A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
I was browsing through the minor league pitching leaderboards on Fangraphs this morning and I noticed that a name kept appearing at the top of almost all of the leaderboards among qualified pitchers (pitchers who would qualify for the ERA title in leagues where they have pitched). This pitcher was in the Phillies’ system and … Read more
The Phillies have a grand tradition of trying to make the slowest plodding players on the field play in the outfield. It started with an attempt to put Ryan Howard in left field to not have him be blocked by Jim Thome, and has continued to this day. Now some of this has been in … Read more
Trade Deadline Day can be such a stressful time for a number of executives as they try to make the right move for the team’s future or it’s present. On a day we have seen the Dodgers and Yankees beef up their rotations with Yu Darvish and Sonny Gray respectively, and a whole other bevy … Read more
Last night I made my third trip to Lehigh Valley this year to watch the Phillies top bats take on the Rays’ top prospect Brent Honeywell of Durham, who is considered one of the best pitching prospects in the baseball right now. Honeywell had his way last night after scuffling through the 1st five batters … Read more
Last night the Phillies shipped out their best trade piece in Pat Neshek for a trio of prospects. None of the prospects are going to make anyone’s jaw drop (unless it is the name and appearance of J.D. Hammer). When I publish my midseason ranking on Tuesday, none of these prospects will have a number … Read more
The big headline last night was that Scott Kingery was being promoted from Reading to Lehigh Valley. It was just one transaction in a long list of transactions that included the Phillies cutting ties with two veterans. So once the dust all settled, the Phillies made the following moves. To Phillies: Mark Leiter Jr. Cameron … Read more
Let’s get the tough part out of the way. This is a sad day. Ruiz was the underrated member of the championship Phillies, the heart and soul of the team and was the maestro of one of the greatest pitching staffs ever assembled. He won’t be a Hall of Famer, but he should be a … Read more
I feel like I haven’t just written in a while so pardon me while I talk about the potentially inane, reliever promotions. We can start with the non pitcher move as Carlos Alonso adds another trip in his back and forth between Reading and Lehigh Valley. The infielder is a good org player who has … Read more
Last year the Phillies sent J.P. Crawford and Aaron Nola to the Futures Game (Nola would not go because of his pitching schedule) and the year before the Phillies sent Crawford and Maikel Franco. This year the attendees are much less illustrious as the Phillies will be represented by Reading teammates Dylan Cozens and Ricardo … Read more
If you made me bet before the year on which of the Phillies major prospects would get to the majors first, I would not have bet on it being Zach Eflin. But with the injuries to Charlie Morton and Vincent Velasquez the Phillies needed a pitcher first. This year Eflin surpassed Jake Thompson in terms … Read more