As we near the end of 2016 we have another prospect list. This time it is the Phillies Top 10 put together by Ben Badler at Baseball America. BA will eventually release a full Top 30 prospects in their handbook, but for now we have their Top 10 which you can read here (the Crawford report is free). On the surface the order is a bit wonky, but don’t dwell on it too much because it says more about the talent in the Phillies system than it does about the specific order the players are in.
So here is the list:
- J.P. Crawford
- Mickey Moniak
- Jorge Alfaro
- Nick Williams
- Sixto Sanchez
- Rhys Hoskins
- Franklyn Kilome
- Roman Quinn
- Scott Kingery
- Dylan Cozens
And now for some thoughts:
- Rhys Hoskins is obviously the name that looks out of place here. As was hinted at back on the Baseball Prospectus list, there are a couple of tiers of prospects in the Phillies system. The Top 4 are the Top 4 (Crawford, Moniak, Alfaro, and Williams) and maybe Williams falls somewhere for someone, but those 4 should be 1-4. Then there is for me at least Kilome and Sanchez. Then you have a group that goes from 7 to 14 and includes Quinn, Hoskins, Medina, Kingery, Randolph, Cozens, Pivetta, and Gowdy. In this case Ben jumped Hoskins into the Kilome/Sanchez group just like BP did with Adonis Medina.
- Continuing on Hoskins, there is a pathway to impact value for him. His power is not on Dylan Cozens’ level, but it might now be getting a bit underrated. He has developed a good control of the strikezone and his swing is simple and quick enough to hit almost everything. There are some who will argue that there are major holes in his game. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.
- Sixto Sanchez is really really good. I don’t have him as my #1 pitcher in the Phillies system, but 18 year olds that sit 93-96 touching 99 to go with 2 potential plus offspeed pitches (to go with a third offspeed his 88-92 slider that is still early in development that could be the best of the bunch). Sanchez will almost certainly begin 2017 in Lakewood and if he repeats just his raw stuff from 2016 he could be one of the best pitching prospects in the game.
- BA worries about Kilome’s changeup development. It is a pitch that has plagued him for the past two years and at times he has found a good one, he just hasn’t been able to find a consistent grip for it.
- Going to 10 makes this list feel abrupt and notable for who is missing, which is part of the problem with lists. Notably missing from this list are Adonis Medina, Cornelius Randolph, and Kevin Gowdy. That said having them behind the guys that made the list is not a huge slight. For example Randolph at #8 vs #11-#13 is not actually a big jump in value.
Ben is doing a chat tomorrow and I will add some more thoughts after that as well as probably an entire piece dedicated to the projected 2020 lineup exercise.
Image by Baseball Betsy