Joseph has hit himself into Phillies’ plans
NEW YORK >> By the time the batting order was thumb-tacked to the wall outside the Phillies’ clubhouse Thursday, Tommy Joseph had understood its deeper meaning.
Ryan Howard would be the first baseman against the Mets, and for most, if not all, of the final 10 games of the Phillies’ season. That was Pete Mackanin’s stated plan. That was the one Matt Klentak implied when he wink-winked that Phillies fans are smart enough to know what was happening.
That was how it was going to end for a franchise legend, 90 scheduled innings from a $10 million buyout. Howard would play. Joseph would sit. Peacefully.
“No, we’re not going to fight,” Joseph said the other night, with a smile. “We’re not going to fight. Whatever happens, happens.”
It was easy by then for Joseph to embrace the moment. For one reason, he had an appreciation, if not a debt, to Howard. It was Howard who first welcomed him to the Phillies when he was promoted from the minors in May. It was Howard, a rare remaining symbol of a 20072011 N.L. East, who handled a demotion from full-time first baseman with dignity. It was even Howard who took the at-bats against the tougher right-handers, making what would turn Joseph’s rookie season from satisfying to memorable.
It was easy for those reasons. It was also easy because Joseph had won whatever battle there was to be as the Phils were projecting their 2017 first baseman. Even if Howard was never likely to be in that race, there was never a guarantee that it would be Joseph, either. Indeed, as recently as spring training, there was a hovering doubt if he could be a big-league player at all. And then ... “To have that many home runs and to get RBIs and to play a pretty good first base for someone who hasn’t played it before,” Pete Mackanin said, “shows that he is a positive item for the future.”
That’s the business the Phillies were in for 2016: To find three, four, five players capable of showing that they’d made real improvement in an otherwise dreary season. They did, in Jerad Eickhoff and Vince Velasquez, in Hector Neris and Odubel Herrera and, most surprisingly of all, in the 25-year-old Joseph. While others were on some trajectory to the majors, Joseph had been the chronically concussed former catcher with eye trouble and the unfortunate face of the Phillies’ haul from their odd trade of Hunter Pence to San Francisco. When the Phils last hit Clearwater, Joseph was not even on the 40-man roster. He was just sort of there, still making the professional transition from catcher to first base, hoping for something much less satisfying than what he would achieve.
“I wanted to stay healthy for the entire year,” Joseph said. “And I wanted to play myself into a conversation for a September call-up. That was the goal going into spring training.”
At that time, even those goals would have sounded overly ambitious. But as Joseph spoke this week, they amplified how far he had advanced. That’s because he’d just taken American League Cy Young candidate Chris Sale deep into the left-field seats for his 21st home run, matching Scott Rolen’s output in 1997, his Rookie of the Year season. That’s because in less than a full season, he was just one homer behind Howard’s 2005 rookie output. And that’s because what was a curiosity in the spring had become the Phils’ first baseman for 2017 … and perhaps longer.