Phillies Agree to Terms with OF Ben Pelletier

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The Phillies continue to work through their late round picks, having signed Nick Fanti this week.  The newest addition is 34th round pick Canadian outfielder Ben Pelletier.

Outside of just being another player into the system, Pelletier will be one of the youngest players in pro-ball (at least until the July 2 group of this year gets into games next year) as he was born on August 22, 1998.  He is the youngest player ever drafted.  The reports are spotty, but there some report pointing to some good power potential (and at 6’2″ 190 there is run to fill in).  We don’t really know what we have here, but the more lottery tickets you buy, the better your chance of winning.

This brings the Phillies to 30 draft signings.  Jake Reppert has already retired giving 29 new players in the system.  Joseph Lauria, Von Watson, Beau Brundage, Griffin Morandini, and Tom McCarthy Jr have already indicated in some way they won’t be signing.  This leaves the available signing targets as OF Kyle Nowlin, OF Reggie Wilson, RHP Jacob Stevens, RHP Gabe Gonzalez, and RHP Malcolm Grady.

EDIT: It appears per a Canadian news article that Pelletier will actually be signing a 2016 contract with the Phillies.  This means he will not participate in any games during the 2015 season.  It appears he will be spending some time in the Phillies Clearwater complex in August before returning to Quebec for the winter.  He will return to the Phillies in Florida in 2016.

6 thoughts on “Phillies Agree to Terms with OF Ben Pelletier”

  1. Joseph Lauria, Von Watson, Beau Brundage, Griffin Morandini, and Tom McCarthy Jr. I think you are missing a sentence there. Presumably these are the announced going to college plus nepotism fake picks.

    Any news on Jake Reppert. He has a significant online presence and yet it is hard to find so much as an official statement that he even has retired[his twitter profile doesn’t even imply that he retired]. How common is this every year that players decide the minor league life just isn’t for them, or must there be more to the story? I wish him the best if he really just decided it wasn’t for him.

    • Yep missed words. As for those 5 all different reasons. Lauria is going to be a grad assistant. Watson is going to school. As for the nepotism picks, it was passed on to me that often this helps get a kid noticed and gets them a college scholarship to play baseball somewhere.

      I don’t want to speak for Jake, but I will say that he indicated that he wasn’t always set on going pro. So from that mindset imagine graduating college with a pile of student debt and taking a job that essentially pays you nothing, without tangible hope of a raise, where you will be working well over 40 hours a week, constantly traveling and being away from home. It is a miracle any of these guys stick around for long.

      • Just to be clear, I had no problem with the nepotism picks even if it just makes people in the organization happy. What’s wrong with keeping employees happy? It’s at least as good as drafting someone you have no plans on signing or a top 25 high school kid with a strong college commitment that they have no prayer of signing.

  2. Out of the 5 unsigned players that you identified , what is your over/under on the number that they sign

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