A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Matt Winkelman 
Prospect lists in general are arbitrary things, midseason lists are doubly so. Each evaluator talks to different people, and each person has their own set of biases and values. When it comes to midseason lists, we add in a time factor as games are still going on. I am writing this list nearly a month … Read more
I am not normally one for idle trade speculation or trade proposals. However, I was inspired by Paul Boye on Twitter. Just idly perusing contenders' rosters looking for potential Freddy Galvis fits and hoo boy Alcides Escobar sure has been bad for a while — Baseball Paul (@paul_boye) July 27, 2017 Like usual, the Royals … Read more
Last night the Phillies shipped out their best trade piece in Pat Neshek for a trio of prospects. None of the prospects are going to make anyone’s jaw drop (unless it is the name and appearance of J.D. Hammer). When I publish my midseason ranking on Tuesday, none of these prospects will have a number … Read more
Last year the Lakewood BlueClaws rode a rotation of Dominican RHPs to the South Atlantic League championship game. This year that core group (Franklyn Kilome, Jose Taveras, Alberto Tirado, and Seranthony Dominguez) was supposed to be the center of the Clearwater rotation. They were joined by 2016 5th round pick, Cole Irvin, a polished 22 … Read more
The Phillies have 4 hitters with at least 20 home runs this year, two of them (Rhys Hoskins and Dylan Cozens) are obvious power threats and Scott Kingery is having a breakout season, but it is the guy tied for the lead that might be the most interesting. The Phillies selected Mitch Walding in the … Read more
Things are not going well in the major leagues for the Phillies. This has meant that the state of the Phillies’ rebuild has been cast into doubt. The problem with this assumption is that in the minors that the Phillies rebuild in the minors is going fine (even if it is not going at the … Read more
The big headline last night was that Scott Kingery was being promoted from Reading to Lehigh Valley. It was just one transaction in a long list of transactions that included the Phillies cutting ties with two veterans. So once the dust all settled, the Phillies made the following moves. To Phillies: Mark Leiter Jr. Cameron … Read more
It is not a deep revelation to say that a major problem for the Phillies has been drafting. Their record of ineptness is of public record, and the result are showing (or not showing) on the field for the Phillies. The worst moment was after the 2013 draft when it came out that the Phillies … Read more
The safe assumption is that major league baseball teams will sign their top 10 round picks. The loss of slot money for not signing a player gives teams strong incentive to agree to deals before drafting a player, and then not pissing off everyone involved for next year’s negotiations helps enforce all of the handshake … Read more
Day 3 of the draft is organized chaos. It isn’t all over the place it is one very quick beat of names and draft Ids and mad scramble for all of the rest of us to figure out who that kid is. The Phillies under Almaraz have typically gone pitcher heavy on day 3, and … Read more