A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
The Phillies acquired Joely Rodriguez is the winter of 2014 for the last year of Antonio Bastardo. Rodriguez was coming off a pedestrian trip through the Eastern league, but a very good appearance in the Arizona Fall League. The thought at the time was that Rodriguez might be a back end starter because of his … Read more
Cesar Hernandez showed signs last year that he could at least be a quality MLB player. He did a solid job of getting on base out of the leadoff spot and working counts. This year, however, he has shown to be anything but a quality MLB player. He has a .248/.301/.301 slashline at the moment … Read more
Today Ben Lively was promoted to AAA to replace the injured Mark Appel. There is a lot of buzz around Ben Lively this year, a 1.87 ERA in AA will do that. Lively also has some name recognition. He was the sole return for Marlon Byrd and was a borderline Top 10 prospect coming into … Read more
While we knew Jose Pujols had plenty of power while he was in short-season ball, he struggled to show it in game. While he flashed it, the keyword there is flash. However, he is starting to show more power in his start at Class-A Lakewood. Considering he spent three seasons in short-season ball, it only made sense … Read more
Today Ben Badler of Baseball America posted a list of 10 players that could be in need of a quick promotion. There were 3 Phillies on the list, which got me thinking about other players I thought could use a challenge. The Phillies then immediately promoted one of those players in RHP Miguel Nunez. There … Read more
With the Phillies’ major league starting rotation having success it has taken some pressure off of the minor leagues to produce, but it has also has accelerated the perceived timeline of the Phillies. This has then focused the spotlight on the Phillies’ top prospects to perform. The top level of the system has been less … Read more
It is really easy to get caught up in shiny new prospects, and why not. There is nothing but pure excitement around the Phillies this spring. There are plenty of prospects in camp, especially on the pitching side. Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff will return to the big league rotation, Vincent Velasquez will try and claim … Read more
Outside those that follow the minor leagues closely, Ken Giles was a relative unknown before he showed up to camp in 2014. It was with good reason, because while Giles was a known quantity out of JuCo in the 2011 draft (he touched 100 with an average to above average slider), he missed most of … Read more
The Phillies have done an incredible job rebuilding their minor league system in the past 12 months. They have built up incredible depth and acquired some real cornerstone pieces to put around their existing pieces like J.P. Crawford, Aaron Nola, and Maikel Franco. The hitting side of the system has some real impact talent, but … Read more
Going into the draft this spring, there was a cry for the Phillies to draft a catcher because the team didn’t have an heir for Carlos Ruiz. Throwing aside that catchers develop too slow to help that quickly, there was public concern over the state of the Phillies’ catching depth. Right now after some crazy … Read more