Phil Plantier

Corner outfielder Phil Plantier spent most of the 1990s playing major-league baseball, for five different teams. He played 383 games in left field and 126 in right; he was also deployed occasionally as a designated hitter and pinch-hitter. Plantier’s best year by far was in 1993, when he homered 34 times and drove in 100 runs for San Diego in the first of three stints with the Padres. For much of his career, chronic elbow problems hampered him. After his playing days were done, he continued to work in baseball, primarily as a hitting coach.

Phillip Alan Plantier was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 27, 1969. His parents, Elena and Eugene Plantier, were in the Granite State while Eugene was working for a private contractor, training U.S. Navy personnel in the use of electronic equipment the company had developed. Elena did not work outside the home, taking care of both Phil and his brother Ray, who was four years older. When Phil was just six months old, the family moved to San Diego County, California, where Gene Plantier worked for a number of companies as a consultant in the electronics and computer industries.1

The family settled in Poway, north of the city of San Diego, where Phil was active in sports from an early age. In a 2024 interview, he recalled, “I played a lot of sports on the streets growing up as a kid. I played everything. If there was a ball game, I would go. It didn’t really matter what sport it was. If there was a pickup game somewhere on the streets, you’d go find it and go play. That was the fun part, getting home from school and find a game and going and playing it.”2

Phil played baseball for Poway High School. In his senior year, he hit .585; he reports that he never struck out in the three years of spring baseball he played for Poway.3 He played outfield for his first couple of years but moved to third base as a senior. Plantier batted left-handed but threw right-handed. “As far as I remember,” he said, “I always hit left-handed.” He stood six feet tall and was listed at 175 pounds.

The Boston Red Sox drafted Plantier out of Poway High in June 1987 in the 11th round. He was scouted for Boston by Ray Boone and signed with the Red Sox on June 11. Two days later, it was reported that he had been named Player of the Year in the All-San Diego Section.4 Phil was also named CIF Player of the Year in his senior year by the California Interscholastic Federation.

“John Harmon was my high school baseball coach. He took a lot of time with me. Off the field, too. We ended up staying really close, even after I graduated from high school. He’d bring his family – with his wife Marianne and their daughter Holly, they’d get in their mini-van and wherever I was playing in the minor leagues, he’d show up. I always stayed in touch with him.”

Pantier’s first assignment was to the Elmira Pioneers in the short-season Class-A New York/Penn League. He played in 28 of the team’s 76 games, batting just .175 in 91 plate appearances with two homers and nine RBIs. That was perhaps disappointing for all concerned, but the Red Sox were not prepared to give up on the 18-year-old. They assigned him to play a full season in 1988 for the Winter Haven Red Sox in the Florida State League. There he got into 111 games and hit .240, driving in 32 runs.

In 1989, with the Carolina League’s Lynchburg Red Sox, likewise a Single-A team, Plantier caught fire under manager Gary Allenson. Plantier led the league both in homers (27) and RBIs (105) while batting an even .300; he was named the league’s MVP. Baseball America named him Class-A player of the year.5  In September, Boston added him to their 40-man roster.

He joined the major-league team for spring training in 1990. At the end of March, he was assigned to their minor-league complex and soon promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket, bypassing Double-A ball. Plantier played most of the 1990 season with Pawtucket but got his first taste of the major leagues when he was called up to Boston on August 20.

Both pitcher John Dopson and shortstop Tim Naehring had suffered injuries and Plantier was summoned from Pawtucket. He had hit 10 homers in his final 12 games with the PawSox. He was notified about four hours before that night’s Red Sox game, and arrived at Fenway Park at about 6:15 P.M. for the 7:38 P.M. game.6 He reported to manager Joe Morgan and made his major-league debut the very next night against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Red Sox were in first place in the American League East but by only one game over Toronto and eight over the third-place Orioles. Plantier entered as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the eighth inning with Baltimore leading, 9-5. With two outs and nobody on, he faced O’s reliever Curt Schilling and struck out swinging.

Plantier served as DH each of the next two days. On August 22, he was 0-for-2 with a walk. On August 23, he got his first big-league base hit in Toronto, an infield single in the top of the seventh. He was stranded on first base. Plantier’s first RBI came at Cleveland Stadium on August 30 on a pinch-hit sacrifice fly that brought in the second of seven runs the Sox scored in the top of the ninth, breaking what had been a 2-2 tie.

Plantier was optioned back to Pawtucket on July 31, then recalled to Boston on September 4. In the 123 games he played for the PawSox, he hit 33 homers and drove in 79 runs. He hit .254 but was patient at the plate and had a .357 on-base percentage – throughout his career he drew enough walks to add around 100 points to his OBP. Strikeouts were a problem, though; he struck out 148 times in 430 at-bats.

