Adam Haseley, the quietest guy in Phillies’ clubhouse, should make strides in 2020
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Adam Haseley might be the quietest, most unassuming guy in the Phillies’ clubhouse. He comes in every day, puts his head down and goes to work. No frills, no fuss and certainly no calling attention to himself.
Toward the end of his rookie season last year, Haseley made a play that typified his modest demeanor.
It came on Sept. 4 in Cincinnati as the Phillies’ postseason hopes were slipping away in an 8-5 loss to the Reds.
In the eighth inning of that game, Reds shortstop Freddy Galvis clubbed a ball to right-center. It had home run written all over it.
Haseley was in center field for the Phillies that night. Now, as a runner, Haseley does not have top-of-the-scale speed like teammate Roman Quinn. However, he does make good reads, get good jumps and run good routes on balls. He did all of the above on this night.
As Galvis connected with a pitch from Blake Parker, Haseley put his head down and sprinted to his left and toward the gap. As he got to the warning track, he looked back over his shoulder, located the ball and then, at full speed, timed his jump perfectly at the wall. His right arm rose high above the wall and he snatched the would-be home run from Galvis – not that anyone really knew it for a few seconds.
Staying true to his quiet, understated way, Haseley bounced off the wall and with his head down started to jog back toward his position. He was so nonchalant after making the eye-popping catch that his teammates in the dugout did not know he had the ball until he took it out of his glove.
“He’s a showman,” then-teammate Brad Miller joked after the game.
Not really.
Haseley, the quiet outfielder, denied any intentional theatrics.
“Honestly,” he said when asked about his modest reaction to the highlight-reel catch, “I think I was in shock.”
You’ll see more of Haseley in the Phillies’ outfield this season. He is likely to get reps in center field and left field when the season opens later this month.
Haseley, who turns 24 in April, was the Phillies’ first-round draft pick in 2017 out of the University of Virginia. He made a quick trek to the majors, arriving last June after Andrew McCutchen went down with a season-ending knee injury.
Ideally, Haseley would have gotten some more time at Triple A, but the Phils needed him and he held his own, hitting .266 with five homers and 26 RBIs in 222 at-bats.
Haseley’s OPS was just .720 last season and that should rise this season. He came to camp physically stronger this spring and that should help his extra-base pop. He’s always displayed selectivity at the plate so his on-base percentage stands to improve from .324.
“In a perfect world, Adam would have spent more time in the minor leagues (in 2019),” general manager Matt Klentak said this winter. “But with McCutchen getting hurt, we felt it was the right time to be a little more aggressive. He had some ups and downs. It wasn’t a perfect rookie season. But I think he gives a real good at-bat. He’s got a very good idea of the strike zone – he had that as an amateur and he started to show it at the big-league level. I know his walk-to-strikeout totals weren’t great but I think if you watch his at-bats, I think you can see he has that skill and as he starts to become more comfortable at this level we’ll start to see that more and more.
“I was also impressed with his defense so I think when you look at the body of work over three months that he was in the big leagues, that’s a pretty impressive rookie season and I think there’s reason for optimism that he’ll be better than that (in 2020).
“I think he’s going to be a really good player.”
Just don’t ask him to boast about it.
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