Phillies Minor League Monthly Retrospective – July 2026

Deadline Recap and Other Notes

I wrote about the major trades of the deadline on Monday when they happened, but now we have two smaller trades and some settled dust to get through. First was the RHP Nolan Hoffman for RHP Manuel Colon. Colon is a small 19 year old right handed reliever with a mid to high 90s fastball. He mostly throws fastballs with both a 4-seamer and a sinker. His slider has some verticality and sweep, and he mixes in a changeup as well. He looks like a low minors reliever with a chance at more. Hoffman was pushed out by better AAA depth and hadn’t shown much in the majors.

Speaking of pushed out, with Caleb Kilian joining the major league bullpen, Seth Johnson was destined for AAA regardless. He is on his last option year and the Phillies should have Duran, Bowlan, Kerkering, and Kilian under control next year so there were no spots going forward. Johnson has more upside than he showed, but the Phillies swapped him for another scuffling prospect in OF Colby Thomas. Thomas is just 25 and has two more option years remaining, meaning he has plenty of time to be depth while the Phillies see if he is something. He has struggled to hit high level breaking balls, and that might always be true, but it is a good bet on upside with more runway and position of need than Johnson.

Ignoring the major league positional mess, the Phillies did not trade much from their upcoming Rule 5 eligibles (just Marty Gair) so there is still an unresolved log jam with Bryan Rincon, Aroon Escobar, Aiden Miller, and Juan Villavicencio. Villavicencio likely doesn’t need protecting, but it is going to be another offseason of seeing if the Phillies will move one of those infielders. The bullpen additions also close off short term runway for Alex McFarlane and Gage Wood, so we can table those conversations until we get closer to September. While it was unlikely the Phillies would trade any of the top DSL prospects, it was good to see them not expand any deal to include any of the lower regarded guys, because as you can see in the leaderboards there is some nice things going on.

Monthly Stat Leaders

Hitting

Pitching

Mailbag

@themajestikmoose.bsky.social: Do you have a favorite national baseball podcast? Mainly for learning or more analytics-driven. I’ve never found one I like.

I am including this as more of an open question for others to weigh in because I don’t really listen to national baseball podcasts and really not a ton of baseball overall. So if others have suggestions reply in the comments or directly on Bluesky. I tend to listen to more of national and local podcasts on basketball and hockey to keep up to date where I am not paying attention to.

@chrislemmo15.bsky.social: Which intl signing pitchers do you think have a chance to have a Ramon Marquez type of trajectory over the next 2 years or so?

At this time last year, Marquez has just arrived from the FCL to Clearwater and was midway through his first breakout. Brad Pacheco is probably beyond that point. He has remade his arsenal this year to become more of a pitch diversification guy. He has been more 93-96 as a starter, especially of late. If he can get to the high end of his range which is more 96-98 then he could breakout again. More likely this is more of what he is.

If you look a bit further out the two most interesting pitchers on the DSL team are RHPs Cristian Rego and Yilmar Samudio. Both of them get close to 7 feet of extension giving them some potentially interesting fastball shapes. Rego has the more mature arsenal with a two plane curveball and feel for a changeup, with his fastball sitting 90-93. He doesn’t have much physical projection or other outlier traits making him more of a back end starter projection. Samudio is lankier and more projectable and sits 92-96 but can get it up to 98. If he can fill out and add velocity it could be a special fastball. His command is still spotty and he has no feel for secondary pitches right now, but at 17 years old there is time.

Then there are the two RH Asian pitches they signed in Chan-Min Park and Hua Ho. Ho is a more conventional starter with a low 90s fastball with a collection of secondary pitches. Park was signed for as much as a 2nd or 3rd round draft pick so there will be expectations that he can be a good pitching prospect. Park is more projectable with more feel for spin. It is a bit cheating to see a player of his profile could pop.

@ajayverghese.bsky.social: How is Dombrowski the same guy who got Alvarado, Marsh, Sosa, Banks, Luzardo, and Duran in trades but who also got Castellanos, Walker, Ross, Romano, García, and tried to get Bichette in free agency?

Free agency just generally has worse and higher risk players. You can just compare the ages of all of those traded players to the free agent ones. We can also look at the trades that didn’t work as well from a value perspective like Lorenzen, Robertson, Kennedy/Gibson, and Estevez and see some of those same flaws. He also has made good secondary and low level signings whether it is Matt Strahm, Jeff Hoffman, or Tim Mayza, or in who he has brought back or extended like Wheeler, Sanchez, Luzardo, and Schwarber. He makes a lot of moves and you can see the mistakes get made when the cost is just money on a pool of riskier age bets.

