Philadelphia Phillies: Assembling Full 40-Man Roster of Top Homegrown Players

From baseball’s beginnings to the game that is played today, the importance of player development has not been underscored. Before there were farm systems, scouts would look at players participating in other leagues. Unaffiliated with other teams, if a major league club found a player they liked all they had to do was make an offer.

Today, the way teams develop players is a little different. Often they will acquire them from the MLB Amateur Draft or as undrafted free agents. Then the player will likely begin a long and slow process in the minors until they are deemed major league ready.

Sometimes players drafted won’t make it to the bigs with the team that signed them. Sometimes draft picks won’t make it at all.

With the way Major League Baseball is, you can’t know which draft picks will become stars or which undrafted free agents you should take a chance on. You can guess, but until you see that player in action, you won’t know.

Since the Phillies have recently stressed the importance of the farm system and since it is that farm system that has enabled them to make such blockbuster deals, I thought it would be interesting to look back at those players that weren’t involved in blockbuster deals, those players that were drafted or signed by the team and that started and in some cases finished their careers in Philadelphia.

Without further ado and with an intensive look back into the franchise’s history, I present the best 40-man roster the Phils can assemble using only players that are considered to be homegrown talent.

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