Article: Phil Plantier: A Young Yaz?

[Jared Mulholland]

The title sounds hilarious today but 30 years ago, it was a real thing said out loud by baseball people.

Like most kids my age, I was an avid baseball card collector from 1986 to 1994. Of course, I had a very strict system for how to store my cards. The jobbers and also-rans were stacked in a shoe box. The All-Stars and young talents were in a plastic sheet in one of my many baseball card binders. Guys like Andy Van Slyke and Chet Lemon were the cut-off for making the binder (in other words, someone had to have a positive Wins Above Van Slyke to make the binder). The next level was the individual plastic cases, reserved for rare cards (for me) and can’t-miss stars, such as a Manny Ramirez 1992 Upper Deck top prospect card. The coveted screw-down case was the baseball card value pyramid's final level. This was for extremely rare or expected to be very valuable cards: think the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. My only other card that merited the screw-down case was a signed Phil Plantier 1992 Upper Deck card (I thought that was his rookie card at the time). 

I was all in on Phil Plantier. I thought this card would be worth thousands, and I could buy a Porsche with it or something when I got older. I lived in Europe for most of the '90s, so I didn’t get to hear all the hype, so I made the assumption he was a future star based on how cool the card looked and his stats on the back: .331 batting average 11 home runs and 35 RBI in just 53 games. Those stats and his awesomely unique batting stance (imagine seeing him and Bagwell back to back) translated to “franchise player” in my 12-year-old brain. I wasn’t the only one who thought Phil Plantier would be a star.  

Plantier was drafted by the Red Sox in the 11th round of the 1987 draft, just a few months after his 18th birthday. Plantier showed plus power almost immediately, winning Baseball America’s Class A minor league player of the year in 1989, hitting 27 home runs with an OPS of .951.  By 1990, he was the 4th-ranked prospect in the Sox farm system, and the following year, he ranked 2nd, behind only Mo Vaughn. 

In September of 1990, when Red Sox GM Lou Gorman traded third baseman Jeff Bagwell to the Astros for relief pitcher Larry Anderson, Phil Plantier was deemed too promising of a prospect to be traded. Gorman said of the negotiation with Houston, “I admire Jeff Bagwell, and I hope he goes on to have an outstanding career. But right now, my job is to help the Boston Red Sox win a championship. You have to give up something to get what you need. [Houston] went round and round talking about Mo Vaughn, Kevin Morton, and Phil Plantier. We’re not about to trade them.” Phil Plantier would be a power-hitting hitter for Boston for years to come. 

The other thing Plantier did a lot of, besides hit home runs, was strike out. He struck out 122 times in 132 games in Lynchburg during his award-winning 1989 season. Plantier followed that up by striking out 148 times in just 123 games for the PawSox (he also hit 33 home runs and had a .906 OPS). Despite this, he seemingly broke out with the Sox in 1991. The stats on the back of his 1992 card were a pace for 34 home runs and 107 runs batted in. He also cut down on his strikeout rate, striking out 38 times in 53 games while slashing .331/.420/.615.

The hype was real after the ‘91 season: In a Boston Globe preview of the Red Sox heading into the 1992 season, a picture of Phil was placed with the caption ‘Phil Plantier: A young Yaz?’. The caption was based on a quote from teammate Jack Clark in the same piece hyping up Plantier: “He’s a showman,” Clark said of Plantier, “He gets up there, and he goes for it. Do you know who he reminds me of? A young Carl Yastrzemski. Yaz used to get up there and take that big swing. He’s putting on a show, but the results of what he’s trying to accomplish are there.” In another preview, Plantier was described as “the most exciting slugger the Red Sox have had from the left side since Carl Yastrzemski,” with his uppercut swing making him a threat to hit it out every time he made contact. He was recovering from ulnar nerve irritation, but the team was confident he’d fully recover by spring training. 

The expectation was that with Mo, Jack Clack, and Phil Plantier, the Sox would have a potent middle of the order in 1992 and knock opposing pitching staffs into submission. On April 8th, the Sox played the Yankees in New York for the first game of the season. Although the Red Sox lost, Plantier hit a home run in his first at-bat of the season and was even intentionally walked by the Yankees in the sixth inning. He wouldn’t hit his next home run until June 6th. Side note: the entire Red Sox team showed a surprising lack of power to start the 92 season, leading some players to question if the new 600 club was creating a headwind, knocking down their would-be homers.

