Two quick thoughts for you before we get started.

First, this list does not mean anything. How do you weigh a first baseman against a point guard? How do you compare a relief pitcher to a right tackle? It is hard enough to rank these sports individually! Throwing them into a blender? Impossible.

But it’s also kinda fun. So, let’s go for it.

I have three general criteria:

I did this exercise ten years ago at PhillyVoice, and that is where we get to our second takeaway: This is a pretty good time to be a Philadelphia sports fan. Not the best, not perfect, but pretty good. All of these organizations have their flaws and there is not one juggernaut among them (the Eagles are pretty darn close, though). But look back at this list. That thing was absolutely dire. The Sixers and Phillies were giving us nothing, especially compared to today.

My toughest omissions pretty much all came from the same unit, the Eagles’ defensive line. So, apologies to Jordan Davis (great last season!), Moro Ojomo (Last Dance for Milt 2.0?), Jalyx Hunt (turning into a perfect Fangio player) and Nolan Smith (Super Bowl hero). If this were a decade ago, all of those guys would have been easily on.

Today is the first half of the list, which I have sent to all of the free subscribers of The Broad Street Bulletin. The second half will hit your email inbox tomorrow, but you have to become a Friend of The Newsletter (and get your Philly sports news delivered to your inbox every weekday) to get it.

OK, to the list!

This kid has the makings of a 100-point scorer, one of which the Flyers have not had since Claude Giroux in the 2017-18 season. You could see his hockey sense right away, Martone had 14 shots on goal in his first two NHL games. I expect Young Porter to be in the Top-10 of this list in a few years, if not the Top-5.

Are we underrating what we just saw from Martone? Maybe not, but we probably should be talking about it more. Martone jumped into the fray late in the season and immediately delivered. 10 points in nine ultra-important games down the stretch, which helped the Orange and Black get over the hump and into the playoffs. And then he follows it up with a totally respectable five points in 10 playoff games. Did Martone run out of gas against Pittsburgh and start slow against Carolina? Sure, but he is 19 years old!

The only reason that Marty McFlyer ranks this low is that the sample size is still so small. Martone and the Flyers handled his Draft+1 year perfectly, with him playing for a great Michigan State team on the weekends while developing his body during the week. Seriously, this guy is Bizzaro Cutter. This season, Martone will be with the big club out of training camp. It should be a lot of fun.

Excellent NBA rookie class last season. Dylan Harper was San Antonio’s best guard in the NBA Finals. Edgecombe finished third in Rookie of the Year voting behind Kon Kneuppel (who is not just a shooter) and Cooper Flagg (who is gonna be a monster), but that is no slight on him. VJ is someone who Sixers fans should be very happy with.

Three things that stand out: Number one, Edgecombe is simply a winning player who you want on your team in the modern NBA. The game is such an endurance test nowadays, and his motor never stops. The game-winning putback against Golden State in December was the quintessential example. He does not need to have a great shooting game to leave his imprint on the biggest moments.

Number two, Edgecombe is not just an energy guy. He did way more with the ball in his hands as a rookie than anyone could have reasonably expected. VJ shot 35.4 percent from deep on six attempts per game, and not a particularly easy shot diet. Considering his post-draft expectations, I was blown away by how much he did. VJ also consistently got into the mid-range and rose up for jumpers.

Number three, Edgecombe is not afraid of the big moments. He had 30 points in Game 2 against Boston, and then 23 big ones in Game 7. There are steps that VJ will need to take in refining his handle and finishing ability to take the leap into a legit on-ball option. But this seems like an extremely hard-worker, and the floor is already pretty darn high. You should be excited about him.

Tippett’s shift in Game 2 of the Flyers’ series win over Pittsburgh was unbelievable. He made two Penguins, including Kris Letang, look like they were stuck in cement while the Flyers were the shorthanded team. Tippett set up Garnet Hathaway for a tap-in goal that even the career fourth-liner was gonna make no mistake with. Seriously, put that baby right behind Claude Giroux in 2012 against Pittsburgh and Mike Richards in 2010 against Montreal. A work of art.

That is the selling point for Tippett. Perhaps he is only a 50-ish point second-line winger, but he is a 50-ish point second-line winger that can legitimately take over a game with one or two crazy plays. He does that six to eight times during the regular season, and he did it in Game 2. Tippett’s speed is unusual, which makes him an unusual player type.

Due to an internal bleeding issue, Tippett could not play at all in the Orange and Black’s second-round sweep at the hands of the eventual Cup winners. They desperately could have used his speed against Carolina. When the Flyers handed out eight years and $50 million to Tippett a few years ago, many eyebrows were raised. Thanks to Tippett’s play and the rising cap environment, that looks like a perfectly fine deal for the Flyers.

Thanks to Zegras, the recent Flyers-Ducks trade calculus becomes a legitimate argument. I have been digging the Jamie Drysdale defensive renaissance, but the Flyers unfortunately traded a guy (a quitter!) who had 69 points as a 22-year-old for him. But that second trade, Zegras for a 2, 4 and Ryan Poehling? The Flyers sure seem to have won that one! You win one, we win one.

