r/phillies • u/thegrimranger • May 10 '26
Statistics Marsh is the Best in All of MLB
After going 4 for 4 today Brother Brandon Marsh is officially the best hitter in all of MLB (among qualified hitters).
I just checked and he has a 1 year contract for just over $5M making him low paid among his peers. I find myself desperately hoping for two things: (1) I hope he keeps posting at least average numbers for the rest of the year, and (2) I hope he gets a phat, long term contract to remain a Phillie.
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u/imaginingblacksheep Bryce Harper May 10 '26
Somebody needs to stop him. There’s no way he can keep getting away with this!
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u/jorleeduf J.P. Crawford May 10 '26
He’s always been a good hitter. It’s just a matter of not striking out.
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u/Coffee2000guy Brandon Marsh May 10 '26
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u/jorleeduf J.P. Crawford May 10 '26
Yepperz!! I think I actually discovered the soft contact% thing because I was trying to figure out the reason he had such a high BABIP. I found out it isn’t luck and that it’s because he rarely makes weak contact, but also, his good contact doesn’t frequently clear the outfield wall either
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u/Coffee2000guy Brandon Marsh May 10 '26
It most certainly isn't luck, dude puts in hard work. I remember reading an article on MLB maybe like two years ago talking about Marsh's off-season training regimen. He would take left handed pitching (machine) batting practice for hours each day. He knows his weaknesses and works on them.
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u/RealMaxHours May 10 '26
It’s literally this
He’s striking out 20% of the time this year compared to 25% in 2025 and 32% in 2024
Less strike outs = more balls put in play (duh) and with his BABIP that is going to mean some insane results
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u/ThatPlayWasAwful May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26
Interestingly his SO rate is actually higher than his career against left handed pitching (sample size warning).
he's gone from a .215 avg. to a .286 avg against LHP (like a .680ops) which is honestly the most important part.
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u/thegrimranger May 11 '26
“Less strike outs = more balls in play (duh)…”
Ummm, or more walks…
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u/RealMaxHours May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
He’s actually walking less this year (5%, compared to 8.9% in 2025 and 10.5% in 2024)
So I can reiterate. Less strikeouts and less walks, with such an inflated batting average, means that more balls are being put in play
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u/ASAP_Pancake Edmundo Sosa May 10 '26
What a weird list
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u/Not-a-bot-10 Roy Halladay May 10 '26
May 10th list
Except Marsh of course, 🐐
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u/WantedMan61 May 10 '26
He'll be over .400 by July. Honest! 😉
As a longtime Marsh detractor, I'm happy to be wrong on May 10th. I hope I'm wrong for another 10 years. Time till tell.
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u/i-bleed-red Phillie Phanatic May 10 '26
Franzke just said he’s also leading all of MLB in BA from 5/1/25 to today. Wow!
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u/user-123456789_ Brandon Marsh Defender May 10 '26
Large sample size. I’ve seen enough, build the statue
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u/pompoi4 Mid-Marsh-Drifting #4000 Bunt Hater May 10 '26
Last April there were only like 3 or 4 of us Marsh fans in here, beautiful thing to see.
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u/Mundane-Success9141 May 10 '26
a universal rule in sports is that you can tell who actually knows ball based on who they want to trade. marsh trade talk has always baffled me, all he needs to do is strike out less and hes an all star, great glove in LF, good baserunner, fantastic hitter. Too close to that level of player to just move off of. Alec bohm on the other hand,
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u/WantedMan61 May 10 '26
Just Kevin Long earning his paycheck! 🤣
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u/Electrical_Doubt3024 May 11 '26
When Marsh was asked last season, he credited Stubbs helping him fix his batting, not Kevin Long. Just sayin'
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u/BumblebeeTuna4242 May 11 '26
I remember that post-game interview! Makes me happy when folks get their due.
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u/thegrimranger May 10 '26
Ugh, struggling to abide this comment (but channeling my inner Marsh to refrain from downvoting). Long gets defended when all the Phillies are cold because it isn’t Long in the batter’s box, so I don’t want to see him get any credit for successes, sarcastic or serious.
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u/NonMagicBrian Oiled up and flexing May 10 '26
lol as though there weren’t 75 posts here a day demanding Long be fired until two weeks ago
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u/WantedMan61 May 10 '26
Works both ways. Maybe Marsh is the only one listening? Lol. Not stanning for Long, but when players don't hit (and when Topper got fired) he's the whipping boy. I think way too much is attributed to hitting coaches either way.
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u/MrJbrads May 11 '26
He’s been my favorite player since he gotta traded to the team. All the shit he’s gotten has been very well deserved. I’m just hoping we don’t get a PED suspension in our notifications lol. This has been out of character for him
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u/obsoleteformat92 May 11 '26
I got a mate of mine from work into baseball, he's always been into cricket (we're English - some of us can't help it). He's a Cubs fan. We watched a phillies/cubs game simultaneously so he could ask me questions, and he said "who's the phillies dude with the long hair? He can swing a bat!"
