A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
As it was for everyone in everything, it was another strange year in minor league baseball. The missed 2020 season, COVID outbreaks, smaller org roster, and rules changes made for a year with a lot of variables. The nice thing is this year people did play baseball, and in the Florida complex we were able … Read more
Top 50 Prospects 1. Mick Abel, RHP Age: 20 Acquired: Drafted in the 1st Round of the 2020 Draft by the Phillies B/T: R/R H/W: 6’5” 190lbs 2021 Stats: Team (LVL) G GS W-L IP ERA H/9 HR/9 BB% K% CLW (A-) 14 14 1-3 44.2 4.43 5.4 1.0 14.3% 34.9% Role: #2 Starting Pitcher … Read more
We are deep into prospect ranking season, and one thing it does every year is thrust me into the middle of the minutia. Last week that got me ranting a bit on Twitter about Matt Vierling and the gap between public prospect rankings and Phillies fan perception. One of the big sticking points is that … Read more
The Phillies entered the offseason with some very obvious holes (CF, LF, SS, RP), but also a real lack of depth. Not every move they made this offseason needed to fix the big issues, some of the little issues needed to be addressed and some of the basic housekeeping had to be handled. Yesterday the … Read more
A week from today the Phillies will need to protect players eligible for the Rule 5 draft by adding them to the 40 man roster. Historically the Phillies have leaned towards over protection, but that has often left the 40 man roster full and inflexible for in season moves. This offseaon the high school and … Read more
For those that have followed the minors over the last half decade or so would recognize Mike Drago’s Phillies writers composite rankings. A group of writers about the Phillies and about prospects in general send in their top 20 Phillies prospects and those are all compiled into a composite ranking. This year, Mitch Rupert took … Read more
For the last few years I have maintained a private monthly prospect ranking because it gives a good continuation and snap in time. It helps prevent snap judgements and makes the ebbs and flows of the season come into focus. For the most part there isn’t a point in publishing them because they are an … Read more
On June 19, the Phillies called up outfield prospect Matt Vierling, adding him to the 40 man roster to replace Matt Joyce. Joe Girardi was quoted by the Inquirer on the call up. “They come up with confidence, and they come up with not sitting a lot,” Girardi said. “I think there’s an advantage to … Read more
Prospect rankings are kind of useless without context. What is the actual difference between Matt Vierling (19) and Bailey Falter (10) and is it as big a gap as there is from Mick Abel (1) to Falter? (The answer is the gap between Falter and Vierling is incredibly tiny while there is a giant gap … Read more
When writing the preseason list there was a bunch of information missing on a lot of players in the system. We now have a bunch of new information, and after a really rough May for a lot people who didn’t play baseball for a year, things are mostly returning to normal. We also have a … Read more