Phillies Nuggets: Rhys Hoskins was historically good through his first 70 games

By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 

As Philadelphia Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins caught a pretend football from first base coach Jose Flores in Saturday's win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, the 25-year-old put a cherry on top of what was a historically good first 70 major league games. 

Through the first 70 games of Hoskins' career, he hit 22 home runs, tying him with Rudy York, Ryan Braun and Mark McGwire for fifth most in MLB history:

It's worth pointing out that the three players that Hoskins is tied with went on to have tremendous success in their respective careers. York was a seven-time All-Star that was a member of the 1945 World Series champion Detroit Tigers. McGwire was a 12-time All-Star that broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record in 1998 by hitting a then-record 70 home runs. If it wasn't for his connection to and ultimate admission of performance-enhancing drug use, McGwire would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Braun is a six-time All-Star and former MVP that if not for his own PED scandal, would at least have a case for the Hall of Fame after his career. 

On top of those that Hoskins is on-pace with historically, he's also well ahead of some of the sport's all-time greats. Baseball's home run king, Barry Bonds, hit 13 home runs through the first 70 games of his career. Bonds' Godfather Willie Mays, who was just 20 when he broke into the league, hit 20 home runs in his 121-game rookie season with the New York Giants in 1951. Hank Aaron – who was baseball's home run king from April of 1974 until Bonds eclipsed him in August of 2007 – hit 13 home runs in his first 122 games. Even Ryan Howard, who won the 2005 National League Rookie of the Year at age 25, hit 10 home runs in his first 70 career games and 22 home runs in 88 games in 2005. 

Home runs are just the tip of the iceberg, though. In terms of RBIs through a player's first 70 games, Hoskins has sole possession of fifth place with 45 RBIs: 

If you say that RBIs are a flawed statistic, you're preaching to the choir. Still, it feels pretty noteworthy that Hoskins, by a fairly comfortable margin, has more RBIs than Ted Williams, Albert Pujols and Frank Howard had in their first 70 career games. General manager Matt Klentak may have built an on-base juggernaut in front of Hoskins for the 2018 season, but it's certainly not like the team that Hoskins joined last August was an offensive force. 

It doesn't stop there, however. The 2014 fifth-round pick's 55 walks through his first 70 career games are second in MLB history, placing him one spot behind an accomplished Phillie and one spot above a current Phillies teammate: 

In total, Hoskins slashed .277/.422/.623 with 22 home runs and 67 RBIs in his first 70 games. You don't have to be a mathematician to realize that Hoskins did this in less than half of a season. You could double Hoskins' numbers and he would still only have played 140 games.

An argument could be made that Hoskins was a few years older than some of the players we've compared him to. Still, he was a 24-year-old, true rookie. It wasn't as though he was a Cuban or Japanese import that came over in his late-20s and was only a rookie in title. Hoskins – who posted a .434 wOBA, a 172 wRC+ and a 28.2 oWAR through his first 70 major league games – was promoted at the age of 24 and has continued historic production through the age of 25. In fact, it's even more impressive that Hoskins split this type of production over two different seasons, when pitchers across the league had an entire offseason to adjust to what made him so successful in his first 50 games. 

In the end, sports, like the rest of the world, are best evaluated in terms of dollars. FanGraphs estimates that Hoskins was worth $26 million over the course of his first 70 major league games. If that doesn't alone speak to the dominant start that Hoskins has had to his career, perhaps this will – if you project the production that Hoskins displayed in his first 70 games out to a full 162-game season, his value for said season would be over $60 million.

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The Nuggets

1. On this week in Phillies history, the 2005 club traveled to Washington D.C. to play the Nationals, who had relocated from Montreal, for the first time in the Nation's Capital. Placido Polanco, who the Phillies would ultimately trade to the Detroit Tigers in the July of that same year, had three RBIs in a series where the Phillies won two of three games. 
2. The Phillies are 3-0 this season on days when the Sixers also win playoff games. They are 0-1 on days when the Sixers lose playoff games. Both play on Tuesday. 
3. Even as someone that's often had powder blue fatigue, the Phillies looked pretty fresh while rocking their powder blue throwbacks in last Thursday's win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Phillies seem to be rather invested in their #ThrowbackThursday promotion in 2018, so here's one piece of advice: make sure that players are given Under Armour, sleeves, jackets and cleats that match with the powder blue jerseys. That didn't happen last week. 
4. David Akers is a franchise icon for the Eagles, but some are rather disappointed that the Eagles didn't pick someone with a more notable personality to announce the team's first-round pick in this week's NFL Draft. The Eagles are the reigning Super Bowl champions and the draft is in Dallas. Last year, when the NFL Draft was in Philadelphia, Cowboys legend Drew Pearson did a pretty incredible job of toying with Eagles fans when he announced the team's second-round selection, so the hope was that the Eagles would return the favor in Dallas this year. Perhaps Akers is more capable of doing that than we think. The reason I bring this up in a Phillies column is that the idea popped into my head last week that Jimmy Rollins would have gladly played the role of a heel, announcing the first-round pick for the defending Super Bowl champions in Dallas. Sure, Rollins doesn't technically have a connection to the Eagles, but he's a Philadelphia sports icon. On top of that, ask New York fans about how irritated they got by Rollins' happy-go-lucky personality in the mid-to-late 2000s.
5. The Phillies enter Tuesday a half a game back of the New York Mets for first place in the National League East. Since 2012, the latest date that they've been tied for the lead of the National League East has been April 9. That actually came last season, when they ultimately finished 66-96.
6. 14 wins for the Phillies is already more wins than they recorded in the first month of their National League East winning campaigns of 2007, 2009 and 2010. The 2008 World Champion Phillies won 15 of their first 28 games. The Phillies have already won 14 of their first 21 under Gabe Kapler. The 2011 Phillies, who ultimately won a franchise-record 102 games, won 15 of their first 21 games.
7. Cesar Hernandez has reached base multiple times in 13 of the 20 games that he's started this season.
8. Another interesting Phillies aesthetics note: Nick Williams is among an increasing amount of players wearing the C-Flap addition onto his helmet this season. Though I would imagine hitting with the extra piece on your helmet takes an adjustment period, it seems to make sense to have your jawline covered when facing fastballs approaching triple digits. The interesting part about this is that Williams is only wearing the C-Flap with the team's home and away jerseys. When the Phillies wore their powder blue jerseys last Thursday, Williams didn't have a C-Flap on his helmet. When the Phillie wore their alternate cream jerseys on Sunday, his blue and red helmet didn't have a C-Flap. I thought that perhaps the accessory, for whatever reason, wasn't available on alternate helmets yet. But then Carlos Santana, who wasn't even wearing a C-Flap with any of his helmets at the beginning of the season, wore one Sunday with the cream alternate.