Zegras was an absolute delight this past season, injecting some much-needed high-end skill into the Flyers’ forward corps. He finished the year with a career-high 67 points. Unlike earlier in his career in Anaheim, he did it for a real team playing real hockey. Zegras’ underlying metrics were also very good.

There is still a little bit of a question of how much Zegras has helped alleviate the Flyers’ center issues. For 95 percent of the action, it is clear that he can play in the middle of the ice at a high level. Unfortunately, Zegras stinks at faceoffs, and that happens to be a pretty important skill for a center. If he can ever get to “passably bad” in the faceoff circle, then the Flyers really have something.

But the Flyers already have something in Zegras, a skilled forward who emerged into a team leader with his Jeff Spicoli vibes. Expect him to get paid this summer.

If TK is your best player, you probably are not a very good hockey team. But that does not make him a bad player.

Konecny’s 212 points over the past three seasons ranks 41st in the NHL over that span. In a league with 384 forwards at any given time, that is pretty good! I like that he is an irritant on the ice, the type of pest that you love to have on your team and despise if you are playing against him. I like that he seems to be a team leader. Even when he disappointed offensively in the postseason, there was a real excuse: Konecny was playing with broken ribs.

The missed opportunity that stands out is Konecny missing on an overtime breakaway in Carolina in Game 2. That would have been a memorable goal. The hope is that, as the Flyers put more talent around him, Konecny can have some of those memorable playoff moments of the positive variety. I think he will.

I do not have anything all that interesting to write about Sanheim, which is probably how he prefers it. This is easily the hardest guy to write about on this list. Sanheim has been here for a decade after being selected in the middle of the first round, and he just quietly goes about his business.

But the way that Sanheim went about his business, both during the season and the postseason, was quite impressive. He was on Canada’s Olympic team, always a tough squad to make. He made Sidney Crosby’s life miserable in the first round. And he did so logging 27 minutes per game in the postseason, up there with the top defenseman.

Everybody who follows hockey will tell you that the three most important positions to fill on a team are: No. 1 center, No. 1 defenseman, No. 1 goalie. Sanheim might not be at the top of the list when it comes to that second category, but he is comfortably a top-pair defenseman for most NHL teams. A very valuable player to have.

Roughly the same story as Joel Embiid, but with slightly less impact when healthy and a slightly less onerous contract.

It had mostly been a forgettable two years for George in Philly, after he suffered a tweaked knee in his first preseason. After that, the injury hits just kept on coming. The highlight was PG driving through Broad Street during the Eagles’ NFC championship celebration, a symbolic moment for a player who just felt out of place. George also got suspended 25 games this season for taking a banned substance, which again, the hits kept on coming.

But then the 2026 playoffs happened. George led the Sixers to a play-in win over the Magic, and his two-way excellence was crucial in coming back from 3-1 to beat Boston. Sure, the Sixers needed Embiid to return and Tyrese Maxey to shred every coverage Boston thew at him. But they also needed George to make big shots and make Jaylen Brown’s life miserable on the other end. He did that.

Like Embiid, I do not know where to rank George. His contract is bad (which I do not care about for this exercise) and he has barely played (which I do care about for this exercise), but he is the Sixers’ most impactful defensive player by good margin. The Sixers might be able to trade PG this offseason, in an effort to bolster their terrible depth. But when this guy is healthy, he still can be enormously helpful when you are trying to win basketball games with real stakes.

To take you behind the curtain, I initially planned on unveiling these rankings the very first week of The Broad Street Bulletin. Then I realized that I would go on vacation at some point, and that this list would work well as summer content. In my preliminary rankings, I begrudgingly had Turner ranked fourth. And this is what I had written back in early April, verbatim.

I am not the biggest Trea Turner guy in the world. Do not get me wrong, he seems like a good dude. He makes me nervous in the field, sure, but the biggest issue that I have is his approach at the plate. Turner feels very chase-happy and does not grind through at-bats. When he got the ovation back in 2023, I kept hearing excuses like “He’s trying too hard!” But he is a professional baseball player, and part of the gig is being able to figuring out how much to try. I dunno, it seems like Turner got a lot of the benefit of the doubt. Too much, even.

All that said, Trea had an absolutely monster season in 2025. If you look at WAR, he finished in the Top-10. He had an .800+ OPS in the leadoff role and led the league in batting average. That means he was on base a ton, and we all know that this dude is capable of creating havoc on the basepaths. And all of the defensive metrics (which I am not 100 percent on board with) say that he improved greatly defensively, which is valuable when you play the second-most important defensive position behind catcher. He definitely improved.

An acknowledgement of a legitimately great season, while also spelling out the reasons for skepticism. Those reasons for skepticism proved prescient and then some, as Trea has a .610 OPS as of this writing. He has been one of the most damaging players in the National League.

