A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Matt Winkelman 
The Phillies system is not a good system. Trades, bad drafting, poor international classes, mediocre at best development, and an entire year missing due to a pandemic has set it back. There are still a lot of prospects to be excited about, and the missed year means there are some breakouts in here we just … Read more
Tomorrow is the deadline for teams to add players to their 40 man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft. Thanks to a deep college class in the 2017 draft, the Phillies had a lot of decisions to make coming into the year. They traded Addison Russ and then added Connor Brogdon, Mickey … Read more
I keep my own running rankings of the course of the season and make minor adjustments to try and account for changing information and my own opinion. The end result is that ranking changes feel for gradual and less reactionary. Obviously this season the amount of information coming out is next to nothing, so these … Read more
The Phillies are at the time of writing this 2-4 (though winning vs the Yankees), with some major bullpen problems. The Phillies cannot afford bullpen problems, they also cannot afford a bullpen. The Phillies are theoretically built to compete in the short and long term. A lot of that rotates around Aaron Nola and Bryce … Read more
The Phillies system is not where it was at the height of the rebuild. It lacks depth, especially depth in the 11-20 range and it is probably short another top 100 prospect. That said, Alec Bohm and Spencer Howard are one of the best 1-2 punches of major league ready impact talent the organization has … Read more
During the Phillies rebuild years the system was full of high minors starting pitchers a break or two away from being a major league contributor. So far the Phillies have been pretty poor at getting those guys across the finish line, with only Zach Eflin, Nick Pivetta, and Vince Velasquez hanging around as reclamation projects … Read more
If the last set of prospects represented the highs of the Phillies system, this group represents a but why it is thought so lowly of. The Phillies have a number of interesting catching prospects, with 4 of them here, and while they all might be major league contributors, and some regulars, but relying on the … Read more
The Phillies have not been particularly good at development over most of my lifetime. During the Amaro and Gillick years it was rare that early draft picks, let alone late picks turned into interesting prospects. The Phillies haven’t become a draft or development powerhouse overnight, they probably are still below average to average in development. … Read more
I realize that I have not written much this year, at least not here. I could write a bunch about how the Phillies system has some very interesting lottery tickets in the lower minors, or how the top has really disappointed this year. However, I think it is much more interesting to just talk about … Read more
The Phillies system has taken some hits over the last few years, and they have no quite rebuilt their depth and they have used some in trades and not replenished with trades of their own. The top of the system is headlined with two very good prospects, but there are a lot of middling prospects … Read more