This Week’s Schedule
- Lehigh Valley (60-64) vs Syracuse (64-61) – 5 GB
- Reading (59-60) vs Binghamton (54-66) – +2.5 GB
- Jersey Shore (43-75) vs Wilmington (60-59) – 14.5 GB
- Clearwater (67-51) @ Lakeland (58-59) – clinched first half title
- DSL Phillies (36-20) – 2-1 in DSL Cup and eliminated from postseason
Hitter Spotlight
OF Caden Bogenpohl
10 G 11-38 3 2B 1 HR 9 RBI 1 BB 10 K
Against Ft Myers Bogenpohl hit the hardest ball by a Phillies player of any level in the Statcast era at 117.1 mph. On his 42 batted balls as a pro he has a 90th percentile EV of 107.0 mph. There is no doubting he has elite raw power. One of the problems in college is that he had traded fly ball damage for better contact. While he is hitting .310 as a pro, he has slid a bit on both of those things as he has not really elevated the ball enough (though he is hitting a lot of line drives) and his contact rates (65.8% overall and 73.2% in zone) are quite bad. He isn’t chasing at a high rate but also isn’t punishing the ball in the zone. He is also getting beat by both spin and high velocity. While the big exit velocities are good to see, he is going to be a project.
Pitcher Spotlight
RHP Chuck King
2 GS 12 IP 9 H 3 ER 3 BB 8 K
King is not really a prospect in the traditional sense. This is his age 28 season and he is only a few months younger than Alan Rangel. It also isn’t as if he is lighting up AAA, despite two good weeks. However, he also isn’t stinking up the joint either. There are 42 pitchers with at least 90 innings pitched in AAA this year and King’s 4.22 ERA is 14th among them. He is middle of that group in strikeouts and has largely done it while suppressing contact quality. His fastballs, both averaging a touch under 95, get hit in the zone, and he pounds both in the zone a good bit. He also throws a good amount of high 80s sliders in the zone as well. The slider does get misses there and the amount of strikes he throws with his fastballs does mean hitters will expand against them, but will still rarely whiff. He then expands the zone more with a splitter and sweeper, but both are used primarily as chase pitches. He is more of a fringy AAAA starter or bulk reliever, btu that actually is probably enough for him to hang around AAA for another year and then maybe pick up Rangel’s role on the roster after that. It isn’t really a fairy tale ending for a good story, but King has made himself into a really valuable org player.
Notes and Thoughts
- It certainly wasn’t Francisco Renteria’s fault the DSL Phillies were eliminated. He hit .625/.750/1.375 in the 5 games leading into the postseason, and then in the 3 postseason games he went 4 for 11 with 2 doubles, a home run, 2 walks, and 3 stolen bases. He ended the season as the best statistical hitter in the DSL and probably the second best prospect in the league.
- It was a struggle down the stretch for Juan Parra, but he had a .464 OBP over his final 6 games of the season. Unfortunately that 6th game was the first game of the DSL postseason and his absence was felt, especially against the Padres.
- Strikeouts are down for Cody Bowker with Jersey Shore (37.9% to 29.5%), but his walk rate is down even more (11.8% to 4.8%) which means his K-BB% is not actually too dissimilar. Given his struggles with men on base, it is has almost certainly contributed to his 3.28 ERA with Jersey Shore. It wasn’t a spectacular last week (5 IP 3 H 1 ER 2 BB 3 K) but he followed it up with a more solid start in Reading after his promotion (5 IP 2 H 1 ER 0 BB 6 K).
- It has been yet another month of cutting down on strikeouts for Matthew Ferrara, and the second straight month with a good batting average (now at .317 in August). He has not hit for power since cutting down on the swing and miss, and he will need to find a way to add strength and get to power in a way that doesn’t make him exposed to breaking balls.
- The home runs at home thing has really plagued Gage Wood as he gave up 2 on the 14th, but once again no home runs on the road. It wasn’t the most efficient set of starts, but back to back games of 5 innings and 80+ pitches puts him well on pace to get over 100 innings this year.
- Matthew Fisher had one good start and then one disastrous one that he left with what may have been an injury. It would have been good to see some growth into the offseason.
- Strikeouts are up (as are walks) for Bryan Rincon in August, but he is also being blessed with a .444 BABIP for the month to give him a 1.035 OPS. He was 3 for 15 against Chesapeake at home, but followed it by going 12 for 28 on the road at Portland with 6 XBHs.
