For What It's Werth (One Sixty-Two: Day 119)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Nineteen: Jayson Werth, Philadelphia Phillies

The legendary pitcher Satchel Paige once said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Many of us struggle at times with the impulse to retrace our steps and reflect on choices we’ve made in life. Was it smart to have taken this job over that one? Did we pick the right house, neighborhood or state in which to live? Have we made the best choices in terms of raising our kids?

We know that looking back and thinking through our choices often leads us to more stress than we already have. Looking ahead, on the other hand, often feels much more healthy and exciting. We’ve only got this one life, so why spend most of it second-guessing ourselves?

Plus, the one thing about major life decisions is that you can’t keep score of your personal successes solely by analyzing the things you choose to do. Doing this fails to acknowledge the other kinds of decisions: the things we choose not to do. Sometimes, the things we opted not to do end up being far more important to our life’s journey than the things we did decide to do. There’s that job lead we had that we didn’t pursue – it ended up being a terrible job, after all, but we don’t know that because we didn’t even bother going for it. There’s that blind date we canceled way back when – it ends up she was just the kind of girl we might have fallen for, yet for all the wrong reasons. And there’s that house we decided not to look at when we were out with the realtor – we would have loved its historic charm, but it ended up being a money trap. We filter our decision-making faculties all the time, and sometimes that filter works really well.

Back in July, the Philadelphia Phillies were struggling mightily. As the July 31st trade deadline approached, they toyed with the idea of selling one of their top players rather than trading for veteran contributors. Outfielder Jayson Werth, who will be a free agent this winter, was dangled before teams. Salivation ensued: Werth, who was struggling at the time, has the ability to hit a grand slam, make a great catch and steal home in the same game. But in the end, the Phillies decided not to sell. Instead, they bought, trading some key minor-league prospects to the Houston Astros for starting pitcher Roy Oswalt.

In their last 25 games, the Phillies are 20-5. Since the All-Star break, Jayson Werth is hitting over .350. He is crushing doubles, scoring runs, and taking all the walks he’s given. Werth has anchored the Phillies’ lineup amid injuries to superstar teammates Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. As the Phillies inch ever closer to the Atlanta Braves in the National League East, Werth is leading the charge.

So in July of 2010, the Phillies decided to acquire Roy Oswalt. His numbers will speak for themselves, and plenty of fans will use them to second-guess the decision that Philadelphia made. The Phillies’ organization will choose instead to move forward without re-visiting their choice to pick up this pitcher. But in the end, the most important thing that happened in Philadelphia last month was the thing that didn’t happen. The decision not to trade Jayson Werth has made the Phillies a much better team as the 2010 stretch run begins.

They decided not to hold a summer yard sale, and it turned out that there was a valuable gem inside that pile of stuff to sell. He’s out in right field now, and he’s not looking back.