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Bats or Batons? The Phillies Roster as Classical Composers

The Philadelphia Phillies enter the 2024 playoffs amid a swirl of questions. Will the Fightin’ Phils — whose 95 regular season victories ranked second-most in the majors and earned them their first NL East title since 2011 — overcome the heartbreaking defeats that haunted their last postseason runs? Can Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Christopher Sánchez maintain their dominance on the mound? Which versions of the notoriously streaky Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Nick Castellanos will we get? And then there is perhaps the most burning question of all: which composers do the 2024 Phillies most resemble? Go Phils!


Kyle Schwarber

Composer Comparison: Gustav Mahler

Like Mahler’s symphonies, Schwarber’s towering moonshots leave us reliably floored. Next time The Philadelphia Orchestra plays Mahler’s Sixth, we nominate #12 to wield the hammer! 


Johan Rojas

Composer Comparison: Domenico Scarlatti

Scarlatti’s 550 keyboard sonatas demand dexterity, finesse, precision, and panache, the exact skills Rojas displays game-after-game patrolling center field.


Brandon Marsh

Composer Comparison: Johannes Brahms

Fear their beards!


Trea Turner

Composer Comparison: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Balletic displays of slick fielding at shortstop and a reliable stream of hits at the plate. Like Tchaikovsky, Turner earns every clap of his well-deserved standing ovations!


Garrett Stubbs

Composer Comparison: Johann Strauss II

The Phillies backup catcher is the ultimate “vibes guy” and the instigator of all major clubhouse celebrations — few composers bring the party like the “Waltz King,” and his more than 500 waltzes.


Bryce Harper

Composer Comparison: Ludwig van Beethoven

The fire and passion at the heart of the order. No composer has conjured as many iconic moments in the concert hall, and no player has conjured more iconic Red October moments at the Bank.


Alec Bohm

Composer Comparison: Antonio Vivaldi

The Phillies' third baseman has a knack for getting on second. This season he cranked out 44 doubles (4th most in all of baseball!) just as Vivaldi’s dozens of “double” concertos for two soloists lead the way for all composers.


Zack Wheeler

Composer Comparison: Johann Sebastian Bach

Peerless in the art of counterpoint in the strike zone.


JT Realmuto

Composer Comparison: Franz Joseph Haydn

Steady, industrious, and loved by all. Like Haydn — the composer of 104 symphonies and 68 string quartets — the Phillies’ backstop is a stalwart of his genre, churning out masterpiece after masterpiece behind the diamond.


Nick Castellanos

Composer Comparison: Gioacchino Rossini

Castellanos leads the league with four walk-off hits this season. Rossini, a similarly feisty character, was notorious for composing the overtures for his operas mere hours before they premiered, another king of coming through in the clutch.


Christopher Sȧnchez

Composer Comparison: Sergei Rachmaninoff

Powerful left-handers (yes, Rachmaninoff was a southpaw!) with fearsome technique that makes life exceedingly difficult for all opposing pianists and hitters.


Aaron Nola

Composer Comparison: George Gershwin

Nola’s patented curveball, one of the best in baseball, glides across hitters’ eyelines with the elegant zip of the most famous glissando in all of classical music, the opening clarinet solo of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue


Matt Strahm

Composer Comparison: Igor Stravinsky

Tense, twitchy, and rhythmically irregular, the Phillies’ prized set-up man commands the mound with Rite of Spring-level intensity.


Orion Kerkering

Composer Comparison: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

At only 23, the precocious righty is the youngest player on the roster. Like the youthful Wolfgang Amadeus, Kerkering’s outstanding talent is still being refined, but certainly not to be underestimated.


Bryson Stott

Composer Comparison: Giuseppe Verdi

Stott’s charismatic and debonair presence at second has made him such a fan favorite that crowds at the Bank have taken to belting out his walk-up song — Tai Verdes’ A-OK — at deafening decibel levels. From choruses like Va, Pensiero to arias like La Donna e mobile, Verdi’s tunes are among the most appealing and fun to sing along with in all of opera.

Zev is thrilled to be WRTI’s classical program director, where he hopes to steward and grow the station’s tremendous legacy on the airwaves of Greater Philadelphia.