A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
The definition of a reliever has changed rapidly recently. Starting pitchers are throwing less, while pitchers overall get more dominant. There has been a velocity spike across all of baseball, throwing in the mid 90s does not make you a major league prospect anymore. To make a major league bullpen, a pitcher has to show … Read more
Starting pitchers are many things in the minor leagues. They can be legitimate starting pitching prospects. They can be future relievers who are still working on getting everything to work before their flaws force them to the bullpen. They can be pitchers with fringe stuff hoping to be at the right place, at the right … Read more
Lumping players together as outfielders loses some of the nuance of what makes up a diverse group of players. In the outfield there is room for elite defenders, slow mashers, no power speedsters, and guys who just hit. If you can do multiple things well, you can make yourself into a decent prospect. If you … Read more
Not all minor leaguers are what we commonly call prospects, not all major leaguers were considered prospects, there are plenty of players on the fringes who make a major league debut without ever appearing on a prospect list. There are other prospects that are so far away or risky that ranking them on a prospect … Read more
Ranking season is almost over, with only a few more lists to go. Today we got our strangest list so far from ESPN’s Keith Law. First the ranking and then a lot of thoughts about it. You can find the full piece here. J.P. Crawford Jake Thompson Mark Appel Nick Williams Jorge Alfaro Scott Kingery … Read more
Last week I talked about what was written in the 2016 Baseball America Prospect Handbook. At the end of the week, BA put out their revised organizational rankings as well as their Top 100 prospects. The org rankings did not change much with the Phillies staying constant at #8, but the Top 100 offered plenty … Read more
Prospect rankings move ever onward, and today Keith Law follows up his org rankings with his Top 100 prospects in the minors. Law’s list is always going to have more outliers than any other public list because it is his individual ranking. This has lead to him being higher on some individual Phillies over the … Read more
Noted hater of your favorite prospect and team, Keith Law, has kicked off his minor league rankings with his farm system rankings. Not a lot to go on here other than optimism. The Phillies come in at #6 and are behind the Braves, Dodgers, Twins, Cubs, and Brewers. I would take the Phillies’ system over … Read more
Each year I look forward to the BA Handbook. From a Phillies’ perspective it is the largest national list of players, which gives me an opportunity to see what others are thinking about some of the lower level players in the organization. Outside of the Phillies, it is a great resource for fantasy baseball as … Read more
Prospect ranking never seems to truly end. Today we have the Phillies’ list from John Sickels of Minor League Ball, the whole list is free so you can go read it and get John’s thoughts here. The reason I wanted to quickly look at John’s list though is that he applies grades to players which … Read more