In his Yankees debut on Tuesday, BobbyAbreu came to bat in the fourth inning and battled the Blue Jays’ A.J. Burnett for nine pitches. Down 0–2 in the count, he gradually worked his way to 3–2 and then a walk. The free pass loaded the bases, paving the way for Bernie Williams’s decisive three-run double.

Abreu is a very patient hitter. This year he’s seen about 4.5 pitches a plate appearance. That means that if he bats four times in a game on average he forces the opposing team to throw 18 pitches. Jason Giambi is also extremely patient. He sees about 4.4 pitches a plate appearance. If he comes to bat four times in a game, he too will make the opposing team throw 18 pitches. Johnny Damon sees four pitches a plate appearance. Derek Jeter sees roughly four as well, as does Alex Rodriguez. In any inning in which four of these five players bat, the opposition is going to have to throw about 16 pitches.

It doesn’t sound like much, but when the typical starting pitcher may only be good for 100 or 110 pitches a game, making him spend 15% of his allotment of bullets in one frame helps speed the Yankees toward the weak underbelly of every team, its middle relief.

Tiring pitchers is just one of the many things Bobby Abreu can do to help a team win. He can hit for average, run, and, at least through this season, send a reasonable number of balls over the outfield wall. He did all of the above with regularity during his nine seasons in Philadelphia. Abreu’s overall profile strongly resembles that of Bernie Williams. During the years in which their peak periods overlapped, 1998 to 2002, Williams batted .326/.412/.537. During those same years, Abreu hit .312/.415/.534. They even had precisely the same number of at bats: 2,779. Like Abreu, who has sometimes been known to doze off in the outfield, Williams has not been above taking the occasional wrong turn on the bases or in the field.

Yet, Williams is a New York institution on a par with Yankee Stadium itself (they’ll be tearing it down once he leaves), while Abreu left Philadelphia with a reputation as a lackadaisical, lazy player who was not overly invested in winning.The difference, of course, is that it’s hard to appear to be invested in winning when you’re not winning. Bernie Williams has four World Series rings.Abreu hasn’t even got a Wild Card merit badge, or whatever trinket they give to the team that barely qualifies for the postseason.

He did come close on a couple of occasions. In 2001, Abreu’s Phillies finished two games behind the Braves in the National League East. They were also seven games behind the Cardinals, the wild card winner. It’s hard to see how the near miss was his fault. The Phillies were trying to contend with a starting rotation of Randy Wolf, Robert Person, Omar Daal, and whoever they could get on short notice. The offense had exactly two hitters who were significantly better than average, Scott Rolen and Abreu, who hit 48 doubles and 31 home runs, walked 106 times and stole 36 bases.

The Phillies finished two games behind the Braves again last year. This time they missed the wild card by just one game. The 2005 edition was a better club than the 2001 version, with pitching that was a little worse and an offense that was a lot better.Abreu was backed by strong seasons from Pat Burrell and Chase Utley and good partial seasons from Kenny Lofton and Ryan Howard. Although no longer the best player on the team — a second baseman who can hit like Utley is always going to get the benefit of the doubt over a corner outfielder — Abreu still led the team in on-base percentage (the most important measure of offensive potency) and walks, was second in runs scored, second in steals, and drove in 102 runs. This wasn’t a player who was holding his team back. That role was reserved for David Bell last year, or Doug Glanville in 2001. Replacing either of those players with one who was merely average would have easily netted the Phillies two more wins, let alone two.

In all of Abreu’s seasons the Phillies finished somewhere between 10 and 33 games out. He had the dubious honor of being the best player on miserable team after miserable team. He watched Curt Schilling get traded for immortals like Daal and Travis Lee. He lived through 504 appearances and more than 1,200 plate appearances by Tomas Perez. He watched Terry Francona leave and become a genius in another city, and saw Scott Rolen run out of town.

If a team doesn’t value a player like Rolen, who has gone to the postseason three times in four years with the Cardinals, then there is little hope for it. Abreu had to know that, yet he didn’t quit, or if he did he did it in such a way that year after year he was the best thing about the club, the player who kept them mediocre. That sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it’s meant to convey Abreu’s position as the man who stood between Philadelphia and what now appears to be its inevitable destiny, becoming the Kansas City Royals of the East.

Sometimes players become associated with losing just by being in close proximity to it for a long period of time. Abreu’s rap is somewhat reminiscent to the one Dave Winfield got after going 1-for-22 in the 1981 World Series. A few years later, George Steinbrenner called him “Mr. May,” reinforcing the perception that Winfield was a player who just couldn’t do it when it counted. A couple years after leaving the Yankees he drove in the winning runs for the Blue Jays in 1992 World Series. All that was needed for his inner winner to come out was another opportunity. Abreu has now been given his opportunity.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for www.yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.