In the history of baseball’s amateur draft, which goes back nearly sixty years, only four players have been drafted from the tiny New Mexico Military Institute. Less than a thousand students attend there, but they have some notable alumni. Roger Staubach spent a year there before going to the Naval Academy. Owen Wilson is an alum. So is Conrad Hilton.
Their baseball program hasn’t produced a lot of talent, though. Their first draftee, William Wyles, never signed a contract after being drafted by the Dodgers in 1969. Instead he moved on to the University of Arkansas, got hurt, and never played again. Their most recent draftees, Albert Oliva by the Tigers in 2022 and B.Y. Choi by the Padres in 2023, aren’t really prospects. They’ve had a few other players who signed as amateur free agents, or transferred to bigger schools before being drafted, but none of them made the big leagues.
Just one NMMI alum, the second player ever drafted from the school, has managed to do that. But, at the outset of his pro career, it looked like Tony Phillips would join the list of other NMMI alums to top out in the minor leagues.
As a nineteen-year old multi-position infielder when he was drafted by the Expos in 1978, Phillips batted just .185 for two different A-ball teams in their system. He hit just one home run and was caught stealing in six of his eleven attempts. There was a bit of improvement the following year, but not much. He hit .254 between High-A West Palm Beach and Double-A Memphis, but still had just three homers and was caught stealing nearly half the time. Like his NMMI peers, he didn’t appear to have much of a future in professional baseball.
But Phillips had a few things going for him that kept earning him chances. The first was that he was competent defensively at every position they played him. He was never going to be a Gold Glover, but he was fine at second base and shortstop in particular, and could play third base in a pinch. Eventually he would add the outfield to his bag of tricks. Enhancing this positional flexibility was Phillips’ ability to switch-hit. Though he was always a bit better from the right side of the plate, he was fine from the left as well. Playing multiple positions while also switch-hitting meant that Phillips, at a minimum, could be sort of a one-man bench if he could hit enough to earn a big league roster spot.
On top of that, he had the ability to get on base consistently. Even when he was batting below .200, Phillips always drew a lot of walks. He walked in nearly 15% of his plate appearances in his first pro season, and kept that at 13% even when he hit better the next year. In his third season, spent entirely in Memphis again, he walked 98 times in 613 plate appearances and stole 50 bases.
That performance made him a prospect, in enough demand that the A’s traded Willie Montañez for him in late August, 1980.
Now twenty-two, Phillips went to Double-A again in 1981 and mostly repeated his performance of the year before. His steals dropped from 50 to 40, and his walks from 98 to 67, but he added some pop that had been missing, totaling 26 doubles and 9 homers while also cutting his strikeout rate. After a good start to the 1982 season in Triple-A, Phillips was called up to Oakland in May, 1982. He stayed there for only a couple of months, batting .210/.326/.284 in 40 games before being sent back down.
That marked the first of eight seasons with the A’s, and they could most charitably be called “up and down.” Here’s a quick summary:
1982: Called up from Tacoma, posted 75 OPS+, farmed out in July.
1983: In Oakland all season, started 126 games, mostly at shortstop. Hit pretty poorly there, just a .516 OPS, but did well at second base, a .784 OPS. Overall had an OPS+ of 85.
1984: Splitting time again between second base and shortstop, he started 136 games and had an OPS+ of 97. In a harbinger of the future, he played one game in the outfield for the first time.
1985: Broke his foot before the season started and missed significant time. Spent some rehab time in Triple-A again, but hit well (a 121 OPS+) in limited action for the A’s. He didn’t play at shortstop at all, spending all his time at second base or third base.
1986: His best season to date, but limited to just 118 games because he sprained his knee and also tore a hamstring in early August. His 103 OPS+ was his best in a full big-league season so far, and he was worth 4.4 WAR playing good defense mostly at second base.
1987: Was playing pretty well with a .752 OPS as Oakland’s regular second baseman when he was hit in the wrist during batting practice by a line drive off the bat of rookie Mark McGwire. The wrist was broken, Phillips missed six weeks, and only hit .188 after he returned. He was released after the season, but re-signed with the A’s when no better offers were received.
1988: Played all over the field, and not very well. He was the Opening Day second baseman, then played left field the next day, then center field the next, then played third base a couple of days later and even made a return appearance at shortstop. By May 17 he was hitting just .198 and then bruised his knee and went on the disabled list again. He had an extended rehab assignment to Triple-A, returned to Oakland in July and hit just .206 the rest of the way. He got into two World Series games that Fall, but the A’s lost to the Dodgers.
1989: Now thirty-years old, Phillips had a good bounce-back year. He had a 99 OPS+ while still playing all over the field, and Oakland won the World Series.
Despite that championship, Phillips’ overall time in Oakland was pretty disappointing. His combined OPS+ was just 95, he’d been hurt a couple of times, released once, demoted a few times, and struggled to adapt to the super-utility role he was given. Granted free agency after the season ended, it looked like his best seasons were probably behind him.
But then things finally clicked.
Phillips signed with the Tigers before the 1990 season. Now healthy, and ready to embrace the same kind of super-utility role, he had a very good season. He had a 101 OPS+, aided by a career-high 99 walks. He scored 97 runs, and stole 19 bases, and established himself as an everyday player even if he didn’t have an everyday position.
He spent five years playing for Sparky Anderson in Detroit and was exceptional despite the fact that he was already thirty-one years old when he arrived there. He averaged 144 games, 100 runs, 154 hits, a dozen homers, 14 steals, 104 walks, a batting line of .281/.395/.405, and had an OPS+ of 120. He posted 5.1 WAR on average each year, led the league in runs scored in 1992 and in walks in 1993. If not for the strike in 1994, Phillips would have had five straight years scoring over 100 runs, and six straight drawing over 100 walks.
Traded to the Angels in 1995, he had the same kind of year he’d had in Detroit, scoring 119 runs and drawing 113 walks. He also had his best home run season, hitting a career-high 27. Before the 1996 season he signed a free agent deal with the White Sox, where he led the league in walks again and scored another 119 runs.
Phillips was still playing at the age of forty in 1999, his on-base ability and positional flexibility always being in demand. The difference in his career numbers through age 30 and after that is remarkable:
By the end of his career, Phillips had played in 2,161 total games, with at least 97 games played at each of seven different positions. He’s the only player ever to do that, and only Phillips and Bill Hall played at least 200 games each at second, third, short and any outfield position. Along the way, Phillips reached 1,300 walks, 1,300 runs, 2,000 hits, and 150 homers and steals. He played in two World Series, and got a ring from one of them. It was a great career, despite having a slow start and never having a consistent position to play.
That’s pretty good for a New Mexico Military Institute baseball player. Maybe it’s time NMMI got over themselves and allowed him to be included in the school’s Hall of Fame. Tony Phillips certainly achieved “eminence in a chosen field of endeavor,” just like Connie Hilton and Roger Staubach before him.
Excellent article and perfect addition to the series!!!
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your posts