A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
Since I started this adventure to be a scout two years ago I have attended at least one game at all but one facility the Phillies are affiliated with. This weekend, that has changed as I can now scratch Williamsport off the list finally. And when I made the nearly three hour trek to the … Read more
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
I am sorry I have not written as much as I used to. A big thanks to Jeff for taking over the draft previews. Some things happened in the last week and I want to write about current events the way I used to write about current events. Jesmuel Valentin to Have Surgery for Shoulder … Read more
Last week I looked at hot hitting starts in the system. While the list was exciting, the number of hot pitching starts is more interesting then the list of hitters. Part of this is the depth of interesting pitching prospects in the system. But, the other part is that pitchers are dealing with smaller sample … Read more
Unless you are completely off the grid, you heard that I have taken over as the Managing Editor of Crashburn Alley. That does mean some of the bigger and deeper minor league pieces will be moving there, but I am not abandoning this place. So I am going to jump back in with my thoughts … Read more
They finally put a game on TV, so I have some thoughts about some players. Specifically 3 players. Rhys Hoskins worked 3 full counts in his 4 trips to the plate today. He also fouled off a bunch of pitches in those at bats in addition to the 3-2 counts. He ended up going 0-3 … Read more
We won’t be getting one of these tomorrow as the Rays have not yet moved into the 21st century. The pitching was not great as Pivetta was stymied by a combination of poor command and bad defense. The same would plague Elniery Garcia, who was once again 91-93 with his fastball and broke off some … Read more
This afternoon the Phillies took on the Rays and were crushed. Before talking about baseball players I would like to take this opportunity to talk about how unwatchable the Phillies TV broadcast is. During Drew Anderson’s first inning of work the broadcast talked about how great it is to see the young players in camp … Read more
I didn’t get a chance to watch this weekend’s games live so I am just catching up on them now. Quick Thoughts: The Clearwater gun has a history of being hot, but Ricardo Pinto’s 95-97 was a good 3-4 mph faster than where Appel and Rodriguez were. There is a chance he ends up in … Read more
The Phillies lost to the Yankees in the Grapefruit League opener. Some Quick Thoughts: J.P. Crawford is working counts but not getting anything for it, two weak groundballs in 3-1 counts today. Nick Williams took some aggressive hacks in his AB, but lining the ball up the middle is a good sign. The bad relievers … Read more