Phillies Minor League Monthly Retrospective – August 2024

Stock Changes

*Rankings are from midseason list / Statcast stats from Robert Orr’s website

Stock Up

RHP Eiberson Castellano (#24) – Last month was focused on Eiberson breaking into the prospect ranks, but he followed up his solid season with a dominant August where he posted a 1.64 ERA in AA with 5 walks and 32 strikeouts in 22 innings, highlighted by back to back double digit strikeout games. There is now a clearer picture of his arsenal, his two fastballs sit mid 90s, getting up to 97. Neither has great shape, but he does a good job of locating his 4 season up for chases. It isn’t a slider as I previously wrote, but a two plane curveball in the low 80s that he comes in steep on and can locate for strikes and for chases. His changeup has improved and looks like a solid pitch, even if it doesn’t always have the biggest vertical difference off of his fastball. He has simplified his delivery and attacks hitters, and while he ran into some trouble with that, it has allowed his pitches to play above their grades. He likely profiles as a back end starting pitcher with some middle relief fall back.

SS Aidan Miller (#2) – Miller’s first two months in Jersey Shore didn’t cause a mass exodus from his fans, but it certainly started to open some doubts. He rebounded in August though, hitting .299/.370/.536 for the month with 13 extra base hits in 25 games and played all 6 games of the last 3 series. Miller was promoted to Reading to with Bryan Rincon back with Jersey Shore and will end the regular season having only played shortstop. It remains to be seen if he will also go to the Arizona Fall League, but he will enter the offseason comfortably as the Phillies top hitting prospect.

RHP Moisés Chace (N/A) – When Chace joined the Phillies organization he was starting the game in about half of his appearances as part of Baltimore’s piggy back system. He has not pitched more than 4 innings or thrown more than 80 pitches in an outing. He showed good stuff including his flat riding fastball, sweeper, and changeup, but I worried about how much success he would have turning a lineup over multiple times and working deeper into games. He has proven to be adept at it, even while moving up to AA Reading. In his last start, he was able to introduce secondary pitches as he turned the lineup over and was able to attack the strike zone and not just fish for chases. There are still improvements to be made on the nuances of starting pitching, but the last month of Chace going from a 3-4 inning high output per IP to carrying that into 5+ inning appearances is a big step forward.

IF Carson DeMartini (#21) – Everything after the draft is small sample size, but one of the things that is always positive to see is a player perform different to expectations. DeMartini struck out at a 27.7% rate as a junior, but so far in pro-ball has a 13.6% rate in 20 games. He has not hit the ball quite as hard or pulled it as much as I would hope, but what he does have is a 93.3% zone contact rate and a 16.3% whiff rate vs secondary pitches. He swings at pitches in the zone, and while he does chase a bit, it isn’t egregious. He also has looked decent at defense and has logged time at both second and short in addition to third. A fun little cherry on top of it all is him exceeding his college stolen base total from this year already. It hasn’t been a star level breakout, but it is a real positive start.

Stock Down

OF John Spikerman (#27) – In addition to not being too high on a player after the draft, it is important to not get too low, especially when you already dislike a pick. Announced as an infielder, Spikerman has only played the outfield so far, and we will need to wait for this offseason to see if the Phillies actually intend to change his position. At the plate, he has struggled, being propped up with 4 hit by pitches and a decent walk rate. The power expectations were low, but he has a 90th percentile exit velocity of 95.3 mph. His zone contact rate of 80.5% is pretty bad as his swing and miss vs secondary pitches. It is currently not an offensive profile that will play anywhere, leading this to be a very important offseason early on for the Phillies 3rd round pick.