He had only one other hit in the majors in 1990, and two more RBIs, both during the last game he played, on September 23 at Yankee Stadium. He pinch-hit in the top of the seventh with the Red Sox down, 4-1. With runners on second and third and nobody out, he doubled to left field and drove them both in, bringing Boston to within a run. He was removed for a pinch-runner, but the next three batters all grounded out.

His year-end stats showed a .133 batting average, a .333 on-base percentage, and three RBIs. The Red Sox went to the postseason but were swept by the Oakland Athletics. With an eye to the future, Plantier and Mo Vaughn were “considered two of the best players in the [Red Sox] system.”7

Plantier’s 1991 season was split between Pawtucket and Boston. The Red Sox were still scuffling in early June and Plantier already had 10 homers and 38 RBIs, batting .312 for Pawtucket.8 The Boston Red Sox were hoping he’d bring a spark. He got into 11 June games, hitting .235 and driving in three. On June 27, Boston called up Mo Vaughn and returned Plantier to Pawtucket.

The Red Sox waived outfielder Kevin Romine on August 9 and recalled Plantier, who proceeded to play exceptionally well. He hit safely in each of his first five games after returning. His two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth on August 16 gave the Sox a 2-1 win over the Royals. He kept hitting, bringing his average up to .331 with 11 homers and 32 more RBIs. His best day was on September 8, when he drove in five runs in a 17-6 shellacking of Seattle.

Over the winter of 1991-92, Plantier had ulnar nerve surgery. Playing under new Boston manager Butch Hobson in 1992, much was expected of him.9 He was the team’s regular right fielder until mid-June but, hitting just .226, began to be shifted around to left field and DH, as well. In mid-August, Hobson suggested that Plantier just wanted to DH and hadn’t worked hard enough on his defense. Stung by the criticism, he said he still had not fully recovered the strength in his right elbow and that his right knee was also problematic.10 He was sent to Pawtucket, where he remained until mid-September (he hit .425 with five homers and 14 RBIs in 12 games.) When brought back to Boston, he pinch-hit about half the time.11 By season’s end, he was hitting .246 (.332 OBP) with seven homers and 30 RBIs. Ahead of the expansion draft, the Red Sox kept him on their protected list, but in December he was traded to San Diego for right-hander José Meléndez.

By far, Plantier’s best season came in 1993, but looking back three decades later, he expressed positive feelings about the preceding years. “I’ve spent basically my whole life in baseball – as player or a coach – and, looking back, I am very appreciative to have come up in the Red Sox organization. They had a lot of resources around for players to talk to. You’re talking about young players having access to good information and good baseball people. I was an 18-year-old kid in my first spring training and I got to hit with Ted Williams. In my second spring training, I got to hit with Carl Yastrzemski. I got to play for Johnny Pesky. I felt like that was invaluable. There was a lot of talent in the organization at that time, all the way through it. A lot of quality information. The opportunity to develop with those people around offering advice. I was pretty lucky.”

The Padres hoped that he could fully recover from the elbow surgery and believed he had great potential. Their belief paid off. Plantier played in 138 games and drove in 100 runs while hitting 34 homers; both figures led the team by considerable margins and were career highs (as were his 124 strikeouts). He hit .240, which seems low given the production, but he had an on-base percentage of .335. “It was a record for a while – the least number of hits [111] to drive in 100 runs.12

“Any time you’re driving in 100 runs, that means you have good teammates. When you have a guy named Tony Gwynn and Bip Roberts playing with you, you’re going to have a lot of opportunities to drive in runs. Part of that was being healthy. I’ve had a lot of surgeries on my right arm. I’ve fought a lot of right arm injuries throughout my entire career. During that season, I had a long stretch where I felt healthy. Merv Rettenmund was my hitting coach there. A real positive influence. He helped me grow up a little bit, mentally and emotionally, that year. To grow as a hitter.”

His best stretch was arguably in September. On September 13, his 11th-inning homer beat the Dodgers, 4-3. A week later, he drove in five against the Rockies, one of seven multiple-RBI games that month. Yet despite his efforts, the Padres finished in last place.

Plantier mostly played left field in 1994, but right-elbow tendinitis hampered him. His last game of the season was on August 5. (The team’s last game was just six days later, as a player strike ended the season.) He got into 96 games, but his batting average dropped to .220 while the Padres as a whole hit .275. He hit, however, a club-leading 18 homers and drove in 41 runs.

