A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Matt Winkelman One of the limitation of doing a top 50 is that there are only 50 spots and it creates a cut off. With the shrinking minor leagues there has been a condensing of talent and high rate of turnover. That means that most players in the system have some level of MLB upside, even if … Read more
I want to jump to the rankings Ever since the Phillies brought in Dave Dombrowski to run their baseball operations, they have been looking to overhaul the farm system and develop a sustaining long term pipeline. The process involved throwing aside large pieces of the previous framework, many of which have gone on to have … Read more
The different tiers of prospects unsurprisingly look like a pyramid, with a large number of interesting players in the organization narrowing to a very few elite prospects at the top. Even here in this group of five there are three distinct tiers. At the top, Painter is an elite prospect, talent wise one of the … Read more
I talk a lot about tiers or groupings of players, and to me there is a distinct drop from 5 to 6 and then from 16 to 17. In a deeper system it would be better if this group started at 10 instead of 6, but this is not a group of bad prospects. What … Read more
To me there is a distinct top 16 prospects in the system and what feels like a drop off in the late 20s. In between those two groups is an interesting set of players. It includes some injured players, some breakouts with questions, and some very flawed players that are one major developmental gain away … Read more
Starting today (January 15, 2025) teams can begin to make signings for the 2025 year. This season’s signings are obviously thrown into chaos by the Roki Sasaki free agency as the Dodgers, Padres, and Blue Jays may all seek to acquire signing money to lure him or sign players they have committed deals too. Additionally … Read more
Ever since the Phillies brought in Dave Dombrowski to run their baseball operations, they have been looking to overhaul the farm system and develop a sustaining long term pipeline. The process involved throwing aside large pieces of the previous framework, many of which have gone on to have success in other organizations, in order to … Read more
Teams in competition windows are usually in the business of reducing their amount of minor league talent. It is the cost of obtaining players from other teams, and with team record and spending tied to how teams acquire amateur talent the pipeline is squeezed as well. The really obvious answer to this problem has always … Read more
Just over a day after indicating that they were done making moves, outside of maybe a swing #5 starter/bullpen arm, the Phillies made a big swing. The big pieces are obviously left handed starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo going from the Marlins to the Phillies, and shortstop prospect Starlyn Caba going from the Phillies to the … Read more
I bet if you gave the Phillies front office truth serum their offseason plan would have involved flipping Alec Bohm, Ranger Suarez, and some non top prospects in a series of move that kept the team fairly still from a talent side, but remade the skillset and timeline of the team. They would have ideally … Read more