A few days before hitting his second home run, Dan Shaughnessy started the pile-on against Plantier, writing that Phil’s picture should be next to the " Sophomore Jinx” in the Baseball Encyclopedia. And then, amid Plantier’s prolonged slump, Boston manager Butch Hobson publicly questioned why Phil hadn’t shown up to an extra batting practice. Contributing to the rough start to the season, Plantier hurt his knee, but he continued to play through it. Hobson started to question his work ethic, “Phil Plantier worked his butt off for me in Pawtucket. He worked on every aspect of the game he wanted to get better, and he did. This year…he’s had some injuries.” You can almost see the scare quotes Hobson put around the word “injuries.” Plantier was sent down to Pawtucket from mid-August to mid-September because Hobson wanted him to work on his work ethic. For his part, Plantier snapped back that he would never play hurt again. When he was called back to Boston, he finished with a robust .869 OPS in his final 13 games, but the damage was done - after so much hype, 1992 had been a disappointing season for Plantier and the Sox. Less than a year before, Plantier was deemed untradeable and a cornerstone for the franchise for years to come. Now, he was on the block. 

Ironically, the Red Sox traded Plantier to the San Diego Padres on December 9th for a right-handed relief pitcher (basically the same trade the Boston refused to include him in during the 1990 season). Jose Melendez, the pitcher in the Plantier trade, would pitch nine games for the Sox in 1993 and just 19 games overall in his two seasons in Boston. Plantier, relieved to be away from the toxic situation in Boston, hit 34 homers for the Padres in ‘93. During the strike-shortened ‘94 season, he continued to hit with power, slugging 18 home runs in 94 games. I followed him after he left Boston, hoping he would prove the Sox wrong for trading him. However, following the 1994 season, Plantier bounced around for another four seasons before retiring in 1998 when he was still in his 20s. 

It’s a shame the Red Sox gave up on such a promising young star so quickly. The 1992 season was tough, but Phil Plantier was still just 23. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to play through injuries…maybe if he had a more supportive manager…maybe if he hadn’t been compared to a hall of famer before he even played a full season…I still have my signed Phil Plantier card in the screw-down case. I still haven’t found a card to replace it, and I still think he has one of the coolest batting stances in Red Sox history.

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[Brock Beauchamp]

This is such a fun read! Well done, @Jared Mulholland!

[mvp 78]

I was more of a Mickey Pina guy.

[Jasonbay44]

This was an awesome read. I’m obviously a little younger and I’m not going to lie, I had to google who the hell Phil Plantier was lol but this brought back some nostalgic moments.

 

I at different points in life thought Jed Lowrie, Devern Hansack (lol), Manny Delcarmen, Daniel Bard and Blake Swihart were going to be stars..

I also have autographs of Ryan Lavarnway, Will Middlebrooks and Lars Anderson that as a teenager thought would be very valuable.

I also at one point was an active card collector and the player I liked and decided to collect autographs of was Michael Bourn. He once signed a card for me in person and was nice to me and we had a nice talk. He didn’t really pan out quite like I hoped and I have like 25 autographed cards of him lol. 

[mvp 78]

On 9/16/2024 at 1:13 AM, Jasonbay44 said:

This was an awesome read. I’m obviously a little younger and I’m not going to lie, I had to google who the hell Phil Plantier was lol but this brought back some nostalgic moments.

 

I at different points in life thought Jed Lowrie, Devern Hansack (lol), Manny Delcarmen, Daniel Bard and Blake Swihart were going to be stars..

I also have autographs of Ryan Lavarnway, Will Middlebrooks and Lars Anderson that as a teenager thought would be very valuable.

I also at one point was an active card collector and the player I liked and decided to collect autographs of was Michael Bourn. He once signed a card for me in person and was nice to me and we had a nice talk. He didn’t really pan out quite like I hoped and I have like 25 autographed cards of him lol. 

Hansack had that no hitter! Of course it remains "unofficial" since it wasn't a complete game due to it being shortened due to rain. 

We had season tickets to the PawSox at various points in the late 80's. Lots of great memories. I won the quiz one game and the seat cushion that I got as a prize (also got a case of coke and a free oil change for my mom) was accidentally left behind after the fireworks later on that year. HMPH!!!