June 23: Two Phillies Whose Careers Burned Bright and Faded Fast

The Main Event

• June 23, 2015 – For the second night in a row, Maikel Franco drives in five runs in a win over New York at Yankee Stadium. He’s the first Phillie to put up consecutive five-RBI games since the stat became official in 1920.
• June 23, 2017 – Tommy Joseph becomes the first Phillie to hit a home run into the pool at Chase Field in Phoenix. His two-run blast in the ninth sealed a 6-1 Phillies victory.

Few franchises in baseball history have experienced the emotional swings of prospect hope and disappointment quite like the Philadelphia Phillies during their rebuilding years of the mid-2010s. Among the many players who passed through Citizens Bank Park during that era, two names stand out for very different but equally compelling reasons: Maikel Franco, the hard-hitting Dominican third baseman with a cannon arm and a tendency to underachieve his potential, and Tommy Joseph, the injury-ravaged catcher/first baseman whose path to the major leagues was one of the most inspiring and heartbreaking stories the sport has seen in recent memory. Both men made their marks in Philadelphia, and both found their careers cut short far sooner than anyone had hoped.

Maikel Franco: The Prospect Who Promised So Much

Maikel Antonio Franco was born on August 26, 1992, in Azua, Dominican Republic, and signed with the Phillies as an international free agent in 2010 for a $100,000 bonus. He rose quickly through the system, and prior to the 2014 season, both MLB.com and Baseball America ranked him among the top 100 prospects in all of baseball. Scouts loved his right-handed power, his mature approach at the plate, and the feel he had for the strike zone. He was seen as a potential franchise cornerstone at third base.

Franco made his MLB debut on September 2, 2014, and was given the full-time starting role at third base beginning in 2015, when he was called up on May 15 after hitting .355 with four home runs with Lehigh Valley. His rookie year showed considerable promise — he hit .280 with 14 home runs and posted a .497 slugging percentage, ranking among the top NL rookies in several offensive categories. It was in that rookie season that Franco produced one of the more remarkable statistical feats in Phillies history. On June 22 and June 23, 2015, he drove in five runs in back-to-back games against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, becoming the first Phillie since the RBI became an official statistic in 1920 to accomplish that feat in consecutive games. It was the kind of milestone that suggested a franchise player was emerging.

Franco’s Inconsistency and Gradual Decline

Despite the exciting start, Franco never quite lived up to the lofty billing. He put together solid home run totals — 25 in 2016, 24 in 2017, and 22 in 2018 — and in 2018 he was notably the only player in Major League Baseball with 20 or more home runs and 62 or fewer strikeouts, a contact-power combination that made him genuinely unusual. But his on-base percentage remained stubbornly low, his defense at third base drew poor marks — he posted a -12 Defensive Runs Saved rating among NL third basemen in 2018 — and the Phillies ultimately moved on from him after the 2019 season, when he appeared in just 107 games and hit .234 with 17 home runs. He spent a brief stint with the Kansas City Royals in 2020, then signed with the Baltimore Orioles in 2021, where he was designated for assignment in August. A short tenure with the Washington Nationals in 2022 ended with his release in August of that year, effectively closing his MLB chapter. Over nine major league seasons, Franco hit .244 with 130 home runs and 467 RBI across 3,309 at-bats — a career that, on paper, looks adequate, but always felt like a footnote to what might have been.

Where Is Maikel Franco Now?

After his MLB career ended, Franco signed with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, spending parts of three seasons there. He had a memorable moment in May 2024 when he became the first batter in Rakuten history to deliver a pinch-hit walk-off home run. After parting ways with the Eagles following the 2025 season, he signed with the Diablos Rojos del México of the Mexican League in early 2026, and was hitting .272 with 11 home runs in 39 games before being waived in June 2026. At 33, Franco remains active in professional baseball, still chasing the version of himself that scouts once believed was a major league star in the making.

Tommy Joseph: A Career Defined by Resilience and Heartbreak

Tommy Joseph’s story is harder to tell without a lump in the throat. Born on July 16, 1991, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Joseph was a two-way high school standout who was named Arizona’s high school player of the year in 2009. The San Francisco Giants selected him in the second round of the 2009 draft, 55th overall, and he was widely regarded as a premier catching prospect. He was ranked as the Giants’ number two prospect entering 2012, which made him the centerpiece of the package San Francisco sent to Philadelphia at the July 2012 trade deadline in exchange for outfielder Hunter Pence.

A Concussion Crisis That Threatened to End Everything

Almost immediately, Joseph’s career began to unravel due to injury — specifically, a series of devastating concussions. He had already suffered a concussion in the Giants’ system in 2010. After arriving in Philadelphia, he played just 36 games in 2013 due to concussion issues, then only 27 in 2014 after wrist surgery following a collision at the plate. In 2015, he suffered yet another concussion — his fifth — that caused severe ocular motor problems, meaning his eyes were not tracking moving objects normally. For a hitter, that is a career-ending condition. The Phillies removed him from the 40-man roster in October 2015, and no team claimed him in the Rule 5 draft. His career appeared to be finished before it had truly started.

What followed was one of the more remarkable comeback stories in recent Phillies history. Joseph worked extensively with vision rehabilitation specialist Dr. Michael Gallaway in Marlton, New Jersey, who helped correct his eye-tracking issues, including treating a newly diagnosed astigmatism with a contact lens. His days as a catcher were over because of the numerous concussions, so he donned a first baseman’s glove and went to the Phillies minor league Camp in 2016 looking to earn a spot on the roster. By then, he was hitting with clarity and confidence again. He tore through Triple-A with a .347 average and six home runs in 27 games. On May 13, 2016 — exactly one year and two days after his fifth concussion — he was called up to the majors. In his rookie season, he hit 21 home runs and drove in 47 runs in 107 games, earning a spot on Baseball America’s MLB All-Rookie Team. He also hit seven home runs in his first 21 games, a Phillies record at the time.

