A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Jeff Israel 
In the last five weeks, we have seen Phillies 2B Cesar Hernandez suffer an oblique injury and AAA 2B Jesmuel Valentin have shoulder surgery, shutting down his season. Meanwhile, down in Reading, Scott Kingery continued to rake. All of Phillies nation has been clamoring for a while now that he should get the call-up to … Read more
The 48 hour frenzy is complete. It all concluded yesterday, with the final 30 rounds (900 picks) flying by in a short six and a half hours. The Phillies entered the day having picked eight 4-year college/JUCO players in the first ten rounds, which may have given them room to go over slot on some … Read more
Day Two of the MLB Draft is done, and the Phillies now have their ten picks that represent the total sum of their overall draft pool. In rounds 3-10, the Phillies continued to go after the college prospects, selecting six more four-year college/JUCO players along with the two chosen Monday night. They also split their … Read more
The Phillies had an interesting Day 1 with the way things played out. Beginning with how things shook out in the 1st round, Brendon McKay would turn down the Twins slot saving offer for #1, and they ended up taking the best high school bat in Royce Lewis instead. It would then pretty much go … Read more
After nearly five weeks, 41 draft profiles, and hundreds of hours staring at Youtube videos and eyewitness reports, the Draft Philes has now reached its big day: the 1st Day of the MLB Draft. Tonight at 7 pm EST, you can watch the 1st and 2nd rounds of the draft on MLB Network or MLB.com. … Read more
Tomorrow’s the big day, where high school and college baseball players get a chance to potentially hear their name called by a major league team and begin their professional careers. I certainly have had a lot of fun giving you guys information on all of the potential names that the Phillies could select with the … Read more
Every major league team has multiple big boards comparing college and high school hitters and pitchers, on top of an overall board. In the 2017 class, the weakest group is the college hitters, where most of the top talent are either future first basemen, slap-happy speedsters, or big-swinging offensive minded catchers. The Phillies strength right … Read more
This year’s crop of college prospects isn’t as strong as it’s been in years past, with not as many “safe” plays in the early rounds. But of course, the Phillies strategy the last couple of years even when drafting high school talent has been to get talent that had a good chance to reach their … Read more
Today, we take a look at a couple of intriguing high school bats that are not first round projections. The shortstop and three outfielders all have at least one plus tool that makes them stand out, but plenty of flaws. In a draft with a plethora of high school talent, the Phillies will need to take … Read more
Over the past few weeks, I have covered nearly every logical pick the Phillies could make with the eighth overall pick in next week’s draft. But as I discussed on Phillies Nation podcast the other day, they could disregard the top talent to select someone under the $4.8M slot value. I am obsessed with the lack of projectable high-end southpaws … Read more