The year-to-year swings just should not be this drastic. I do not want to hear that Turner is pressing or trying too hard. I do not want to hear from Turner that his bad spring training numbers automatically mean that a good season is coming. I do not want to hear that Turner takes 500 swings in batting practice one day and then zero the next day.

Turner needs to get a plan, get a process, and stick with it. There is a reason that Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott have rebounded faster than him. It is not because they are more talented.

I expect Luzardo to pitch to a Top-10 level on this list for the final three months of the season. Unfortunately, the first three months also count.

Last season, Luzardo shook off a couple of legitimately disastrous regular-season starts and was nails down the stretch. He also pitched well in the postseason. Luzardo was competitive and flexible enough to come out of the bullpen in an emergency role in Game 4 in Los Angeles, which I loved. That sweeper is an absolutely nasty pitch. And the Phillies certainly think highly of Luzardo, because they decided to give a good chunk of the Taijuan-Casty money coming off the books next year to him. Seems like a good bet to me, if he can stay healthy. So far in Philadelphia, and knock on wood a thousand times here, he has.

The problem is that when things go bad for Luzardo, they tend to go quite poorly. Last year, there were the two blow-up starts toward the end of May/beginning of June that raised his end-of-season ERA a full point. This year, he sported a 6.91 ERA through five starts because he melted down legitimately whenever a runner got on base. Luzardo passes the “How good is your good?” test with flying colors. But part of the gig is figuring out how to get results when your stuff is not at its best. He has struggled there.

The Flyers’ MVP for the regular season. The Flyers’ MVP for the postseason. After his 42-save shutout to send the hated Penguins back across the commonwealth for the summer, Vladar famously said that “good things happen to good people.” Well, he seems like a pretty swell dude.

Vladar was a controversial signing last offseason. He had pretty underwhelming numbers in Calgary, nothing that suggested that he was a legit No. 1 goaltender. But Vladar impressed early on this past season, and he kinda just kept on going. Credit to my former teammate Charlie O’Connor for pointing out that the Flames basically gave Vladar every single hard game the previous year, putting him in a position to fail. Danny Briere made a shrewd bet in free agency, and it paid off big-time.

Vladar is about to get paid big-time, with a rumoured five-year extension carrying an AAV in the mid-5s. The Flyers would be taking some real risk in handing out that contract, because they would be basing a whole lot off Vladar’s one breakout year. They better be right!

I will tell you what, though: If Vladar puts up another .906 save percentage over 52 games, he will be in the Top-10 next year.

Hit the music!

The Phillies got themselves a closer at last year’s trade deadline, and Duran was electric right away in his first series against Detroit. We did not get to see Duran shut the door in a big playoff game in Citizens Bank Park. That is part of the reason that I am gonna slot a relief pitcher lower, when it comes to the positional value.

The Durantula’s stuff is electric: 101 mph fastball, 98 mph splinker and then some serviceable offspeed stuff that is going to play when you are bringing that much velocity to the table. Duran is 18 for 19 closing out games so far this season. Hopefully the Phils can get him the ball in October.

This tier could also be titled, “Wait Howie Roseman paid this position?”

Number one on the NFL’s Top-100 players just a year ago, No. 16 in his own city just a year later. Explain yourself!

Gladly. I love everything about Saquon, and his 2024 season will forever be the stuff of legends. He made me rethink the value of elite production from his position. Specifically, we saw the force multiplier that is putting a home-run hitter who can make people miss at the second level behind the best offensive line in the league that can spring him to the second level. Seriously, one of the most impressive seasons in NFL history.

We knew Saquon would not be able to back it up in 2025, and his form did take a major dip. I had a tough time diagnosing how much of that drop-off was actually Saquon’s fault, but we learned yet again that the running back is still dependent on the offensive line first. That’s fine, I will relearn that lesson after a Lombardi Trophy any day of the week and twice on Thursday. Hopefully the offensive line can bounce back in 2026, and Saquon can hit a few more home runs than we saw last season.

It was such an odd feeling for the Eagles to have such a loaded linebacker room last year. Jihaad Campbell looked the part of a promising rookie and rightfully got benched midseason! Jeremiah Trotter Jr. might start for ten teams for all we know!

Similarly to Saquon, it felt like Baun’s play fell off last year from his all-time 2024 season. A little bit of a bummer, but not all that surprising. “The Bald Eagle,” who Roseman was right to hand over a boatload of cash to in the 2025 offseason, still led one of the NFL’s better defenses and played 98 percent of the snaps in doing so. I still am blown away that Baun, who was an edge-rusher for most of his career, found out that his best attribute is zone pass defense at the age of 27.

With Nakobe Dean gone, Baun and Campbell will be back patrolling the middle of the field this season. I am worried about a few things for the 2026 Eagles, but linebacker play ain’t one of ‘em.

COMING TOMORROW: SPOTS 14 THROUGH 1