Joseph’s Historic Moment in Phoenix and His Brief Prime

Joseph’s 2017 season brought more highlights, including the home run on June 23 at Chase Field in Phoenix when he became the first Phillie ever to deposit a ball into the swimming pool beyond the outfield wall, a two-run blast in the ninth inning that sealed a 6-1 Phillies victory. He hit 22 home runs and drove in 69 that season across 142 games, making him only the second Phillie in the expansion era to hit at least 20 home runs in his first two MLB seasons, joining Ryan Howard.

His time in Philadelphia ended when the Phillies signed Carlos Santana to play first base and Rhys Hoskins emerged as a power bat, leaving no room for Joseph. He was designated for assignment in March 2018, signed by the Texas Rangers, and spent his remaining professional seasons in the minor leagues of Texas and Boston before retiring from playing after the 2019 season. He holds the unique and bittersweet distinction of being the only player in MLB history to appear in exactly two major league seasons and hit at least 20 home runs in each of those seasons without ever getting a third.

Tommy Joseph’s Coaching Career

Joseph transitioned into coaching and has built an impressive resume on the instructional side of the game. He served as hitting coach for the St. Lucie Mets in 2021, then moved up to the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies in 2022. He joined the San Francisco Giants organization in 2023 as hitting coach for their High-A affiliate, the Eugene Emeralds, before being hired as assistant hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners in 2024. In November 2024, the Baltimore Orioles hired him away from Seattle to serve as their assistant hitting coach alongside primary hitting coach Cody Asche — the same Cody Asche who beat Franco out for the Phillies’ starting third base job back in 2014. Joseph’s eye for hitting mechanics, informed no doubt by his own hard-won experience diagnosing and correcting his own vision problems, has made him a sought-after voice in professional player development.

Two Phillies Prospects, Two Legacies

Together, Maikel Franco and Tommy Joseph represent a particular kind of Philadelphia Phillies story — talented players who arrived with big expectations, delivered flashes of genuine brilliance, and ultimately left behind careers that felt unfinished. Franco’s consecutive five-RBI games against the Yankees and Joseph’s pool shot in Phoenix were defining moments for both men, snapshots of what they were capable of when everything clicked. Franco is still chasing the dream of being a professional baseball player at 33. Joseph has channeled his passion for the game into coaching, building toward what may one day be a distinguished career on the MLB bench. Both men’s careers remind fans that the path from prospect to stardom is never guaranteed, and that the mark a player leaves on a franchise can mean far more than the statistics suggest.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for June 23

• June 23, 1915 – Philadelphia Athletics lefty Bruno Haas makes his debut against New York a memorable one as he walks a record 16 batters, and throws three wild pitches. He goes all the way in a 15 – 7 loss, his only major league decision. Haas breaks the American League record of 15 walks, set by Boardwalk Brown and ties Bill George‘s major league record. Haas will pitch in just five more games before ending up in the NFL as a halfback for Akron.
• June 23, 1929 – Pitcher Phil Collins – not to be confused with the drummer and lead singer of the band Genesis – hits a grand slam in the second game of a double-header, but the Phils lose to Boston 7-5.
• June 23, 1960 – Traded Al Dark to Milwaukee for Joe Morgan. Al Dark went on to manage in the majors and win 994 games. This Joe Morgan played from 1959-1964, including just 26 games for Philadelphia before being traded to Cleveland for cash.
• June 23, 1963 – New York’s Jimmy Piersall hits his 100th home run off the Phillies’ Dallas Green – and circles the bases running backwards. He is released a couple of days later.
• June 23, 1971 – Rick Wise pitched a no-hitter against the Reds and hit two homers. He is the only pitcher to accomplish both feats in a single game. He allowed one walk, to Dave Concepcion in the sixth. Pete Rose made the last out.
• June 23, 1973 – Phillies Pitcher Ken Brett hit a home run in the fourth consecutive game in which he appeared. He beat Montreal 7-2, and finished with a career total of 10 home runs.
• June 23, 1978 – Released Mike Anderson, who was drafted sixth overall in the 1969 Draft.
• June 23, 1986 – The Phillies pound Chicago 19-1 with 20 hits, including a team-record 11 doubles. The previous record of 10 was set the season before.
• June 23, 2012 – Jim Thome‘s ninth inning home run earned the Phillies a walk-off win over Tampa Bay. It was Thome’s 13th walk-off homer, tying a major league record. The victory also marked Charlie Manuel‘s 900th career managerial victory.
• June 23, 2021 – The Phillies blew leads of 5-0, 9-5, and 12-11 in a 13-12 loss to Washington. Both teams had a grand slam and a three-run home run, a major league first.

ICYMI

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• Philly Baseball News – Ramon Marquez Takes SAL Pitching Award

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for June 23

• Johnny Humphries (born 1915) – Finished his nine-year major league career with 10 games pitched for the 1946 Phillies. Finished the season with a 4.01 ERA and a 3.78 career ERA.
• Deacon Donohue (born 1920) – Pitched in just two MLB seasons (1943-1944) both with the Phillies. Finished with an 0-2, 6.75 record in eight games.

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