Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Wall of Fame: Bobby Abreu (2019)


The Phillies recently announced that this years Wall of Fame inductee is Bobby Abreu. An interesting selection, on paper he is one of the organizations great players, however on the field he represents the long lean period between the 1993 Wheeze Kids and the Late 2000s championship squads.

2002 Fleer Authentix #56 Bobby Abreu

Abreu is often derided for his mediocre defense and to be honest I cannot remember him crashing a wall. Perhaps one of the effects if his tentative approach in the field is that he rarely missed a game. During his eight full seasons with the Phillies Abreu played at least 150 games every year.  An All-Star player never missing game can accumulate some impressive numbers, and Abreu did just that. As a Phillie Abreu tallied 195 Home Runs and 254 steals (7th in team history). His .928 OPS ranks 2nd in club history behind only Hall of Famer Chuck Klein. The component numbers (.416 OBP, .513 SLG) are top 10 as well. Advanced stats really don’t back up the no-defense critique, Abreu’s dWAR in Philadelphia was -1.5, below average but not really noteworthy especially when spread across 8+ season. Related note: during his gold glove 2005 campaign had a dWAR of -1.5.


2002 Fleer Authentix #56 Bobby Abreu (b-side)

Kind of a neat idea here. The player photos are on a facsimile tickets of their teams Home Opener. In the game represented here the Phillies defeated the Marlins 6-2. The tickets are purely representative – there is no mentioning of the game on either side of the card, nor the games results or how the player performed. 

Fortunately for that we have Baseball-Reference. 

And it was a good day for Bobby Abreu who went 4 for 4 with a couple of a doubles and a Home Run producing 3 RBI and scoring a pair of runs. Likely one of the best days of his career. 

Team Phungo has been to a lot of Phillies Home Openers and this happens is one of those games. Happy to be adding this one to cards that rep Phungo Games. 

2002 Fleer Authentix
Two years ago we profiled Scott Rolen's card for this set, that column can be found here

Bobby Abreu Index
1998 Topps #351: First Phillies Card, Bob vs Bobby Abreu 2011 #60YoT match
1999 Topps Stadium Club #39: Group Break, Cameo Mickey Morandini as a Cub. Named "Bob"
2000 Topps #38: Asian Zodiac Year og the Tiger (2010). Named as "Bob"
2000 Topps #38: Phillies All-Decade Team 
2002 Topps Opening Day #13: Snapshot of Topps Opening Day cards
2003 Bowman Heritage (Nachos Grande Swag)
2005 Topps Update #UH218 (2005 07 11 Home Run Derby Detroit)
2008 Topps Heritage Bat Relic: Hobby Box Break (w/ Yankees)
2009 Phungo BFI: Portrait (w/ Yankees)
2010 Topps #15: First Pack (w/ Angels)

Sources and Links


2 comments:

Jim from Downingtown said...

The Phillies' wall of fame has become a PR-driven travesty. Who's next, Randy Wolf?

Jim from Downingtown said...

Rarely missed games? I remember one year during the Terry Fraudcoma regime that Tito "rested" Abreu on opening day. OPENING DAY! Who needs a rest on opening day? And where was Abreu's pride that day? Any self-respecting regular would have pushed back and demanded to be in the lineup.

Not ole Bobby. He gladly took the day off.

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