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Philadelphia Phillies End of the Year Announcing Review

By Tim Kelly

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An updated look at the Philadelphia Phillies‘ TV announcing booth. 

In 2015, Ben Davis replaced Jamie Moyer on the Philadelphia Phillies television broadcast. He split time with Matt Stairs, who was in his second season as the team’s color commentator. Tom McCarthy was the team’s play-by-play announcer, doing so for the sixth year individually and the eighth year overall. Gregg Murphy served as the team’s stadium reporter, or at least that’s how I would deem it, doing odds-and-ends in-game reports from around whatever stadium the Phillies were at.

Throughout the course of the 2015 season, I took two looks at the Phillies television announcing booth. I took an early look at the impact that Davis had, and then examined later in the season if Matt Stairs would have his contract extended.

Here’s my year-end review look at Comcast Sportsnet’s booth, which ties up some of the loose ends from the season.

Tom McCarthy

For anyone who wasn’t aware, the reason that McCarthy wasn’t present for a majority of the weekend series’ down the stretch was that he was announcing football games for CBS, which obviously takes a few days worth of preparation. He’s quite good at football announcing, I would add.

McCarthy is under contract for two more seasons. What happens from there could be quite interesting because he was signed to his current deal prior to the Phillies’ new television deal, and CSN Philly now has control over the hires for the telecasts. They used that control to immediately get rid of Chris Wheeler and Gary “Sarge” Matthews, and it’s fair to wonder if the not-very-popular McCarthy will get an extension at the end of this deal.

It’s also fair to wonder if McCarthy, who announces football and basketball as well, wants to continue to be as tied to doing one team for an entire year. He could follow the route of former Phillies’ announcer Scott Graham and announce a variety of sports at both the pro and college level rather than announcing strictly for the Phillies for most of the year.

(As pointed out by readers, Graham was let go and McCarthy would be, we assume, deciding to do this on his own. This is just a hypothetical though, and as I mentioned above, it’s not impossible CSN eventually parts ways with him.)

I’ll go to my grave thinking that the Phillies could do significantly worse than McCarthy. His job is play-by-play, and he’s good at announcing the play-by-play aspect of the game. The problem is, and this is made especially true on a bad team, that McCarthy has a quirky personality that tends to rub fans the wrong way in between pitches or in blow-outs.

Ben Davis

Davis did a great job in his first season as a color-commentator. Though CSN didn’t replace him in the studio very well, it was evident they made the right choice in bringing him in as Jamie Moyer’s replacement.

I’m not sure if him yelling “YAGA!” after homeruns is ever going to catch on, but get used to Davis–he’s only 38 and may outlast everyone currently in the booth.

Matt Stairs

As I wrote earlier this year, Stairs agreed to a two-year contract when he first joined the Phillies as an announcer in 2014. So technically, his contract is up.

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In two years, not only did Stairs exhibit a strange announcing schedule, but he also didn’t do much that was special as an announcer. I think he’s good at breaking down hitting, but he’s not the most exciting guy and doesn’t speak all that well.

He’s far and away more enjoyable to listen to than either Wheeler or Matthews were, so if he is signed to an extension it’s far from the end of the world. But I wouldn’t be shocked if CSN Philly elects not to bring him back.

Part of me wonders if he will want to come back. He isn’t from Philly and mysteriously deleted his Twitter during this season. Deleting his account may have nothing to do with some of the negative tweets that he received and even if it did, he may not care enough to walk away from the job. But it is interesting.

It’s kind of sad that Stairs is becoming less-and-less connected with hitting the most iconic homerun in franchise history or hitting the last Harry Kalas called homerun and more with how he pronounces the word out.

Gregg Murphy

Murphy is the type of guy that those of us in the business really appreciate. He’s worked his way up from the bottom of the barrel to being a vital member of the Phillies’ broadcast.

Him replacing McCarthy when he was away calling football games may have proven that he’s not cut out to do that job at this level, but that’s fine because he’s very good at the job he’s already doing.

Some have suggested that his job is pointless, but I don’t really agree with that. I think especially when the Phillies are in the parks that they don’t normally play in, it’s cool to have someone go around the stadium.

I also think the idea that a woman needs to hold this job is kind of flawed. Not that there aren’t some talented women in the Philadelphia media landscape, but Murphy is talented and very good at the role that he is in. There’s no need to mess with that.

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