exchange promising, young if seemingly plateauing centerfielders within a few hours? But even if Moniak has been remodeled as a responsible hitter, he will never be as projected. There was even something muttered about how his grandfather once had Ted Williams as a hitting coach and that somehow that brilliance had seeped through a couple of generations. Ted Williams. Him.
All Marsh knows is that whatever happened in Anaheim is well in his past, and that the change of time zones — and hitting zones, too — has made him a different player than the .239 hitter he was in the American League.
“I was shocked when it happened,” Marsh said. “I hadn’t heard anything about that, but that’s because I just show up to the field ready to play. And I never worried about that other stuff.”
Convinced that nothing they would try could work with Moniak — yet willing to concede that someone else might do better and not wishing him continued torment — the Phillies trusted that Marsh could become a better hitter under the watch of Kevin Long, their batting coach. When he hit .288 in 41 late-season games, they seemed to be correct. When he followed it with the .286, including his recent surge, they were even more convinced.
“Kevin made the adjustments with him and spread him out and kept his head still, and he started to get the head out,” Thomson said. “After that, nothing he does now really surprises me.”
Though Marsh is hitting well, he technically hasn’t cemented himself as the everyday outfielder. He is hitting .309 against right-handers, but his .220 average against left-handed pitching has made it easier for Thomson to trust defensive whiz Johan Rojas in center, too.
“It doesn’t matter where I play,” said Marsh, who will take the odd left-field shift. “I just want to help where I can.”
A good trade — or quick sequence of trades — can work for both teams. O’Hoppe was never going to play ahead of J.T. Realmuto. He hasn’t looked out of place but did just return from a four-month injury absence.
Syndergaard was a one-year rental and was fine in the Phillies’ 2022 late-season rotation. And that likely will be Moniak on the field before the game Monday, receiving a ring for his early-season contribution to the World Series effort. A decent man who tried, he should receive at least polite applause.
Yet it was Brandon Marsh who was in that World Series, and who has grown into a dependable hitter at age 25, just as the Phillies had it figured.
“I’m just blessed to be here, man,” he said. “I am happy to be a part of this club.”
By Monday, the Angels will have a close-up chance to see why.