Baseball Prospectus is the latest to publish their ranking of the Phillies farm system. Their list represents the first post-Ken Giles trade list, our first chance to see where some think Mark Appel rates. Unlike past years, the BP lists are free, so you can read their writeups of the Top 10, plus five extra players, and their top 10 under 25 here. Since you can read what BP has to say on your own, let’s jump right into the Top 10.
- J.P. Crawford
- Nick Williams
- Jake Thompson
- Franklyn Kilome
- Roman Quinn
- Cornelius Randolph
- Mark Appel
- Jorge Alfaro
- Andrew Knapp
- Ben Lively
At this point I feel safe that 1-2-3 are fairly locked in on Phillies lists. The next 6 names might not all be in everyone’s Top 10, but they are all going to be within the Top 15 at minimum. The order that BP does not match mine, but that is fine because there is a lot of volatility and upside in that group. But then we get to #10. Without ruining where I have Lively, I will just say that I am much much lower on him. I just didn’t see it this year, the stuff was just kind of mediocre and his command was poor. I also acknowledge I value backend starters a lot lower than many others out there.
In addition to the Top 10 BP wrote up five more prospects without any sort of ranking. Those were Carlos Tocci, Deivi Grullon, Adonis Medina, Zach Eflin, and Scott Kingery. Not much new, all are at least Top 20 prospects who would have made previous lists.
After that we have the Top 10 Under 25 list which goes like this (the writer of this list and the main Top 10 are different and this list is constrained by the prospect top 10 order).
- J.P. Crawford
- Aaron Nola
- Maikel Franco
- Odubel Herrera
- Nick Williams
- Jake Thompson
- Franklyn Kilome
- Roman Quinn
- Cornelius Randolph
- Mark Appel
Image by Baseball Betsy
Really confused by the Lively selection. If you prefer pitchers in or above AA with high floors why wouldn’t you go with Eflin? I have quite a few guys I’d choose for #10 ahead of Lively.
It looks like most of the list is based on upside and then there’s Lively at #10. I feel like they’re plenty of other pitchers in the org that have more upside and more present stuff than him, ranked lower. I wonder what they were going off of when the made the list.
In addition to the Lively selection, I’m surprised by the U-25 list. If you have a second I’d be interested in your thoughts on Herrera’s placement and Velasquez’s absence. If this is a reflection of the league-wide perception of Herrera’s value, that’s great.
I will have a U25 list as part of my ranking so I won’t dwell too much on this, but Herrera should be high and I am surprised by the absence of Velasquez
Perhaps the writer doing the U25 had Appel much higher and didn’t want to drop him from the list.
They basically said in the article that they feel Lively and Efflin are the same guy with the slightest of nods to Lively.
That seems odd given that Eflin is 21, while Lively is 25 months older, and that they both pitched at Reading, but Eflin had the slightly better regular season and did really well in the post-season.