‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Doug Glanville on the center-field void, his Jimmy Rollins story, and more

Glanville played in a golden age for center fielders. Now? Not so much. The former Phillie discussed the state of his position on his old team and across baseball.

Doug Glanville played six seasons with the Phillies across two stints.Read moreDENIS POROY / AP

by Scott Lauber

Published April 30, 2025, 9:33 a.m. ET

Doug Glanville played nine seasons in the majors, including six with the Phillies.

And it was a golden age for center fielders.

Here’s a partial list of Glanville’s contemporaries from his rookie year (1996) through his last season (2004): Andruw Jones, Bernie Williams, Marquis Grissom, Steve Finley, Kenny Lofton, Jim Edmonds, Mike Cameron, Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, Torii Hunter, and of course, Ken Griffey Jr., the gold standard.

Two decades later, it’s worth asking: Where have all the great center fielders gone?

Through Monday, center fielders had a collective .699 OPS. That would be the fifth-lowest mark at the position since MLB lowered the mound in 1968. Last year, center fielders combined for a .697 OPS.

Glanville discussed the state of center field, among other things, in a recent appearance on Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball show. Here’s an excerpt from our wide-ranging conversation, which has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Watch the full interview below.

Q: What’s been your view of center field, which has kind of been an unsettled spot now for the Phillies for several years?

A: I appreciate the challenge of having that day-to-day center fielder. And I think the challenge is, do you get the glove, and then also get the bat? It’s not an easy combination because it’s such a significant position up the middle. You’re responsible for a lot of the bulk of the balls in the outfield. You’re backing up, you’re covering for the corner guys who may not be as strong defensively. And you want that bat. And that’s the Phillies’ signature to be able to hit and have that extra swing.

Brandon Marsh is a guy that I like as a ballplayer. I think he’s got good sense in terms of defensively. He just needed a chance to see lefties. There was a period of, he’s got some pop the other way. There’s a lot of things you’re just sort of looking at him. And I can see why the Phillies said, “Well, let’s just give him a shot.” And it just didn’t start off well. And so when you do that and you get hurt, then you go back to [Johan] Rojas.

Now you need the depth that you weren’t really planning on leaning on so soon. So, it has been a revolving door. And it’s not necessary that center fielders have to hit 50 home runs, but they have to give you the glove. If you’re not getting the offensive production there, you got to make up for it somewhere. You got to have it somewhere, or you have to have such good run prevention that it doesn’t make a difference. But the Phillies aren’t built for run prevention. They do it on the pitching side, but it’s not necessarily all about the glove work. It’s more about outscoring the other team. And I think that when that’s missing … they’re not the Tigers, right? They’re not the teams that are going to just [say], “All right, we’re going to lose all these matchups, but we’re going to beat you in the seventh, eighth, and ninth because we have the matchups.” The Phillies are much more geared toward, “I’m going to outscore you and we’ll kind of figure it out. And then we have a good enough bullpen to hold the lead.” That has not played in to the way they hoped.

Q: Leaguewide, are we going through a down cycle in center field, or is the position changing right before our eyes?

A: There’s a lot of layers to it. I’d say I can start on this front: It’s really hard to hit today. Velocity, max effort, specialization of the bullpen, there’s so many factors that just make it harder. So that’s one. Two, defense is seen as almost like a single organism. You move guys around. You can come up as a rookie now, like [the Padres’] Jackson Merrill, be a shortstop and a center fielder. And the guy never played a day in his life in center field. So the specialization where you see maybe on the bullpen side, you’re seeing it in almost like a reverse way in the outfield. Because you see guys like throwing anybody out there and just like, you’ll figure it out. Like [Astros rookie third baseman] Cam Smith [who is playing the outfield], guys just come up. And the young players are conditioned to be willing to play a lot of different positions. … The defensive prowess of having years and years and years of reps at that position defensively is not really a requirement anymore. And so in theory, you’d say, well, I can put anybody out there, just put a bat out there.

But I’ll give you the Tigers as an example. When they broke camp, [manager] A.J. Hinch told us, we are going to run-prevent. So we’re going to get a guy like [Ryan] Kreidler or somebody like that who will be able to be the Swiss Army knife. So it isn’t about him being the best offensive player in center. It’s that he can play all these other positions to give us a chance to put the best guy who’s more limited defensively in his position. So it’s almost like you have these pieces and one piece is for the purpose of holding a spot for a certain situation so that you can allow the guy that’s less versatile to do what he does with the bat. And so it’s sort of a reverse situation.

I think center field has been sort of the victim of that to certain degrees. And so who is a center fielder? Are they playing every day or are guys playing left, center, right and short, and second? It’s just created a different culture around it. I know when I came up, I thought of myself as a center fielder. I wasn’t even a left fielder. I wasn’t even a right fielder. I was a center fielder. And you can’t even think that way as a young player anymore. And I think the game has kind of followed.

Q: A former teammate of yours, Jimmy Rollins, is being inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame this summer. I think a lot about a story that you told me years ago. I wonder if you remember that story and can share it.

A: Oh, wow. I mean, Jimmy was right out of a movie, I’m telling you. … It was definitely his rookie year. Jimmy gets called up. And Jimmy is Jimmy. He just couldn’t stop talking. He was so excited. And he’s talking, he’s talking, he’s talking. Now, I came from the generation of be seen, not heard when you come up. You don’t say anything. Veterans do the talking. Scott Rolen was kind of in that mold. Now I was embracing the evolution of players. I called [Rollins], ‘Rookie 2.0.’ Scott Rolen, not so much. He was like, ‘Nah, I’m not really cool with this.’ So Jimmy’s in our [batting practice] group and he’s not only talking, he’s describing every swing he takes. He’s like, ‘Oh, did you see that? Oh, look at the backspin. Oh, that’s out of here. Oh, don’t throw that in here.’ I mean, he was talking the whole time. And it might have been like nervous energy and excitement and all that, but it was just Jimmy being Jimmy. And you could see Rolen, the steam coming off his head. And I think he let him do it for a day, maybe two, and then eventually Rolen was done.

So he pulled Bobby [Abreu] and I aside, and we didn’t have a choice. OK, let’s just get it straight. He was like, “OK, I’m going to kick him out of the group. I just wanted to talk to you about it and ask you.” I wasn’t that upset. It was kind of fun, but I wasn’t going to stop Scott. You know, Scott had his kind of rules and regulations, so … I was like if that’s what you need to do, if it’s distracting you. So he kicks Jimmy out of the group. Poor Jimmy, I felt horrible. He’s sitting in the corner now like [he’s wearing] a dunce cap and he’s not talking at all …

But see, he came into his own and eventually became that ‘Rookie 2.0′ and announced his presence with authority and played with enthusiasm and the game needed it. And I appreciated it even as a veteran. And I think he brought a lot of inspiration to the game.

Yeah, he had to grow as a rookie. I know that I was standing there behind him during his interviews. And I’d be like, “Oh, OK, let’s just work on that a little bit.” He’s talking in his Oakland lingo, and nobody knew what he was saying. But Jimmy was great. He was a wise man beyond his years. We used to talk about it, and we’d come up with strategies. I was just so proud of the player he became and his career. He just became a fantastic ballplayer.