RHP Michael Mercado (#22) – Mercado’s season started off with such promise. He looked like a potential impact reliever this spring, and then had some real starting success through the early regular season. He struggled greatly in two of his major league starts before the Phillies sent him back down to AAA to work in the bullpen. Since then he has a pitched in 10 games, spanning 12.1 innings with a 2.92 ERA, but 8 walks to only 12 strikeouts in that stretch. His velocity has not greatly improved in the bullpen, and his 4 seam fastball has seen declining swing and miss rates. It feels like the starting experiment is likely over and he has not really shown the swing and miss stuff for the bullpen yet. It was just year one in the Phillies system and he has two more option years, but after a really promising start there are a lot of questions about Mercado’s future coming into the offseason.

OF Jordan Viars (#29) – Jordan Viars spent May and June laying waste to the Florida State League. He had a really poor July, especially after the promotion to Jersey Shore. An adjustment period was to be expected, but he then proceeded to go the entire month of August without an extra base hit. Viars needs to crush right handed pitchers because he has been shut down by lefties (.094/.293/.125 in 41 plate appearances), and the last two months have looked more like his last two years than his first two months. It is still an arrow up year for Viars, he just is going to continue to look like a project and not a big breakout batter.

Stable

1B Keaton Anthony (#46) – There hasn’t really been a stock up moment for Anthony, who has now had an average over .300 and OBP over .380 in all 5 months (and over .400 for 5). He has walked less in Jersey Shore after his promotion, which is unsurprising given the high level and lack of ABS. He has posted a high BABIP at both levels thanks to an abnormally high line drive rate. He doesn’t chase much and will use all fields. The problem has been the power output, and he found some home run power in August, but he doesn’t hit the ball hard enough to be there consistently. Anthony is going to need to maintain the positive line drive and chase rates at every level along the way to be a real prospect, and it might take getting to the majors and doing it there for it have any real belief behind it.

OF Hendry Mendez (#37) – It is really only stable for Mendez from a real bounce back July. Mendez has 18 extra base hits the last two months after just 6 in the first 3 months. He is still hitting the ball on the ground too much, but he is walking more and striking out less. Since he is a corner outfielder, he is going to need to actually get the ball in the air more, but it has been an encouraging two months for moving forward in that direction. Much like some of the other corner outfielders he does struggle vs left handed pitchers. He played in the Arizona Fall League last season, but he feels like a prime candidate to repeat that trip.

Monthly Stat Leaders

Hitting

Pitching

Mailbag

Ben Posted This to the “About” page so I am Including it here: Would love to know if you have any thoughts on Alexander De Los Santos (DSL)

Alexander De Los Santos is an 18 year old pitcher finishing up a great second season in the Phillies system with a 2.13 ERA in 38 innings as a starting pitcher. This year he is throwing harder (88-93 T94) with a changeup, slider, and curveball. He is still fairly skinny and projectable, and he will need to get bigger and stronger to handle a full starting pitcher workload. He has a good base and I would expect to see him stateside next year.

@JosephA89026676: I’ve always thought catchers take a little more time to develop with all the defensive responsibilities, with that in mind what do you think is a realistic time-line for Eduardo Tait?

There is so much to the catcher position, not just defensively but the overall workload. Tait only has 42 games behind the plate this year with another 34 at DH (a lot of this is also having multiple catchers needing work). He won’t be Rule 5 eligible until the 2027-2028 offseason, so that will factor in some. So maybe next year is Clearwater-Jersey Shore, followed by Jersey Shore-Reading, and then Reading to maybe a callup late because he would need the 40 man spot. So I think that is mid to late 2027 barring another big breakout and breakthrough defensively, and that would put him in the majors at 20/21 which still feels ultra aggressive.

@ochositko: What kind of innings limit should we expect for Painter next year?

My best guess is 80-110 innings. Seth Johnson had a sort of come back late and make some appearances last year (10.1 innings) and is at 88 innings right now. They let Tyler Phillips throw 122.2 innings last year in his return, but he was also 25 and less important to the org. Micah Ottenbreit came back from TJ last year and had a set back and only pitched 2.1 innings. He is at 94 innings right now.

