One of the top trends in post draft thoughts in any sport is to say the teams with lots of picks or high picks had good drafts, and those teams with lower picks and fewer picks had poor drafts. The Phillies fall firmly into that second group. Thanks to a missing second round pick (Nick Castellanos) and a slightly later pick, the Phillies entered the 2022 draft with about $2.3M less in their bonus pool than last year. Based on slotting, that is about a second round pick and a third round pick less in talent, which if it felt like that, it was because it was. The fact alone makes the Phillies draft feel underwhelming, with a large hole between Justin Crawford and Gabriel Rincones that just feels empty. The lack of flexibility to move slots around meant that the draft also felt flat, and entered Day 3 with a wanting for something more, something exciting. It is a draft class that highlights the best and worse of the Phillies developmental trends.
Justin Crawford
For much of the time leading up the draft, I thought the Phillies would take a pitcher. It was a combination of the lack of college pitching and the overall league’s discomfort with high school pitching pushing the hitters up and the pitchers down. In the end, teams took college pitchers and some hitters fell, and Crawford is one of them. There is certainly some bad memories around high school outfielders if you are a Phillies fan, especially ones that are long development guys like Crawford. Ultimately, he feels like the right pick at the spot given their resources. It would have been great to pay Cam Collier, but they almost certainly could not. They could have gone with Brock Porter or Brandon Barriera, but Crawford was a top prospect in this draft for a reason, and has the chance to be an exciting, impactful player. The hitting dev concerns will rear their head again later, but you can’t run away from talented players in the draft because you are scared you are going to ruin them.
Phillies Doing What They Do Well
If you wanted to create pitching bait for the Phillies you would design a tall pitcher (probably at least 6’3″), with a high spin fastball and offspeed pitch. Because they aren’t fishing the best waters, they probably have poor control. I have described Alex McFarlane (4), Orion Kerkering (5), Alex Rao (8), Josh Bortka (16), Daniel Harper (17), and Drew Garrett (19). Mavis Graves (6) I don’t have enough information on to know if they are exactly in the mold, but they are a tall, projectable high school arm for them to work with, and they have no problems with the tall ones. Nate Karaffa (20) is a bit of a wild card, but I have to assume we are about to hear about a high spin fastball or breaking ball in there somewhere. Now just because you are predictable, does not mean you are bad. This is a type of arm the Phillies have identified well and had success with. This includes premium picks like Mick Abel and Andrew Painter, and undrafted players. It hasn’t always worked out, and injuries to some of these arms have hurt them. That said, when you hit on one you turn a 5th round pick in Griff McGarry into untouchable, possible 2022 contributor Griff McGarry.
Alex McFarlane is not Griff McGarry, especially not when it comes to which direction the arrow was pointing at the time of the draft. He is however, similar enough to get interested about how they may help him. Despite his success in the bullpen, I suspect they want to see if they can make him a starter. The rest of the college arms look like relievers, even if they may put Kerkering in a rotation to start. However, relievers are good to have, and we are well past the days when relievers are just failed starters. I don’t know if there is a closer in the bunch, but there are interesting pitches in the group. The universal part of all of this is control. They have not been perfect in that department, but they have gotten improvements from many of the arms. The major critiques of their pitching group is that it lacks in numbers, a signature guy, and upside arms, particularly high school. That is certainly true, but the farm system is dealing with the fallout of only drafting arms, which brings us to the other side of things.
Phillies Doing What They Don’t Do Well
We don’t know enough at the time of a draft to really make definitive statements. The people in the room have more data, more personal connection, and more plan for what they will do next. Every pick that feels like a “reach” or just off should be treated as the org telling you “trust me, I know what I am doing”. If you are the Rays or the Dodgers or the Yankees or another team with a history of turning unknown players into contributors, you nod your head and trust them. The Phillies have not built that trust when it comes to hitters. Their selections have been poor with notable misses like Casey Martin and Ethan Wilson. You can see the hit tool holes on players with power and speed. You can also see a farm system that is very much lacking in hitting talent thanks to either poor acquisition or just lack of acquisition (the last 3 drafts have slanted heavily towards pitching), as well as a poor track record of development. There are a lot of factors at play, and with the human element of the players themselves, it is dangerous to dive too much into the blame game. That all said, the Phillies are asking for trust, and there is no reason to give it to them.
That said, the system is crying out for hitting and dynamic hitting at that. We already touched on Crawford, he is a dynamic athlete with high upside. Emaarion Boyd (11) is not the all around projectable stud that Crawford is, especially when you look at potential power output, but he is a dynamic athlete that has the potential to be a speed and defense force. Shortstop Bryan Rincon (14) has a good glove and a fascinating past and path, and will be one to watch closely. The college hitters have some trends, but are not all the same. Gabriel Rincones (3) and Caleb Ricketts (7) have some level of analytical appeal, though I really worry about another corner outfield bat and how much pressure that puts on him to mash.
Much of the rest of the Phillies hitting group is asking for a lot of faith. There is power in the group, there is speed, and even guys who might stick up the middle at catcher or center. There are a lot of college performers with high strikeout rates for the conferences they played in. The Phillies are going to need huge growth themselves in possibly helping some of these guys close those gaps or chases. For the most part we are talking about late Day 2, and into Day 3 and undrafted guys. It is a large influx of hitters into the system too. Even if they don’t become noted prospects, this influx could possibly help them close some of their minor league depth holes. Even with Crawford, there is no one in this group that gives you warm, fuzzy optimism right now.
So What Are The Phillies Doing, and Is It Good?
I don’t know, and I don’t know. They need to step up their game on the hitting side. Due to their lack of resources, the draft hinges heavily on Justin Crawford, and they really cannot afford for that to be a wasted pick. As for the rest of the bats, they are going to need to show signs of life. I think it is easy to say they should have kept doubling down on what they do best (hell I said it coming into the draft), but at some point you have to actually field minor league teams that score runs, let alone start to produce hitters for trade or the big league club. I don’t think it was a particularly inspired draft, but it also did not have a ton of space or resources to be that. They took some measured swings, and their large hacks were in lower leverage counts, making it hard to see the upside to the class. Is it a bad draft, even if we could say anything with confidence, no it is not (especially since they expect to sign all of their picks). Is it a draft that is going to make you giddy, no it is not. That can be ok, none of these players have put on the uniform yet, but it is ok to want to be excited.