@papergreat.bsky.social: What position players in the system have a shot at making the team out of spring training in 2027? I’ll take even “small shot.”

It isn’t a great list, especially if we stick to players with rookie eligibility for 2026. It probably starts with if Aidan Miller somehow gets healthy this year and is exactly like he was to end 2025, he could be a starting infielder. That would be amazing if it happened, but it probably isn’t going to happen. Then you have SS Bryan Rincon and 2B/3B Aroon Escobar, both should be on the 40 man roster, both should not be in the majors. However, there are likely to be some infield shakeups and Edmundo Sosa is a free agent. Is there a close to zero, but non-zero chance a chain of injuries means one of them is on the roster, yes. Dante Nori won’t have the 40 man thing going for him, but there are only so many guys who can play center field so 5th guy in line for the job could get him there. Real long shots probably include Carson DeMartini because he is a left handed hitting infielder who should be bound for AAA, and Raylin Heredia who is a RH hitting OFer who could be the new Felix Reyes. I am probably obligated to mention Keaton Anthony here, but he also is not great and should be behind Reyes and Kemp on the “we just need a 1B because of injuries”.

@bearc.bsky.social: The Phillies seem to have an abundance of shortstop prospects in your top 10 rankings. Do any of those players have a chance of sticking there should they make the big leagues?

We can extend a little down the overall list as well, and let’s throw out injuries for a second.

• Aidan Miller – Can play shortstop, but not a plus defender there or a lock to stick there as he gets older. Likely would shift to second or third.
• Tyler Spangler – Not guaranteed to move off of shortstop, but a lot of teenagers of his size that don’t start has great defenders end up over at third base.
• Juan Parra – Solid, but not high level shortstop. Chance to stick, but might have to move over to second.
• Bryan Rincon – Is a shortstop, other positions would be in preparation for a utility role, not because he can’t play short.
• Juan Villavicencio – Mixed opinions on if he can stick at short, strong enough arm to move over to third base and probably enough range and hands for second.
• Romeli Espinosa – Despite his size he has the raw tools to stick at shortstop, but he still is not always the smoothest and given his size and frame he could outgrow the position if he even fills out.
• Matthew Ferrara – Has been error prolific at short this year, has chance to stick, but might be a second baseman.

Only Rincon is a lock to stay there, but others have real chances and the unknown in many cases is that they are teenagers and the balance between power, speed, and athleticism is hard to judge. It was once thought that was a lock that Miller was moving off of short, and that never really came to pass.

@brett5355.bsky.social: Now that he has not been traded, what are the chances of Aroon Escobar moving up in the org from Reading to Lehigh Valley this season or next?

Presumably Escobar will be added to the 40 man roster over the offseason and the Phillies will want to push him to AAA. He would still need to have a good spring and end of this season. As for this year, the LHV season is one week longer than Reading’s but Reading is currently in postseason spot by leading their division in the second half. Escobar is not going to help the Phillies in 2026 and so letting him, Rincon, DeMartini, and others make a run at making the playoffs and championship is more important than getting them some AAA at bats.

@mattrouscher.bsky.social: What are you looking for as possible indications of changes being made for the hitters drafted?

I don’t think they will solve all of these things, but really if we just focus in on Spangler, Bogenpohl, and Gasparino I am looking for getting the ball in the air more, good zone swing rates, and lower chase rates. There are going to be contact issues for the two big college guys, but can they get them to swing at the right pitches and do damage on them. Then from there, are they able to keep the contact issues in check enough that they won’t bust when faced with higher level pitching. I am also not saying that all three of these guys should just be trying to pull every pitch in the air, Bogenpohl and Gasparino have enough power, that doesn’t need to be the focus, but can they identify the pitches well enough to then put good swings on the ones in the zone, and then can they be on time enough that they aren’t just pounding the ball into the ground. Spangler, your ideal outcome is close to the second half 2025 Aidan Miller, swinging in the zone, not chasing, tape measure shots when it is there, but hard contact into the gaps consistently and not just on the ground. In many ways you are trying to avoid creating Alec Bohms or Gabriel Rincones where there is big power, but just all the contact quality is poor so it doesn’t matter. At the same time, you would like to not see the underlying metrics of someone like Griffin Burkholder where pitches with spin and high velocity are giving him trouble.