How many can you name?
Late March is the time when the Opening Day roster starts to come into focus. Camp is winding down and numbers are being cut as teams begin to assemble the group of players they will embark on the new season with. Not all of these players will remain on the team by season’s end of course. In fact, many may not even stick around past the flowers blooming in May. Nevertheless, it’s still an honor to be selected to be on the roster for Opening Day and be a part of all the pomp and circumstance of baseball’s glorious return from hibernation.
The 2025 Phillies don’t have a ton of drama with their roster, as almost every position is locked up. Ten years ago however, the situation was drastically different. The 2015 Phillies offered competitions for playing time to be won and some players seized that opportunity or at least beat out even lesser players. Little did they know that the “honor” they were about to be rewarded with was to be on the worst team in baseball.
The Phillies carried 12 pitchers, two catchers, seven infielders, and four outfielders on their 25-man 2015 Opening Day Roster. Without looking, how many of them can you name?
Have you counted the names in your head? Now, let’s break it down by degree of difficulty to commit to memory.
The layups
Opening Day 2015 still featured the shambling corpse of what was the greatest era in Phillies baseball. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Carlos Ruiz, and Cole Hamels once again suited up in red pinstripes for the first game of the season, with Hamels being chosen as the Opening Day starter.
The new breed
2015 was set to be the dawn of a new era for the Phillies as they expected an influx of youth to replace their aged core. This group features Ken Giles, Freddy Galvis, Cesar Hernandez, Darin Ruf, Cody Asche, Cameron Rupp, Ben Revere, and Odubel Herrera. If you said Maikel Franco, he doesn’t count because he was not called up to the Majors until May 15th.
He was still there?
Jonathan Papelbon, Jake Diekman, and Justin De Fratus make up the category of guys you probably remembered but didn’t remember how long they were actually here.
Slipped my mind
Here’s where things get really interesting. This is the tier of guys you probably forgot but you may instantly remember and suffer a chill down your spine when you read the name. They include Aaron Harang, Jerome Williams, David Buchanan, Luis Garcia, Jeff Francoeur, and Grady Sizemore.
Who?
Only the real sickos remember Andres Blanco and Dustin McGowan.
WHO?
Not even the real sickos remember Cesar Jimenez.
How many did you get right?
If you named 1-5, you clearly remember the last of the glory days and blocked out the next ten years.
If you named 5-10, you remember the glory days but also have the scars of what came after it.
If you named 10-15, you probably get good scores on the Immaculate Grid.
If you named 15-20, you should probably seek therapy.
If you named all 25, how are you doing Cesar Jimenez?