Phillies Minor League Monthly Retrospective – June 2024

Stock Changes

*Rankings are from midseason list / preseason list

Stock Up

LHP Mavis Graves (#20 / #37) – It isn’t that Graves was bad to start the season, he had a solid April and May with the arrow pointed very up, it is that his June was another leap forward. In 4 starts during the month, Graves reach 10 strikeouts 3 times, and his in 21 innings he struck out 37 and walked 6. On the season he has given up just one home run and he has the second highest K% in the minors among pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched. The real glaring negative for graves has been that his fastballs are bad. They both average around 91, he has gotten up to 95 with both, but he will generally start in the 91-93 range and fade from there. The movement profile on both are rather pedestrian with his 4 seam lacking flat plane or rise and his sinker lacking strong sink or steepness. Hitters are able to get the bat to both of them, and largely they function to get strikes called and set up the other pitches, and the other pitches are good. His slider/cutter generates a high level of chases while also being a pitch that works in the strike zone to generate swings and misses. His changeup has been his next best pitch, getting misses in and out of the zone. His sweeper he will land in the zone a bit more for called strikes. Some more velocity will help his fastballs (he is 6’6″ and only 20 years old, so there is some expectation of growth), but they are likely to always be his worse pitches. However, if the secondary pitches continue to work as he climbs the ladder he has a very interesting ceiling.

OF Jordan Viars (UR / UR) – I didn’t write a supplemental to my midseason ranking, but Viars would have been listed as the just missed prospect, so if you want to treat him as having gone from unranked to #22 it shows the growth 3 weeks ago when I put together that list. Injuries and ineffectiveness marred Viars’ last two seasons in the minors, and it looks like more of the same when he hit .184/.310/.347 in April. His big breakout month happened in May when he put up a 1.050 OPS, but June’s .885 OPS showed that it wasn’t a single month fluke and he was actually back on track. Viars hits the ball hard, maybe not has consistently hard as some, but he has the second highest max exit velocity (114 mph) of any player tracked in low-A and his 90th percentile of 105.4 mph is very solid. He has also dramatically cut his ground ball rate to 26.4% one of the lowest in the minors while hitting a large number of fly balls and scorching line drives. There are still some big concerns about his ability to make contact, he has a 29.7% K% on the season and just a 75% zone contact rate. He swings and misses vs off speed pitches a lot. He also has not hit left handed pitching (.111/.314/.148) and has been largely sheltered from it. The Phillies have also been playing him a lot at DH and he is unlikely to be a good defensive outfielder. What he does look like is a slugger again, and despite all his struggles he will only turn 21 later this month.

C Eduardo Tait (#7 / #7) – Tait struggled to reach safely to open the season and struggled overall to hit for power in the first month of the season. In June he hit .314/.383/.629 and as of Monday (7/8) morning he was hitting .301/.368/.493 on the season with a 7.6% BB% and 15.2% K%. He has been the best 17 year old hitter stateside and of the best 18 and under players. He hits the ball hard and while he can get a bit swing happy, he has kept his strikeouts under control. He has struggled in his small sample vs LHPs, but that he mostly been to have impact on the ball as he has 6 walks and 4 strikeouts vs southpaws. While he didn’t move up the rankings numerically at midseason, he is now firmly into the top prospect group that the Phillies have.

2B William Bergolla (#8 / #8) – It is a testament to how good Bergolla’s June was that the Phillies named him their player of the month even though he has been sideline by an injury since June 22. He was coming off a May in which he hit a very William Bergolla-esque .286/.342/.357 after a disastrous April, and he scorched through June. In 19 games he hit .421/.507/.597 with 11 walks to just 3 strikeouts and 7 extra base hits, including his first pro home run. Bergolla isn’t a slugger now, but he has added strength and it is turning singles to doubles and fly outs into a home run. It is even more impressive in the context of his strikeout and walk rates because he didn’t sell out for the power, it came within his existing foundation. If he can maintain the power, we can start to have the conversation about whether he is just a special hitter and even a 5 home run a year output could give him plenty of offensive upside for second base. It has not bee reported what his injury is and he has been out for over 2 weeks now.

Stock Down

OF Hendry Mendez (UR / #34) – The Phillies acquired Mendez alongside Robert Moore for Oliver Dunn ahead of the 40 man protection deadline last fall. Mendez had struggled in the Brewers system the last two years after a great debut in 2021. He was billed as having a good feel for contact and a solid approach at the plate, and he even hit the ball hard. He just had one glaring weakness. So far Mendez has shown his strengths, he has just a 16.7% K% and he even has a 16.2% BB%. The problem is that pesky weakness. Through 50 games, Mendez, a corner outfielder, has 6 extra base hits and hit just .134/.224/.164 in June. The weakness is that he hits the ball on the ground a prodigious rate. He is up to 65.4% this season, up from 60.6% and 62.6% his last two years in full season ball. He is only 20 years old, so you can’t just write him off completely, but it feels like it is the point between his time in two different organizations to not have any expectations either.

OF Avery Owusu-Asiedu (UR / #26)– Owusu-Asiedu was a trendy sleeper in the Phillies system heading into the season. He was a long athletic center fielder that had put up good college numbers and had not embarrassed himself in pro-ball (albeit in 13 games). You can still see the raw tools, but he hit .157 in June and has a season strikeout rate of 38.5%. He chases out of the zone a good bit, but what has been the real problem is a very low zone-contact rate of 70% driven by a very high whiff rate vs offspeed pitches. Owusu-Asiedu’s struggles are not entirely surprising, he was very raw coming into pro ball, but there have not been any real signs of improvement so far. It is really hard for a player to make the kind of growth he will need to make, and it would be important to show some steps in the second half.