@Matt_McCarron2: Does Justin Crawford still hit the ball on the ground too much? Do you think the plan is for Aiden Miller to eventually take over at SS/3B when Bohm hits FA? With 3 SP locked up, Phillips,Painter, Abel, Johnson etcetc for 2025, would you consider selling high on Ranger this yr

Justin Crawford hits the ball on the ground too much. As of right now there are 492 minor leaguers with at least 400 plate appearances, at 62.3% Justin Crawford has the highest ground ball rate among those 492. He is hitting the ball on the ground more with Reading (65.7%) than Jersey Shore (60.6%). As worrying as the ground ball rate is the walk rate (5.7%) which indicates either pitchers are just pounding the zone against him or his pitch selection has been bad.

I think Miller will come up where this is an injury at first. Third base feels like a logical place, but Bohm has been too good to just let walk given the current team. It feels like Turner eventually moves off of short, but I don’t know if Miller is good enough to force that and there are other shortstops in the Phillies system that would then move him off short. It is a problem that probably works itself out.

No. None of those guys (other than Painter, who will be limited) are better than Ranger and this team is not voluntarily taking a step back.

@colin_herb13: What have you liked out of the 2024 draft picks so far?

I mentioned DeMartini above. I liked what I saw in my brief look at Griffin Burkholder, as it seems like he can really drive the ball. I am intrigued by how Joel Dragoo has done. The pitching has been really inconsistent and small sample size, so I have mix opinions on a lot of the arms.

@dannmall: Does Seth Johnson, the pitcher we got back in the Gregory Soto trade, have potential as a major league starter? Or does he project to be more of a bullpen guy?

There is some starting pitcher potential, I think given his age and major league option situation (he only has one more year left barring a petition by the Phillies around 2020 plus his injury missed time). He seems to hold his velocity, but he struggles with command and efficiency. He is mixing in a changeup/splitter more and the development of that pitch will help determine his role. He probably isn’t an innings eater, even once they are no longer babying his arm post TJ. He really is in a bit of a race against time where is runway to work it out in the rotation is hampered by what the Phillies may need on the major league level.

@mweintr: Would it be fair to compare Abel’s season to a spring training appearance by a starter who gets lit up, mostly because he is working on a certain pitch? In other words, is this season a mulligan for Abel?

I think it is mostly a mulligan because it was many steps back, then a bunch of one forward, occasional one back, and just utter slog to get him back to about where he was at the end of last season. You have to knock him down, but over the last two months the velocity is back, the pitch shapes are back, and he is throwing the ball in the zone more.

@ChaseUtleyfan66: Moises Chace, Mick Abel, or Seth Johnson?

Today I have that Abel, Chace, Johnson, but they are all in the same ranking tier. I don’t know if Johnson’s stuff is actually better than Abel and he is 2 years older. Chace is 2 years younger than Abel, but we have really no sample size of him holding up to a starter’s workload and pacing. That isn’t to say he can’t, but we are still in some uncharted territory there. I would not be shocked if Chace ended up the best of that group and I may change these thoughts before offseason list time.

@xwTweetAboveAvg: It looks like Rincones has been shielded from lefties this season (185 PA vs RHP, 31 PA vs LHP). Is that really the approach to take with a prospect? He’ll never improve if they limit his PAs, and now is the time to let him learn.

I don’t think he will hit left handed pitching in general, but I also have been wondering how much is actually shielding him vs the amount of LHPs in the minors. Rincones has faced a LHP in 12.7% of his PAs, so I went to Otto Kemp a RH batter who has been his teammate in Reading and he has faced a LHP in 16.3% of his PAs. Justin Crawford, another LH hitter has faced a LHP even less than Rincones, just 11.8% of the time. That tells me that he isn’t entirely being shielded, and more he might be getting his off day vs lefties some of the time, but that really isn’t driving a lack of PAs vs lefties and more it is the overall pitching trends.