Even though the player strike had not been settled, three days after Christmas Plantier was part of a large 12-player trade with the Houston Astros. It was reported as “baseball’s biggest trade in 37 years.”13

Plantier played in 15 games for the Astros through May 16, when he was hit by a pitch that fractured his right hand. At that point, he had 11 RBIs and was hitting .239. While rehabbing both the broken hand and then a torn hamstring, he played in 10 games for the Tucson Toros, Houston’s Triple-A club. On July 7, he returned to the Astros. Through July 18, he had been in 22 games, hitting .250 with four homers and 15 RBIs.

The following day, Plantier was back with the Padres, reacquired for Rich Loiselle and Jeff Tabaka. “If you look at the numbers he produced in ’93 and ’94, particularly when he’s healthy, he can really add a lot to the ballclub,” said Padres general manager Randy Smith.14 The move reunited him with hitting coach Merv Rettenmund. He played about the same for San Diego as he had for Houston – batting .257, with five homers and 19 RBIs, though in more than twice as many games (54) and with more than twice as many at-bats.

In the latter half of November, Plantier was released by the Padres. A little more than two weeks later, he signed as a free agent with the Detroit Tigers – but never played a regular-season game with them, because on March 22, 1996, Detroit traded him to the Oakland Athletics for infielder Fausto Cruz and Ramón Fermín, both seen as good prospects. An article in the Palm Beach Post observed, “In the past 15 months, GM Randy Smith, who came to the Tigers from San Diego, has traded away Phil Plantier twice, traded for him once and signed him as a free agent once.”15

Plantier played in 73 games for Oakland, mostly as left fielder. The 1996 season was disappointing, but he maintained a sense of humor, nevertheless. Early in the year, he had three homers but then entered a bad slump, going 0-for-20 and batting .115 at the time. He broke out by doubling home the winning run in the 11th inning of the April 25 game at Toronto. “The element of surprise was on my side,” he quipped.16 He never really got going, though. On a return visit to Fenway Park, he acknowledged, “I’ve been stupid streaky. I haven’t had the consistency that’s needed. … After that first year in San Diego, I picked up the next year where I left off. Then I got hurt, and I fell into the tank ever since.”17

Again, a significant portion of the season was spent in the Pacific Coast League, this time for the Edmonton Trappers. After the June 24 game, he was batting .211 and outrighted to Edmonton. “Going to Edmonton is not exactly my idea of fun right now,” he said. “There’s no doubt I’d like to stay in the major leagues. I believe I can hit, make an impact and help somebody. I’ve got to see if anybody wants me.”18 Athletics manager Art Howe said he believed Plantier could contribute, but he needed the slot on the roster. One of the reasons that Plantier may not have been used more was economic; giving him time to break out of a prolonged dry patch might have proven expensive. As one observer wrote near the end of June, “The A’s may be nearing the end with Plantier because of incentives built into his 1996 contract that call for him to earn $50,000 for every 25 games and another $50,000 for every 50 at-bats.”19

In 34 games with the Trappers, Plantier hit quite well, batting .352 with nine homers and 34 RBIs. When Jason Giambi’s right knee took him out of action, the Athletics brought Plantier back on August 15. For the major-league season as a whole, Plantier hit just .212, though he still had a discerning eye and walked 28 times for an on-base percentage of .304. He hit seven homers and drove in 31 runs.

A free agent once more, Plantier was still not yet 28. The Padres were interested, and the two parties agreed on a minor-league contract on January 17, 1997. He trained with the Padres but after the first three weeks of March, he was assigned to minor-league camp. He got off to a fast start in 15 games with the Las Vegas Stars; in one week he went 14-for-18 with four homers, four doubles, and eight RBIs in four games.20 With Steve Finley unable to play, there was an opening and Plantier’s contract was purchased by the Padres. The first of 10 games he played for San Diego – his third stint with the team – was on April 25. As of May 7, he had nary a homer nor a run batted in and was batting just .125. A couple of days later, he was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strain in his oblique.

On June 13, Plantier was part of a six-player trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.21 His first games with the big-league club were on August 1 and 3, but then he did not appear again until the August 25. While with the Cardinals organization, he played in nine games for the Louisville Redbirds in the Triple-A American Association. The Cardinals were reportedly “dissatisfied that acquisitions Scott Livingstone and Phil Plantier were less healthy than advertised.”22

A pulled rib cage muscle – his third injury of the season – suffered in the August 3 game sidelined him for another 15 days. During that time, he played four games for Rancho Cucamonga and then rejoined St. Louis. It was a discouraging time, though he talked about it openly with St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Mike Eisenbath.23 In all, he appeared in 42 games for the Cardinals and acquitted himself well, batting above his career average at .257 with five homers and 18 RBIs. After the season was over, he became a free agent once more.

