A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
When I sat down to write the pre-season Top 50 there were two glaring positional weaknesses in the system catcher and third base. Only one third baseman (Jake Holmes) made the list, and that position has seen some natural improvement with bounce backs by Zach Green and Luke Williams and the drafting of Alec Bohm. … Read more
Last night’s mission took me to Reading as the Phillies took on Baltimore’s affiliate from Bowie. The misson: Adam Haseley’s debut in AA. While Haseley was the headliner, a couple of other recent promotions were of interest as well in first basemen Austin Listi and Darick Hall. The position players were the one’s I was … Read more
On Friday night, I made my fourth trip to Lakewood this year to watch Spencer Howard for a second time. This would also be coincidentally the third time I’ve gotten to see the Nationals low A affiliate Hagerstown. The mission for the evening was to see two things: to see if Howard could have a … Read more
It’s June 19th, and at least one Phillies affiliate will have it’s season extend past September 3rd, when most of the minor league regular ends. On Sunday, Lakewood played it’s final game of the first half of the season. In the South Atlantic League, the schedule is truly split into two seasons. To reach the … Read more
The draft is over and the short season games are about to begin. The Phillies have two GCL teams, of which we likely won’t know the rosters until the first games. What we do have is a preliminary Williamsport roster. Here’s the preliminary roster for the Williamsport @crosscutters … Reminder that this will change a … Read more
This past week, I spent time at each of the Northeast affiliates of the Philadelphia Phillies scouting some of the intriguing depth pitchers in the organization. This report won’t have the usual pitching stats I give out because of time spent on video editing, so I apologize in advance if you were looking forward to … Read more
Baseball development does not care for roster construction. In the minor leagues there is one finite constant in development, playing time. When it comes to pitchers, this means starts. Teams have tried to get creative with pitching rotations, with some opting for shorter rotations with piggy back starts, or other like the Phillies have opted … Read more
Pitching Report This was the first time I got to see JoJo Romero throw in a game since he was drafted back in 2016. It was a fairly interesting start as really JoJo’s start was mired by a poor 4th inning, where nine men would come to the plate and five runs would cross. Romero … Read more
I was planning on writing about Dylan Cozens this week, but after he hit 3 home runs today for the IronPigs, I thought I would move it up. Dylan Cozens is hitting .278/.385/.557 on the season, which is a large improvement on his 2017 season. He has made improvements this year, but that doesn’t mean … Read more
Last night Phillies manager Gabe Kapler was in Reading to take in 6 innings of minor league baseball. The Fightins set Harold Arauz to the mound to start, but the real reason for Kapler’s (and it looked like from pictures Joe Jordan’s) was apparent when Seranthony Dominguez took the mound for the 6th inning. Dominguez … Read more