That dude? Albert Einstein. No wait, sorry - Brandon Marsh
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u/enormastick May 11 '26
I'm tired of motherfuckers in school tellin' me, always in the barbershop "Brandon Marsh ain't 'bout this, Brandon Marsh ain't 'bout that"
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u/Turbulent-Fault-6293 May 11 '26
It’s genuinely so nice to see such vast improvement from marsh after at times last year he was the worst player on the team
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u/thegrimranger May 11 '26
“At times…” meaning in the spring when he was playing through injury. After his rehab assignment he came back strong and stayed strong.
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u/Turbulent-Fault-6293 May 11 '26
Didn’t realize he was injured last year I just remember him hitting like .150 or something close to that maybe lower for the first like 2-3 months of the year. Regardless you have to admit this is a major step forward for him, literally leading the league in batting average
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u/thegrimranger May 11 '26
It was his first 16 games.
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u/Turbulent-Fault-6293 May 11 '26
Then my sense of time is just terrible I guess, but like I said it’s still a major improvement for him this year and I’m really happy to see
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u/jmac11281 May 11 '26
I know it is far too early but it is nice to see many of the top batters hitting well above .300
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u/ericjr96 May 10 '26
Marsh for Ohtani who says no
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u/thegrimranger May 10 '26
Brother Marsh is like Ohtani and Stubbs rolled into one (minus the pitching part, but I like our Sanchez), so I’ll step up and say “No” 🤓
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May 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Phillies2002 Aaron Nola May 10 '26
Up where? You want a guy with a high batting averages to protect the heart of the lineup and drive in Schwarber/Harper/Garcia when they get on base. If you put Marsh at, like, leadoff, he's taking 1/3 of his at-bats with guaranteed no one on base
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u/Manymarbles May 10 '26
I want him to stay where he is
But isnt getting on base what the leadoff guy is supposed to do?
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u/Phillies2002 Aaron Nola May 10 '26
Certainly! But imo part of the factor in where a high-OBP guy should bat comes down to whether hits or walks are fueling their on-base abilities. If the bases are empty, a walk is as good as a hit, while if runners are on base, you'd rather get a hit, so imo a walks-heavy OBP guy is ideal for leadoff if the choice is between him and a hits-heavy guy.
Obviously the Phillies aren't exactly faced with this choice-- Marsh would probably be the team's best leadoff hitter, given Turner's inconsistency so far. But he's also probably the team's best #5 hitter, and assuming Turner will get going eventually, Marsh helps make the lineup so much deeper where he is
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u/PwillyAlldilly May 10 '26
Hold up how is it AVG matter when it’s Marsh. It doesn’t matter when it’s others? I get downvoted to oblivious when I bring up AVg and how it’s useless and an old man stat and only OPS matters
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u/Otterable May 10 '26
I mean yeah OPS is the more telling stat. But hitting .350 nearly 2 months into the season is nothing to sneeze at.
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u/PwillyAlldilly May 10 '26
But when a player hits .212 or something it doesn’t matter?
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u/Otterable May 10 '26
BA is highly context dependent. .212 but a massive SLG and lots of walks isn't actually bad.
Some .212 BAs are trash, others are good. It all depends.
And yeah some .290 BAs aren't particularly great, esp if all they do is knock weak singles, or are very fast so beat out grounders at a higher rate. Esp if they aren't taking lots of walks.
Getting on base is obviously important, but the most important part of baseball is scoring runs, and that happens fairly rarely without an XBH in the inning. If you got a guy who is only ever knocking singles, even if he's doing it at a high rate, then they are usually dependent on someone else to make it home which dramatically lowers their effectiveness.
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u/PwillyAlldilly May 10 '26
Thats what I mean it’s too contextual. Bohm always flirts with a .290 but that’s never said as a respected number.
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u/Game-rotator May 10 '26
his ops is .890 which is still quite good
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u/PwillyAlldilly May 10 '26
Oh yeah I’m not poo pooing him at all this sub just loves picking and choosing when AVG matter.
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u/Coffee2000guy Brandon Marsh May 10 '26
I've never heard anyone say avg doesn't matter, only ops matters. Usually it's avg isn't nearly as important as OBP (Marsh is top 25). Even if you want to go by OPS Marsh is still top 40.
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u/PwillyAlldilly May 10 '26
That was the argument in the playoffs and early this years but regardless I don’t disagree about Marsh I’ve always been a truther for him. Really wanted a Bader Marsh Crawford outfield this year.
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u/Coffee2000guy Brandon Marsh May 11 '26
Bader 🤮. I was saying all of last season "this is not how he's going to play next year, he will regress back to the mean and everyone here will want his head if we bring him back". I'm really glad we didn't resign him even if he's a + in the outfield.
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u/Electrical_Doubt3024 May 11 '26
We will never know if it was being a Phillie that made him better. He fit into this team instantly, and I think would not have regressed had we kept him.
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u/Coffee2000guy Brandon Marsh May 10 '26
I've been a Marsh truther since he came to the phillies. I was ridiculed and told he was horrible. But now look at my boy!