Plantier still hoped to play ball another year and in the latter half of January 1998 he signed a minor-league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays. He was cut on March 19 and given the choice of reporting to the Syracuse Chiefs or becoming a free agent; he chose the latter.24 Without a team for a while, he signed with the New York Mets in early May and was assigned to extended spring training.25 The only two games he played in 1998 were for the Norfolk Tides, the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate. He got one base hit and drove in one run in seven plate appearances.

Plantier then went back to school. “When I retired as a player, the first thing I did was enroll in a college to get my degree. I went to Cal State San Marcos University – USM. My original intent was to get a teaching credential and be a high school teacher. I got my four-year degree [he majored in Social Science]. “The other reason I got my degree was because I wasn’t going to ask my kids to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself. My wife and I tried to instill in our kids the importance of their education.”

He and Jennifer Meadows married in February 1991. They had known each other for years. “We grew up in the same neighborhood. We went to elementary school together – she claims fifth grade, I say fourth grade. She’s been a lifelong friend.” Jennifer Plantier graduated from the University of California San Diego in 1992. She is a writer; as of 2024, she has been working for 13 years at Broadridge Advisor Solutions as a writer and editor of financial education and marketing content. The Plantiers have three children – Ryan, Tyler, and Emily.

Phil also got involved in coaching – “probably 11 Little League teams. I coached eight youth basketball teams. I was just having fun, playing with the kids. Coaching in the community. Enjoying life, being at home with the family in Poway. I ended up coaching at Point Loma Nazarene University.” When son Ryan was 13, Plantier coached a year of travel baseball. “That was fun because all the kids went to the same school. We had a team GPA of 4.0. Only a couple of the kids had any travel ball experience previously, but at the end of the year we won the Triple Crown national championship. It was a lot of fun.” He also worked one summer coaching summer collegiate baseball in Alaska for Athletes in Action.

“After that, we just thought we’d test-drive and see if coaching was going to be family-friendly. We went and did a summer of independent ball.” In 2007, he managed the Macon (Georgia) Music of the South Coast League, but the circuit folded after one year. “Everything worked out OK with the family so I got into player development with the Mariners. Managed. Hitting coach. Hitting coordinator.” In 2008, he served as hitting coach for the Seattle’s Double–A team, the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx; he became the team’s manager in 2009.

The following year – 2010 – Plantier was the minor-league hitting coordinator for the Mariners. He started the 2011 season as the hitting coach for the Padres’ Single-A affiliate, the Lake Elsinore Storm – his fourth stint with the Padres, the first three having been as a player. He was promoted to manager during the season.

For the following three seasons, he was back in the majors again, as hitting coach for the Padres from 2012-2014. Then it was back to school yet again. He got a Master’s degree in Education and earned his high school teaching credential. He said he “toyed with the idea” of working in the classroom, but “bounced around” a bit – spending part of a season as a hitting coach in Taiwan. “The Yankees called and I actually did a partial stint in the Mexican summer league.” He became hitting coach for the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, for both 2018 and 2019.

Later in 2019, he became a coach for the United States national baseball team, which took part in the WBSC Premier12 tournament. The team played one qualifier in Mexico and another one in Tokyo. “That was a lot of fun. Just to see the passion that fans have in different parts of the world and how they celebrate the game. Confetti. Constant chanting. Songs for everybody. Tons of energy.” The team finished fourth.

In the first part of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In 2021 and 2022, Plantier was back in Triple A, this time in the Marlins organization, working as hitting coach for the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. He worked for the major-league Los Angeles Angels as assistant hitting coach during the 2023 season.

The three Plantier children were apparently sufficiently inspired by their parents’ emphasis on education. Both Ryan and Emily attended Cornell; Ryan played some baseball there. Tyler played college ball at UCSD and later got a graduate degree while playing baseball at the University of Richmond. He played one season in the minors (2019) and three in indie ball (2019-21) but then turned to other work. “I’m really proud of them,” their father said. “You try to instill in children so they do something to try to invest in themselves. They did that and I’m really proud of them all for that.”

Life goes on for Phil Plantier. In 2024, he served as one of the Angels’ minor-league hitting coordinators.

Last revised: January 28, 2025

Sources and Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Phil Plantier for his input.

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Bill Lamb and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz.

Photo credit: Phil Plantier, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 https://www.powaybernardomortuary.net/obituary/eugene-plantier-jr

2 Author interview with Phil Plantier on May 29, 2024. Unless otherwise indicated, any quotations attributed to Phil Plantier come from this interview.

