Phillies Minor League Monthly Retrospective – April 2024

Stock Changes

*All rankings from preseason list

Stock Up

RHP George Klassen (#22) – Klassen is the big breakout of the Phillies season so far. He is holding plus plus velocity (averaging around 97 and touching up to 99), but his control and breaking balls have been the revelation. He still needs to work on command and consistency, but he is getting pitches in the zone enough that their quality can do the work. His hard slider/cutter is a real weapon and will probably be the carrying pitch long term. He shows a mature feel for pitching for a guy who was throwing the ball to the back stop in college. There are still a lot of whispers he will be a reliever long term, but for now he looks like a starter and those conversations can be on hold until he either fails in a rotation or they need his arm in the major leagues.

LHP Samuel Aldegheri (#13) – I am not sure my numeric rankings would show a big jump for Aldegheri, but he has jumped up at least within his tier. I have not been able to track down if the velocity he showed in a short burst this spring (up to 95 and sitting 2 mph higher than 2023) has held as a starter, but his results have been spectacular. Including his first start in May he has taken the mound 4 times for the BlueClaws with a 0.41 ERA in 22 IP allowing 7 hits, 6 walks, and striking out 28.

OF Gabriel Rincones Jr. (#12) – Rincones is now out with an injury, but he lit things on fire in his 13 games this year hitting .300/.417/.600 with 4 home runs and reasonable strikeout rates. He barely faced LHPs and there is a chance he is a strong side platoon bat in the majors. However, he is getting to his power consistently vs RHPs and putting the ball in play. I don’t think my overall ceiling outlook has changed on him, but he looked more ready than I expected.

Stock Down

RHP Mick Abel (#2) – I don’t know if Abel has actually fallen in my numeric rankings, but he is definitely more in the Aidan Miller, Justin Crawford, and Starlyn Caba group than a tier above. His velocity was solid in the spring, but has been down since joining Lehigh Valley, sitting often more 92-94. His four seam fastball has better shape, but he misses up and out of the zone with many of them. His slider looks like a real weapon and the changeup looks better, but it has been sort of a mess. He has not pitched in the best of conditions, but that excuse only extends so long.

OF Carlos De La Cruz (#11) – A year after asking him to play first base, the Phillies have De La Cruz playing a bunch of center field for a Reading team that has bee ravaged by injuries. The problem has been at the plate where injuries made him miss a week, so it has been only 14 games for De La Cruz, but he is hitting .163/.276/.184 with just one extra base hit. He is walking more (and striking out a touch more), but he needs to hit consistently for power to have a future and this is his 3rd year spending time with Reading.

RHP Andrew Baker (#30) – Baker had a resurgence in the Arizona Fall League, but seemed to show up to spring out of favor. His velocity has not looked as dynamic in games that have been tracked and he has a 9.72 ERA in the early going for Reading due to being very hittable.

Mixed or Stable

SS Aidan Miller (#3) – We should start with the good, which is that Miller looks like a shortstop. Not one that is going to win a Gold Glove, but we can shelve the third base talks until there is a situation where he is up against a higher caliber defender for a spot. Miller hasn’t been bad, he is hitting .305/.364/.475 with a 9.1% BB% and 18.2% K% in the 14 games at the time of this writing. He is getting to the high end exit velocities and you can see the full potential, but there is still more poor contact in his other at bats than you would want. All that sort of puts him in a category where you can see the pieces for the breakout, but he just hasn’t put them all together yet in a way where you can say he is one of the better hitting prospects in the game.

OF Justin Crawford (#5) – It has been a very mixed bag for Crawford who looks to be trending in the right direction, but still has a long way to go. His swing is not great yet, but it actually looks like his hands have connection to his upper half which has some connection to his lower half. Right now he is hitting a lot of things the opposite way and the quality of contact still isn’t great. He has hit two home runs that show there is strength in there. Crawford is also striking out a bit more, but his walk rate is also way up, and it would be interesting if we had the full data set to know more about any swing decision changes he has made. More than anything this is one of those “growth isn’t linear” things where he might break a bit in order to get to where he needs to be.

Stat Leaders

Hitting

Pitching

Mailbag

Has justin Crawford changed his swing path to get more balls elevated this season?

— luxurious apartment tenant. (@lentil_soups) April 30, 2024

Touched on this above, but the answer is yes, but not by changing the swing path. Sort of the same as Aidan Miller didn’t remove the hitch in his swing, he detailed to Alex Coffey how he made other changes that then removed the hitch by changing the motion. Crawford’s swing path was down or flat because it was an engaged motion and he was often late to the ball and trying to get on path. He still is hitting the ball on the ground a lot and there is room for improvement, but I think we can safely say he is making swing changes.

Matt, who are the most likely early promotions in the organization?

— Blaine DeSantis (@Blaine_DeSantis) April 30, 2024

Let’s ignore the majors because there aren’t really promotions coming early to the majors. The obvious early promotion candidate is George Klassen, he is very quickly reached the limits of challenge that low-A hitters can give him. It may not be until AA that hitters can deal with his raw stuff enough to bring out some of the other flaws and things to work on. Samuel Aldegheri feels like the bump to AA guy. He is acing Jersey Shore and pitched some there last year as well. He is also Rule 5 eligible after this year and right now definitely would need protecting so it is important to accelerate his development some. Jean Cabrera is probably a little bit behind him. I don’t think any of the high schoolers in low-A are pushing for promotion, though I think at least Miller will end the year a BlueClaw. Max Lazar is a guy to watch for Reading, he is a minor league free agent who has been great in AA and was good in major league spring training. I wonder if they get him to AAA fairly soon and into the potential call up hierarchy as a multi inning guy.

How high are you on Tait? Is this someone we should keep an eye on for the foreseeable future?

— Mason Figdore (@figdore_mason) April 30, 2024

Tait was my #7 prospect entering the season and nothing has change about that. He had a bad Spring Breakout game as one of the youngest to participate in the full event. He has been playing in the complex and will be on the FCL team. From what I have seen of a Spring Training he looks the same as last year which is to say he very easily gets to 100+mph exit velocities in the air. I think it is fair to worry about the body and the defense, and he can expand the zone some. He is fairly physical for a 17 year old, so there isn’t really further bulking he will do, but I expect him to be at minimum a top 10 prospect in the Phillies system for the next 3-5 years and possibly one of the top prospects in the org. He is someone you should absolutely be tracking.

what do you make of the starts by Crawford, Rincones and Lee Sang?

— English Breakfast with Schwarbs (@Jay_Poozle) May 2, 2024

Rincones and Crawford are mentioned above, but not Lee Sang. Marcus Lee Sang is now hitting .189/.296/.432 on the season, but that includes 6 XBHs (3 home runs) in his last 7 games. He is weirdly hitting lefties, better than righties in very small sample sizes, but ultimately the hit tool still does not look to be where it needs to be (27 strikeouts in 88 plate appearances) and until that makes a noticeable improvement I continue to have him in the negative pile.

Having seen a month of baseball, how do you grade the Phillies system at drafting & developing talent? Has it gotten better since the last few years since the massive changes they’ve made?

— Bryce Kendall (@BryceKendall9) April 30, 2024

I think they are still in the middle. They are getting good at identifying non-premium round and sometimes undrafted pitchers, and getting them over the first steps with large improvements. The upper levels have seen a lot of those guys stagnate. I think Aidan Miller has positive hitting adjustments, but Crawford is still a work in progress and the other 2023 high school players are too early to judge. I think they have gotten better, I wouldn’t say they are a top performing organization, but they are on the right path. I do still have worries about their hitting development and the upper minors have been rough.