Monday, November 9, 2015

Chachi Team Leader Cards (2005-2014)

For the last ten seasons, my custom made Chachi sets have included team leader cards celebrating the Phillies who led the club in various offensive and pitching categories.  On a recent commute home from work, which is where I do a lot of my deep thinking, I decided I was going to omit the team leader cards from the 2015 Chachi set.  My reasoning is fourfold, and that may or may not actually be a word:

1.  There were no league leader cards in the original 1985 Topps set, so I'd have to create my own template.
2.  I did not feel like doing this.
3.  With the exception of a few categories below, being a Phillies team leader during the 2015 season is the equivalent of receiving a participant ribbon at a youth sporting event.
4.  As part of his year-ending suspension, Jonathan Papelbon has also been banned from appearing on any future Chachi cards.

Still, I wanted to at least memorialize the team leaders in a post.  Listed below are the Phillies players who would have appeared on 2015 Chachi team leaders cards had they existed.  This could be a one year lay-off for this subset if the 2016 Phillies team performs a little better.

2015 Topps Heritage
High Numbers #666
2015 Topps Heritage
High Numbers #596
2015 Topps Heritage #364
 
2015 Topps Heritage #230
 
Batting Leaders
Odubel Herrera - .297
Freddy Galvis - .263

This took some math work to determine since Ben Revere hit .298 but didn't have the required number of plate appearances to qualify for the team title.  The same can be said for Maikel Franco (.280) and Cesar Hernandez (.272).

Home Run Leaders
Ryan Howard - 23
Maikel Franco - 14

RBI Leaders
Ryan Howard - 77
Maikel Franco and Freddy Galvis - 50

Stolen Base Leaders
Ben Revere - 24
Cesar Hernandez - 19

2015 Topps Heritage #94
 
2015 Topps Heritage #490
 
2015 Topps Heritage
High Numbers #552
2015 Topps Heritage
Minor League #209
ERA Leaders
Aaron Harang - 4.86

This is the highest ERA to lead the team since Claude Willoughby had an ERA of 4.99 for the 1929 Phillies.  No other Phillies pitcher had the requisite 162 innings pitched to qualify.  Ken Giles had a 1.80 ERA in 70 innings.

Victory Leaders
Ken Giles, Cole Hamels, Aaron Harang and Aaron Nola - 6

This marks the first time in the history of Major League baseball that no one on a single team had at least 7 victories.

Strikeout Leaders
Cole Hamels - 137
Aaron Harang - 108

Leading Firemen
Jonathan Papelbon - 17 saves
Ken Giles - 15 saves

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It certainly says something about the Phillies and about Aaron Nola that a guy who didn't make it to the Majors until late July tied for the team lead in wins.

I expect that next year won't be as painful for the Phillies, but time will tell.

Jim from Downingtown said...

"This marks the first time in the history of Major League baseball that no one on a single team had at least 7 victories."

Wait, what? So the Phillies DID set a record in 2015?

Jim said...

Next year has to be better. Right?