3 Phil Plantier email to author, February 2, 2025.  Chris Ello, “Plantier Signs with Red Sox, Will Report to Class A Team,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1987: SD_B2D. Another article said his batting averages in his three years at Poway High School were .460, .488, and .605. Frank Dell’Apa, “A Hit-or-Miss Prospect,” Boston Globe, August 17, 1980: 81. Dell’Apa quoted Plantier in 1980 as saying he only struck out once in high school.

4 “Granite Hills Leads Selections; Plantier Is Player of the Year,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1987: SD_B5.

5 Frank Dell’Apa.

6 Joe Burris, “Promotion was a real trip,” Boston Globe, August 21, 1990: 61.

7 Nick Cafardo, “Signs of tough times,” Boston Globe, October 13, 1990: 33.

8 Sean Horgan, “Sox to start Plantier at DH today,” Hartford Courant, June 7, 1991: E1A.

9 See, for instance, Sean Horgan, “Plantier’s in position for major contribution,” Hartford Courant, March 12, 1992: C1.

10 Sean Horgan, “Plantier says injuries the problem,” Hartford Courant, August 13, 1992: D3A. A Boston Globe writer later said Plantier was “once banned in Boston for conduct unbecoming a Red Sox phenom.” Larry Whiteside, “Astros counting on Plantier to offer pop behind Bagwell,” Los Angeles Daily News, April 16, 1995: SB4.

11 It was also suggested that manager Butch Hobson simply didn’t like Plantier. See Bob Nightengale, “Padres Deal for Plantier,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1992: SDC1.

12 In 2009, Carlos Peña of the Tampa Bay Rays drove in 100 runs with just 107 base hits, and in 2023 Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers topped that, driving in 105 runs with only 102 base hits. Thanks to Carl Riechers for data.

13 Associated Press, “Astros, Padres make deal,” Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1994: E3.  Plantier was traded by the San Diego Padres with Derek Bell, Doug Brocail, Ricky Gutiérrez, Pedro Martínez, and Craig Shipley to the Houston Astros for a player to be named later, Ken Caminiti, Andújar Cedeño, Steve Finley, Roberto Petagine, and Brian Williams. The PTBNL was minor leaguer Sean Fesh.  

14 “Astros Send Plantier Back to San Diego,” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1995: 8.

15 “Team by Team Notebooks,” Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), March 24, 1996: 9C. He was quoted as saying. “This game’s a business. Randy is a businessman, and he’s running his business the best way he knows how. You can’t take anything personally in this game.” Besides, he said, “Anytime you’re playing baseball, things can’t be too bad. It’s a little pain in the butt to move around so much, but you have to be willing to do those things. It’s not much of a sacrifice, considering what you get out of this game. It’s not a complaint – it’s an inconvenience.” See Paul Bauman, “Nomadic Plantier just happy to be playing ball,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, April l4, 1996: 1D.

16 Frank Blackman, “Don’t look now, but A’a are hot,” San Francisco Examiner, April 26, 1996: F1.

17 Tom King, “Well-traveled Plantier returns to Fenway,” Nashua Telegraph, May 18, 1996: 19.

18 Dwight Chapin, “Brosius return uproots Plantier’ A’s outfielder sent to minors to make room on roster,” San Francisco Examiner, June 25, 1996: D1.

19 Bill Zack, “Cleveland slugger beginning to show signs of frustration,” Florida Times Union (Jacksonville), June 23, 1996: D5. The headline referred, of course, to another ballplayer.  “I don’t hold anyone else responsible,” he told another reporter. “When I was up in Oakland, I wasn’t playing up to my capabilities and when you don’t do that, it leaves the door open for things to happen if someone doesn’t want you there.” Matt Jacob, “Plantier trapped in Edmonton,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 4, 1996: 1E.

20 Matt Jacob, “Red-hot Plantier called up by Padres,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 25, 1997: 6D.

21 On June 13, 1997, he was traded by the Padres with Scott Livingstone and Fernando Valenzuela to the St. Louis Cardinals for Rich Batchelor, Danny Jackson, and Mark Sweeney.

22 Rick Hummel, “Giants’ Vizcaino is on Cloud 9 (for 9) against Alan Benes,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 20, 1997: 6F.

23 Mike Eisenbath, “Cards’ Plantier Plays Lonely Waiting Game,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 25, 1997: 5D.

24 Matt Michael, “Jays Cut Plantier,” Syracuse Post Standard, March 20, 1998: 44.

25 Matt Michael, “Plantier signs with Mets,” Syracuse Herald Journal, May 12, 1988: 75.