Mixed or Stable

RHP George Klassen (#6 / #22) – For the first time all season, Klassen hit some struggles on the mound. He walked 10 batters in 17 June innings, including 4 in his last start in Clearwater. He did strike out 26 in that time and his ERA for a down month was a whopping 3.71. His command and consistency continue to be points of weakness as he will leave the ball in hittable spots or have stretches where he will just miss the zone. His fastball’s velocity is going to become less of an overwhelming attribute at each level, and the movement on it is not ideal. The Phillies say he is throwing a 4-seam and sinker, but there isn’t a ton of evidence of two distinct pitches in the movement date. Separating out the two fastballs will be helpful in keeping hitters off balance more. The next step overall will be him working efficiently enough that he can pitch deeper into games, and much of that will come from not wasting pitches.

Monthly Stat Leaders

Hitting

Pitching

Mailbag

@viscof1: Ricketts seems to have held his own offensively. Is he stock up since your rankings? Any improvement on defense?

He is probably stock up from where I ranked him in the preseason (#39), but not hugely so. I have not watched enough to have a real strong defensive opinion, but I also haven’t seen a big standout in what I have watched. His extreme home/road splits (.930 OPS at home, .581 on the road) raises some red flags when it comes to Reading, especially since that is no XBHs on the road. There are a lot of Andrew Knapp vibes to me with a bat not good enough to sustain being a below average defensive back up catcher.

@NicholasPickel2: 1) A question I’ve had for awhile I just struggle with wording it is about value and quality. During the 07-11 run the Phillies traded a ton of highly regarded prospects with most not having or even making it to the majors to have a MLB career. A) Is it a knock on Phillies not developing prospects or do they get kudos for selling high on them? B) Also is there a peak value that prospect might have that, whose inclusion in a trade, would return more value than they would ever produce? C) Is trading too many of these prospects a detriment to the overall system health?

I think it is a bunch of things. They sold high and mostly self scouted well. They also drafted a lot of very volatile high upside, low floor players that had a chance to bust, and traded them early when the risk went to the acquiring team. This shows up in that they also didn’t really keep anything that produced for them either. I think it is very fair to say the Phillies were poor at both drafting and developing and were good at moving a volatile asset before it depreciated, so kudos for moving on, but having to move on was a consequence of other actions. For B, no. A prospect has a wide range of outcomes, and there are certain caliber of players you are acquiring that they will likely never reach, but that gets into monetary cost, team control, and team competitiveness. But to the base question a prospect is a range of outcomes to be solidified at a later date, you can see that range shit, contract, or expand and that can help you judge the risk of your decision, but there is no magic point. Trading too many prospects isn’t just bad for system health, it is bad for your MLB team. Prospects aren’t certainty, so the best ways to get something out of them is to either cash them for a trade or have enough that some will hit. The more you deplete the less your chances become of developing something. The less you develop, the more you then have to trade to just fill the fringes of your roster. We focus a lot of stars, but if you are constantly trading top 20 prospects for back end starters or relievers, or giving out big contracts just to get innings, you are going to find yourself in a spiral.

@jayPB08: Prospects like Abel, McGarry, + Crawford, while all will likely make an mlb team at some point, don’t seem to be potential impact players anymore at this time. Do you think this falls more on the Phillies minor league dev or the seemingly weak covid-impacted draft classes?

The draft in general has been pretty weak, I also think there is a misconception of how many prospects will impact players. The general life cycle of a prospect involves there being a large ceiling and then that whittling down. I am not going to lie and say Crawford and Abel are great, but also that paint isn’t dry. I think the Phillies have struggled with hitting dev and acquisition and have struggled to finish off high minors pitching. I think they have improved, but they aren’t great yet there. I do want to call out Griff McGarry specifically. Griff was a 5th round pick in 2021 who popped like he was a top prospect, but there were always massive control concerns. McGarry is objectively a great draft pick and the kind you want your team constantly making in the middle day 1 rounds.

@ChrisLemmo15: What’s your theory on why there seems to be such a wide range of opinions on Crawford’s season so far? Some seem to have him heading up T100 boards while others seem to think he’s regressed

It is about how you view the swing and what you value overall in a baseball player. I think those that rank him high see the youth, athleticism, and good exit velocities and see a player who will eventually put it all together. On the pessimistic side where I am, I see the swing be a visual mess and the poor plate discipline and I see a large climb of development to get him to providing more than minimal value. No one really disagrees on the defensive or base running upside.

@BreakerOfChairs: Wen Hui Pan look good in his rehab start what’s his future with the org?

Look for this in the weekly recap this week.

@Bryantavenue115: Seems like the Phillies have a lot of middle infield prospect depth – in an adeal world. Is Bergolla or Saltiban the top 10 guy u move for a rental if Dave doesn’t go big game hunting

I don’t think you worry too much about redundant depth until it gets to AA and AAA or 40 man/Rule 5 considerations. Neither Bergolla or Saltiban is there and moving either for a rental is likely selling low on a player whose value will grow. Now if either is a key to a big trade then I don’t think either is barrier, but the Phillies have not really been into selling early if they don’t have to and I think they have other pieces they may look to move first.

@MrEd315: In your opinion, which Phillies prospects should move up on the team’s prospect list based on their performance so far this season? Or might it still be early to make that prediction?

I don’t write the lists for other publications, but I would expect to George Klassen, Jean Cabrera, Samuel Aldegheri, Mavis Graves, Michael Mercado, Aroon Escobar, and Guillermo Rosario all higher on national lists in their next updates.