Frandsen leaving Phillies' booth for Nats
PHILADELPHIA -- Kevin Frandsen is not going far, but he is leaving the Phillies' broadcast team.
The Nationals announced on Thursday that Frandsen is joining their TV broadcasts as a color analyst. The move happened relatively quickly, with Frandsen interviewing late last week and getting the job offer over the weekend. It leaves the Phillies looking for his replacement before Opening Day on March 31 in Houston.
“We’ll figure out something,” Phillies executive vice president Dave Buck said on Thursday. “We’re happy for Kevin. We’re looking at all of our options right now.”
Here is what we know about Phillies broadcasts on 94 WIP: Scott Franzke will handle the play-by-play. Larry Andersen will be an analyst for roughly 80 games at Citizens Bank Park.
Everything else is unsettled.
The Phillies face some challenges here. Most notably, Frandsen’s replacement could be asked to broadcast 80-plus games, almost exclusively on the road. That is a tough ask for somebody who does not live locally, like Frandsen, who still attended Phillies home games to keep his pulse on the team.
Here are some thoughts, ideas and names:
They could hire one person to replace Frandsen on a permanent, long-term basis, but with the relative time crunch ahead of them, they could take a stopgap approach to 2022 and use multiple people in his place. It would allow them more time to figure out how they want to handle this in the future.
The Phillies currently use John Kruk, Ruben Amaro Jr. and Ben Davis as TV analysts, alongside Tom McCarthy. Mike Schmidt is in the booth during home weekend series. Jimmy Rollins pops in occasionally, too. The Phillies could ask a couple of them to work with Franzke when they are not on TV.
Kevin Stocker was a finalist for the job that Frandsen got a couple of years ago. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Phillies bring him back.
Brad Lidge always seems to be mentioned as a possibility. He has developed a solid radio career at Sirius XM. It is unclear if he would be interested in this gig, however.
Just an idea: Rollins lives in California. Maybe he takes games in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Lidge lives in Colorado. He could take some games in the Mountain and Central Time Zones. Then there are those folks on the East Coast like Amaro, Kruk and Davis.
He might not be interested in a radio role, but Dan Plesac does a tremendous job on MLB Network as an analyst. He’s a former Phillie, too.
It would be fun to have Chris Wheeler back in the booth, wouldn’t it? Wheels, however, is enjoying retirement and is unlikely to hit the road again.