Red Reposter: Brandon Phillips talks about swag

Morosi: Phillips: Baseball needs more swag

Brandon Phillips discusses the meaning of swag in baseball and picks his all-swag team. The team is mainly comprised of good players though there are a couple of surprises.

Catcher: Yadier Molina, Cardinals. This one caught me off guard. Weren't Phillips and Molina the principal antagonists in that benches-clearing brawl a couple years ago? Turns out, swag transcends rivalries. "Yadi has swag," Phillips insists. "I respect guys. I respect Yadi to the fullest. Great player, man. He has swag. I love it. A lot of swag."

Once you get past the Reds-Cards history this one makes sense, at least compared to Phillips' pick for right field:

But in the end, Phillips' choice is unconventional: San Francisco's Hunter Pence, whose on-deck routine is, in Phillips' words, "the most funked-up stuff I've ever seen."

"I love his swag," Phillips says admiringly. "He has swag. Nobody else plays the game like him. His swag is hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. ... He's unique. I call him the unicorn, (because) you'll never see another guy swing like him. You'll never see nobody else play like him. David Eckstein used to be one of my favorite players. He was totally different. I like people that are different. Those guys can change a whole game by their teammates feeding off their swag."

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