A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Matt Winkelman When I sat down to the yearly exercise of putting together this list, I was under no delusion that I was writing up a strong farm system. The Phillies are a competitive team that has struggled with development while not having the depth to cycle out players for influxes of talent like the Dodgers have … Read more
There is a repeated adage that teams are generally populated by smart people and when they make a puzzling move you should probably take a second look at it and see what the team saw and why they did it. When the Phillies acquired Jonathan Bowlan for Matt Strahm the general consensus was that it … Read more
In a flurry of work before everyone goes home for the holidays the Phillies remade the middle of the bullpen in a set of three moves that really should all be packaged together. In: RHP Brad Keller, RHP Jonathan Bowlan, LHP Kyle Backhus Out: LHP Matt Strahm, OF Avery Owusu-Asiedu The Phillies got about $5M … Read more
Winter Leagues Australian Baseball League Saltiban has been on fire over the last week, but the walk and strikeout numbers are concerning given prior knowledge. Ferrebus is swinging freely and making plenty of contact. He needs to find a better approach, but also he is not striking out either. Joining the Giants this week will … Read more
Not all projections come true in the Rule 5 draft, but it looked like the Phillies might lose Griff McGarry and were likely to select a RH reliever with their own pick. Both of those things came to pass. They also acquired a live armed potential reliever convert from the Rays in a trade after … Read more
The Rule 5 draft typically ends the Winter Meetings, and in this case that will be Wednesday 2pm ET, and so we continue the series of offseason posts entirely related to the transactions around it. For the major league phase, the Phillies have not selected and kept a player in a number of years, but … Read more
On Tuesday MLB teams will need to add players eligible for the Rule 5 draft to their 40 man rosters in order to protect them from the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft on December 10 (they also need to set their AAA roster for the minor league phase, but that is not … Read more
Today was minor league roster cleanup day. All players needed to be activated from the injured lists and all players who had achieved at least 7 minor league seasons became free agents. The Phillies had the opportunity to add any of these players to their 40 man roster to prevent this, but did not opt … Read more
The offseason has not officially begun for baseball, but it is effectively here for the Phillies as the front office will begin to have to make some quick decisions on minor league free agents and Rule 5 protection. Here are the players with important roster status milestones heading into the offseason. Major League Free Agents … Read more
There will be plenty of time to get into offseason moves, but here the day after a brutal loss in a war of series, here some snap thoughts. Dodgers Pitching Was Incredible and the Phillies Didn’t Hit It Pitchers not named Clayton Kershaw this series: 73.2 IP 51 H 2.69 ERA 26 BB 76 K. … Read more