Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 1 3/27-3/29)

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This Week’s Schedule

Hitter Spotlight

1B/OF Felix Reyes

5-14 2 2B 1 RBI 0 BB 2 K

It was really just the one game for Reyes, where he went 4-5 with two doubles on opening day while hitting the ball hard. He only end up driving in one run and scoring once himself. He swung a lot, made a lot of contact in the zone, but pitchers started to expand on him already. It is going to be a challenge for him, because if he ever makes the majors, those pitchers will exploit that aggression even more. With Otto Kemp’s left field struggles, it puts pressure on Reyes to be solid in his outfield appearances because he crushes lefties and could position himself for that platoon role.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP Griff McGarry

1 IP 0 H 0 R 0 BB 0 K

McGarry came out of the bullpen in his return from Nationals spring training. There has been no indication from the Phillies of how they will use him this year other than this appearance (which would hint towards the bullpen). He threw his fastball, slider, and sweeper in a decently even distribution. He is going to use the slider in the zone and then try to get chases on the fastball, and he got two whiffs on the day. It wasn’t an overly impressive appearance, but he was above 50% in the zone and only need 13 pitches to get three batters and three outs. It is a bit more of a welcome back and reintroduction than anything earth shattering.

Notes and Thoughts

  • The IronPigs are not a good team, nor did they play particularly inspiring baseball. But they went 3-0 in this opening series and it took heroics from Cade Fergus in the 10th inning to do it, after he bunted the tying run into scoring position in the 9th. It is just going to be a lot of those type of games for the Pigs all year.
  • The IronPigs now have 4 catchers with Garrett Stubbs back in the org, and all are more accomplished defenders than Paul McIntosh. He got a start at DH and LF over the weekend, and he has some time in LF prior to joining the Phillies org. He is more of an org guy, but the positional flexibility makes him interesting in that role.
  • If Reyes defined opening day, then Robert Moore defined Sunday before Fergus’s heroics. He had a hit in the 9th inning rally, but in the 5th had the only home run of a frigid weekend, a 104.3 mph, 416 foot shot off of a middle middle meatball from Ty Madden. Moore is down the depth chart for the IronPigs, but he is on the Pigs and that gives him a chance for spotlight performances.
  • Ryan Cusick had a breakout spring on the backfields, but had a disastrous cameo in big league camp. He is in the IronPigs rotation, but his stuff wasn’t as electric and began to bleed velocity. He threw is 4-seam fastball and slider 87% of the time on Sunday, and while they are trying him in a rotation, he looks like a reliever right now.
  • Seth Johnson was good in his one inning of work. He is throwing a distinct 4-seam and sinker with the former 97-98 and latter 96-97. He only used two offspeed pitch shapes, leaning on his slider and a single sweeper/curveball. He got 4 whiffs on his 15 pitches which is encouraging vs the low numbers he was getting in spring.
  • He isn’t a prospect or rookie eligible, but Bryan De La Cruz coming to the plate 14 times in 3 games, and putting the ball in play only 3 times is sort of incredible, especially when he walked in half of them to put up a bizzarro line of .000/.500/.000

Injuries and Transactions

Links and Things

Minor Thoughts

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