Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 8 5/14-5/20)

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Last Week’s Schedule

This Week’s Schedule

  • Lehigh Valley (16-26) vs Rochester (21-20) includes 4/2 makeup on 5/20
  • Reading (17-22) vs Binghamton (20-17)
  • Jersey Shore (22-17) @ Aberdeen (20-19)
  • Clearwater (27-12) @ St. Lucie (13-26)
  • FCL Phillies (5-6) @TOR*, @TOR*,@TOR,@NYY,@NYY,@TIG
  • *Part of a doubleheader

Hitter Spotlight

2B Devin Saltiban

6-19 2 2B 2 HR 2 BB 4 K 3 SB .316/.381/.737

Saltiban must like hitting his home runs in pairs because now he has 4 on the season and has hit multiple home runs in a game twice this year. The two doubles this week go with two doubles last week to show a little more power output. May has gone slightly better for Saltiban than April, but he is still only putting up a .786 OPS on the month and is drawing fewer walks (though striking out less) than he was the previous month. He has shown some large platoon splits, really struggling vs right handed pitchers so far. Despite the optimism there was expected to be a learning curve with Saltiban as he faced very little advanced pitching prior to the draft. The other change since the draft, and really the beginning of the year is that it was expected that Saltiban would play some shortstop, but with Aidan Miller playing much better defense, he has locked that position down and Saltiban has exclusively played second base.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP Michael Mercado

5 IP 1 H 0 R 1 BB 7 K

Mercado has only allowed 2 runs (1 earned) thanks largely to no balls out of the park and a unsustainably low BABIP (.197) offsetting a mediocre walk rate. His last two starts, and they have been starts, he has cut the walk rate as well. He is averaging just under 96 mph for the season, and was up to 97.5 early and was 95-96 in the 5th inning again this week. Mercado is still mostly working off the fastball and then mixing in curveballs and cutters. He has thrown a handful of splitters in each appearance, but it is very much a work in progress. His cutter has been a bat misser in the zone and he uses the curveball as a chase pitch, meanwhile his fastball has been good at getting chases but has been hittable in the zone. This spring it looked like Mercado was going to be a high leverage one inning reliever and then the Phillies started stretching him out and it was kind of a weird situation. His last five appearances however have been starting the game and pitching an increasing number of innings and pitches on a regular cadence, so it is safe to say he is a starting pitcher. It is sort of hard to project too seriously as to what type of starting pitcher, but it is starting to look like a decent one.

Notes and Thoughts

  • It was a bad week for BlueClaws starting pitcher Jean Cabrera (3.1 IP 5 H 4 ER 1 BB 4 K), Samuel Aldegheri ( 4 IP 3 H 4 ER 5 BB 2 K), Estibenzon Jimenez (4 IP 8 H 6 R 5 ER 1 BB 4 K), Eiberson Castellano (5.2 IP 6 H 5 ER 3 BB 7 K), and Braeden Fausnaught (4.1 IP 9 H 8 ER 3 BB 3 K) all had disastrous starts vs Hudson Valley as the BlueClaws winning streak ended and they went 2-4 on the week.
  • Reading salvaged the last game of the series vs an equally bad Richmond team to avoid the 6 game sweep.
  • David Dahl isn’t a prospect, so I am not going to spotlight him, but he started his week with the first minor league cycle of the year and 3rd in IronPigs history, in a 7 inning double header game. On the week he went 9 for 21 with 6 extra base hits (3 doubles, 1 triple, and 2 home runs) for a .429/.478/.952 stat line. He is hitting .330/.407/.570 for the season, and despite the week is hitting worse in May. The IronPigs are using him exclusively in a platoon and he has given them everything they lost from Jake Cave leaving the org.
  • Tyler Phillips pitched a 7 inning complete game this week against the dangerous Norfolk team. He gave up some hits, including two home runs, but struck out 7 on 10 whiffs. His changeup and curveball and have graded out well and have given him to pitches that have missed bats. His sinker is still getting killed and the sweeper is not missing bats at all. His ERA is still over 4, so he still remains more interesting than immediate depth.
  • Two weeks ago I thought Bryan Rincon might be heating up, and then he only playing twice against the Wilmington Blue Rocks last week. This week he only hit .211, but he has two doubles and 2 home runs. He is now hitting .275/.370/.550 in May, so there definitely is some amount of warming up occurring.
  • Trent Farquhar is probably the Threshers infield most needing a boost up a level. He only when 7 for 16 this week with 1 extra base hit, but he walked 8 times (including 4 on Friday) to only 4 strikeouts. On the seasons he has 32 walks to 19 strikeouts and in may that is 19 walks to 12 strikeouts in 61 plate appearances) and overall he is hitting .317/.541/.366 for the month, which also points out the problem, his lack of power.
  • George Klassen got back on the mound, hit 100 and was good for two innings as he work back from missing a week to shoulder soreness.
  • Mavis Graves followed his outing with a dominant 6 innings, allowing just 1 hit and unearned run while striking out 10 to just 2 walks. His harder cutter/slider was the dominance pitch getting 7 whiffs (part of 16 overall) and allowing just a 38% zone contact%. Graves still needs to find some more velocity (and he has the frame and projection to do that), but the breaking balls are performing well so far.
  • Mick Abel (6 IP 5 H 3 ER 5 BB 6 K) had another start where he showed a bit more velocity, then couldn’t throw his fastball in the zone and then muddled through the rest of the outing.
  • The FCL Phillies defeated the FCL Yankees 19-1 on Thursday and the Yankees used 3 different position players to pitch which was embarrassing for a 7 inning game and served new purpose but to give the Phillies glorified batting practice. The Phillies had 15 hits and 11 walks in the game with 4 home runs, two of them by Guillermo Rosario (both off of actual pitchers).
  • Aroon Escobar went 5 for 12 this week with a multi home run game and 4 walks to 1 strikeout. He has been one of the best hitters on the FCL team, and he has such easy power that if he can get to it like he did this week, he has a bright future as an offensive oriented infielder (his defense looks better at third, but he has played both second and third).

Injuries and Transactions

  • Rafael Marchan began a rehab assignment with the Clearwater Threshers.
  • George Klassen returned from being active but not pitching, to pitching two innings on Saturday.
  • Jonh Henriquez started a rehab assignment with the FCL Phillies on Monday.
  • Angel Liranzo was sent stateside and added to the 60 day IL with the FCL Phillies.
  • Hendry Mendez was activated from the IL for the BlueClaws.
  • Darrick Hall (AAA) and Wesley Moore (AA) were added to the 7 day IL.

Links and Things

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