Ben Revere must wonder how much better does he have to be for the Phillies management
The Phillies seemed to like Ben Revere for most of last year.
Revere has speed and got on base quite a bit last season for this team. He was in the Top 10 of batters in batting average for a part of the 2014 season. He banged out a career high 184 hits last season, and stole 49 bases. Revere finished the season with a .306 BA in his third season as a Phillies player last year.
With a season like that in 2014, you would assume this would be Ben Revere’s home for a while. Patrolling the center field area for the Phillies for quite some time with those numbers.
Revere’s RBI numbers could have been a little higher, but all in all, he did what he was supposed to do last season, get on base. Despite getting on base 184 times last year, Revere only scored 71 runs so that is a signal on how bad the 2-3-4-5 hitters were for the Phillies last year.
Fast forward to Spring Training in 2015, and Odubel Herrera. Herrera was a Rule 5 Draft pickup that the Phillies made in the off season over the Winter Meetings. They were hot on him, and thought of him as a highly coveted prospect.
Revere had proven his worth on a Major League team to the Phillies last season, but the Phillies bumped Revere out of center and now his name is being used in trade gossip.
Odubel’s numbers this year aren’t even close to what Revere produced last season. Yes, Herrera is a couple years younger than Revere, but in looking at his offense he has produced so far, Herrera hasn’t been that juggernaut the Phillies thought he would be.
Herrera has 40 SO so far in the season, and he has only played in 43 G, in the same amount of games, Revere only has 15 SO and is batting much better with 3 triples and 7 doubles. Both players have about the same batting averages.
So, for this reason, I don’t know how the Phillies would want to push Revere out. Going with a rookie like Herrera is more of a gamble for them. The only reason is probably that Revere is arbitration eligible in 2016, but he’s been doing a pretty good job for this team especially last year even though the team as a whole didn’t do well last year.
