Kiley McDaniel at Fangraphs released his top Phillies prospect list. There is a lot to the article and you can read it all here, as Kiley has a writeup and video on each ranked player. I am just going to run down the list and then give some thoughts about it at the end.
- J.P. Crawford
- Maikel Franco
- Aaron Nola
- Matt Imhof
- Jesse Biddle
- Yoel Mecias
- Deivi Grullon
- Roman Quinn
- Dylan Cozens
- Kelly Dugan
- Victor Arano
- Zach Green
- Franklyn Kilome
- Ricardo Pinto
- Andrew Knapp
- Severino Gonzalez
- Cord Sandberg
- Jesmuel Valentin
- Aaron Brown
- Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez
- Elniery Garcia
- Nefi Ogando
- Carlos Tocci
- Andrew Pullin
Some notes:
First things first; this is yet another list where Jesse Biddle is mentioned to have “mental struggles”, yet the word concussion is never used. This is unacceptable, if there is information that he is struggling that is fine, but you can’t mention this year with out the brain injury caused by a giant piece of falling ice.Kiley has since updated the piece with information that died during an edit of the piece, including a link to this interview with Biddle after his first start back.- Kiley goes out of his way to praise the Phillies Latin America program, which makes up the core of this list
- The most interesting guys for me on these lists will be how different evaluators look at Franklyn Kilome, Ricardo Pinto, and Elniery Garcia. All three bring very different things to the table and all three were pop up guys in 2014
- Carlos Tocci at 23 is very interesting, the writeup is not that negative, but the tone seems to be that he will always lack impact in the bat
- The Latin players not on the list who got called out by name were Luis Encarnacion, Arquimedes Gamboa, Grenny Cumana, Carlos Duran, Jose Pujols, Daniel Brito, and Jonathan Arauz
- The positive report on Zach Green was good to see, there has been little on him so far this year
- This continues to be an organization where the gaps after the Top 3 are not large and you can reorder this list as you like, so it really is not worth getting into who is ranked over who
- There are some definite breakout candidates for 2015 on the list, but a lot of red flags
- Rhys Hoskins was listed as a RFer but has not played in the outfield while being in the Phillies organization
Interesting that he lists the upside/projection on Nola’s command as a 55 – above average. I’ve read one or two other reports on him that say the same thing, but most seem to indicate that his command is plus, at least, and is his best asset. What’s your take on that?
I think the command future is plus (but I know a lot less than Kiley), but it is so hard to grade command and control. Hard to really throw too many pluses on future command before you see how they pitch the stuff around major league batters. In other words, 55 future command (not 55 control which is nice but less impressive) is really good to see on a minor league pitcher
Need an interpretation:
Posted this question on another site concerning Roman Quinn’s scouting report.
Partial Fangraphs comment:
‘Most scouts now prefer his swing from the left side …..’.
Does that mean:
A. His left handed hitting side is now on par and better then before?….or
B. His left handed hitting side is now preferred over his right handed side of the plate?
Not sure how to interpret that comment.
Scouts like his left handed swing more than his right handed swing. Quinn is more comfortable from the right, but he hits the ball harder and with better power from the left. So while the results aren’t there from the left, it shows the better potential.