A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Matt Winkelman 
Yesterday there was a lot of buzz about trades, pitchings, and a certain left handed starter. I have a lot of thoughts that I will ramble on about with no real coherent end point, so it is probably best to not think about finding a big message here. These range from thoughts on Amaro’s asking … Read more
With Sean O’Sullivan going down to injury and Dustin McGowan not being a major league starting pitcher, the Phillies have made their first reach down for a pitching prospect going with #30 prospect RHP Severino Gonzalez. Gonzalez made a start during spring training, but otherwise he only has three AAA starts under his belt. How … Read more
Pitching Spotlight: LHP Tom Windle – 7 .0 IP 2 H 1 ER 1 BB 9 K Windle had a rough start in his second start of the year, battling through a 9 run effort. Against the Harrisburg Senators on Sunday, Windle was dominant allowing only 14 balls in play with 11 of them ground … Read more
Best Matchup: Saturday – Reading – Zach Eflin vs Joe Ross A matchup of former Padres first rounders traded this offseason (Ross in 2011, Eflin in 2012), Ross went to the Nationals in the deal that sent Wil Myers to San Diego and Steven Souza to Tampa Bay. Eflin so far has taken better to the … Read more
It is hard to make any sweeping judgements on early season stats, so the best question is often “What is this player doing new?”. In the case of shortstop Malquin Canelo he is showing power that he has never shown up this point. Canelo up to this point has been a bit of an after … Read more
Yes, it is not Hector Neris’ first trip to the majors, he has one inning and a strikeout to his name to this point. But given that this should be a slightly longer arrival, lets look at Neris again. The Profile: Fastball at 90-93 touching 94, fairly straight with decent control. He pairs that with … Read more
Per Jim Peyton of Phuture Phillies, the Clearwater Threshers have activated RHP Victor Arano off of the disabled list (RHP Yacksel Rios was put on the DL). Arano had been dealing with shoulder tightness in camp, but was 93-94 over 4 innings in an Extended Spring Training game in his last outing. If Arano is … Read more
Very often you hear complaints that the Phillies hold their prospects down forever, or at least until they are old veterans. This refrain gets repeated on message boards and comment sections forever, but is there any truth to this. I took all the major prospects from BA’s Top 10 Phillies prospects lists since 1998 who debuted … Read more
Pitching Spotlight: RHP Zach Eflin – 8.0 IP 3 H 0 ER 1 BB 5 K Outside of the incredible stat line I want to talk about the reason for Eflin’s success so far which is his ability to generate ground balls. Over the course of his Sunday start Eflin threw a ton of strikes especially … Read more
Let’s jump right into the mailbag. Rei De Bastoni 1 – Why are command and control considered separate tools? Isn’t it impossible to have better command within the strike zone than ability to throw strikes in general? 2 – For pitch sequencing, is it enough that either the pitcher or the catcher has a good … Read more