- After things were looking better for Aroon Escobar he has run a .148 BABIP over the last two weeks to hit .114/.262/.200 despite 6 walks to 8 strikeouts in the 10 games.
- It was more power (2B, 3B, HR) in Portland for Carson DeMartini after a quiet week at home. The batting average isn’t there because of the 25% strikeout rate, but he walked 10 times to the 9 strikeouts and has 13 walks and 15 strikeouts since returning to AA. He feels like a lock to go the Arizona Fall League.
- Dante Nori’s rehab went to Jersey Shore, but he went 2 for 16 on the week. He put the ball in play and played center field, which was good to see.
- The strikeouts weren’t as bad this week for Griffin Burkholder (9 in 10 games and 44 PAs), but he doesn’t have an extra base hit in over a month, which is very concerning.
- It isn’t as dire a power outage for Juan Villavicencio, but it is pretty close. His strikeouts are up and his contact is not falling for hits as he went 6 for 44 over the two weeks.
- We last saw RHP Kyler Carmack pitching in 3 games after being drafted in the 20th round of the 2024 draft. He was 91-95 with a mix of secondary pitches. He blew out his elbow in spring of 2025 and is only now back. He struck out 3 in his inning of work, sitting 96, touching 97.6 and showing huge spin rates on a cutter and a sweeper. His changeup has large movement separation from his fastball while sitting 92. It is one game, but it was a very exciting set of pitches in one game.
- Will Gasparino isn’t putting the high end exit velocities that Bogenpohl is, but is 90th percentile is actually slightly higher (107.4 mph). He is chasing just slightly more, but his zone contact (83.7%) is much better and he isn’t showing the same susceptibility to spin and velocity, while also attacking balls in the zone more. It is also small sample size so far, but he is looking like the better hitter in the early going.
- Nolan Beltran is back to just drawing a ton of walks, with 11 in 10 games this week. He even picked up his 5th home run of the year. He is, and should be platooned, but the fact that his home run was the first since May is probably more concerning.
- When a player starts off ice cold it can take a while to get numbers back to normal. Will Vierling is not playing has much, thanks to a .585 OPS over the first three months of the season. Since the start of July he is hitting .306/.393/.556 in 22 games with 4 HRs, 10 BB, 15 K. In August that is a 1.083 OPS thanks in large part going 9 for 21 over these past two weeks.
- There hasn’t been a wow start from Brad Pacheco since early July, but since changing his changeup to the splitter he has had 7 starts totaling 37.0 innings with a 2.19 ERA and 5 walks to 40 strikeouts. These two weeks have been more of the same with 2 walks and 11 strikeouts in 10 innings.
- It isn’t entirely clear what Juan Amarante’s role is, but over the two games in these two weeks he went 6.1 IP 3 H 0 R 2 BB 12 K over two appearances. It looks like he should be starting games down the stretch.
- Since his rough first appearance, Mavis Graves has not allowed an earned run in 9.2 innings, he even struck out 9 in his 4.2 innings over these two weeks. He did also walk 7 in those 4.2 innings.
- We should probably draw wild conclusions from Tyler Spangler going 1 for 5 in his first two games (both at DH), but we won’t. He made contact, but didn’t hit the ball hard, but really it is good they have him in games.
Injuries and Transactions
- Lane Haworth (CLW), Gerardo Lopez (CLW), Tristan Garnett (LHV), Tyler Spangler (CLW), Cody Bowker (REA), Giussepe Velasquez (JS), and Romeli Espinosa (JS) were assigned to new levels
- Luke Ritter was released
- Brayden Bakes, Mark Kolozsvary, Braydon Taylor, Adilson Peralta, MT Morrissey, and Tyler Pettorini were added to 7-day IL
- Kyler Carmack, Brady Day, Bryson Ware, Aaron Combs, Richie Cortese, and Christian Cairo were activated from the IL
- Alirio Ferrebus, Andrew Hoffmann, Albertt Medina, and Jose Pena Jr. assigned to 60-day IL
- Andrew Bechtold and Daniel Robert assigned to full season IL
- Dante Nori (JS) and Austin Murr (JS) assigned on rehab
- Luis Caicuto was activated from the Development List
- Yordanis Guerra, Jordan Dissin, Angel Liranzo, and Cole Gilley were added to the Development List
Links and Things
Videos and Posts