A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
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
I have had it mentioned to me a couple of times in the past few weeks that Ricardo Pinto is the Phillies top prospect that people seem to know the least about. On the surface he has been really easy to overlook. At 6’0″ he is not physical or projectable. He came out of nowhere last … Read more
No one hears me say random things unfiltered about prospects more than my girlfriend. She has become good at picking out players I am not excited about and resent ranking or just overall don’t feel confident in my evaluations. No player has drawn this distinction more in recent seasons than Threshers right fielder Dylan Cozens. Let’s … Read more
This all starts with a question. If everyone is aware of a problem, knows the solution to the problem, and has a plan to fix it, is it really a problem? The answer is probably still yes, but the problem is a lot smaller than it really appears. If your pipes are leaking and you called … Read more
Last night, Joely Rodriguez but up yet another solid line for a Reading pitching staff that seems near unbeatable as he went 7 innings, while allowing 4 hits (1 a solo HR), the 1 run, 1 walk, and 5 strikeouts. It was the 5th straight solid start for the 23 year old left hander after … Read more
Much like the draft, the first evaluation point for a trade, is a shortly after everyone has played games and it is just double check that you got what was advertised. With the Hamels trade dominating the news around the deadline, the other trade returns got overshadowed. The goal is loop back around to the … Read more
I am going to start by saying that this subject deserves more space than I about to give it, because it is meaningful, but this better than saying anything at all. Andrew Knapp is the middle of just destroying the Eastern League (he probably got another hit somewhere while you read this sentence). After … Read more