Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 12 6/11-6/16)

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This Week’s Schedule

Hitter Spotlight

OF Dante Nori

6-21 4 2B 7 RBI 4 BB 4 K 2 SB .286/.385/.476

The Phillies 2024 first round pick is now hitting .240/.328/.332 on the season. In June he is hitting .277/.386/.404 with more walks than strikeouts. Nori has a 26.6% line drive rate and a very reasonable 46.2% ground ball, and yet he is not getting hits and he is not hitting for any power. On the season he has a 90th percentile exit velocity of 100.3 mph which is 23rd percentile for low-A. That really is the crux of it because Nori has solid chase, whiff rates, and zone contact rates. He isn’t a passive hitter, but he is clearly not looking to (or have the swing to) drive the ball because we aren’t even getting hints of underlying raw power. Four doubles this week has Nori at his highest ISO for a month so far, but there has not been an uptick in average exit velocity, launch angle, or hard hit rate to support a real change in outcomes. More than likely it is going to take some real retooling by Nori and the Phillies over an offseason to try and draw more impact out.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP Andrew Painter

2 GS 10 IP 9 H 6 ER 2 BB 10 K

The two most important stats of the week are the 2 games started and 96.7mph. The first represents the first time Painter has pitched on normal rest, and the second is his fastball velocity in that second start (which is dragged by what looks to be a mislabeled cutter). Painter going 5 scoreless in his second start against a team in a week was icing on the cake. It has not been the best time at AAA for Painter, as he has a 4.35 ERA across his 5 games and 31 innings. He has allowed home runs at a high rate and overall been fairly hittable. He still has command improvements he needs to make, as he is leaving his cutter in the middle of the zone where it is getting hit. His changeup needs work as so much of his arsenal moves glove side, and lefties are hitting .329/.393/.579 against him on the season. Now that Painter has done his normal rest start, it will be good to see him cross 90 and near 100 pitches in a start, and to pitch into the 6th and possibly 7th innings. Some of that may inevitably occur in the majors if they continue to monitor his innings closely. Given his struggles it is hard to see Painter being immediately Paul Skenes good upon his arrival, but every bit of polish now will pay off when he does arrive.

Strikeout #4 on a fastball up at 98 mph and #5 on another visit from Uncle Charlie … Four shutout innings so far for Andrew Painter … 59 pitches, 39 strikes so far with 8 swings and miss

— Mitch_Rupert (@mitchrupert.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T20:14:33.270Z

Notes and Thoughts

  • The Phillies brought RHP Ramon Marquez straight from DSL Spring Training to the FCL and he has clearly established himself in the rotation. This week he went 4 innings allowing just1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 6. He has 1 walk and 16 strikeouts over his last three starts. On Monday he was 92-94 with a very good looking changeup and a useable slider. He is a bit old for a new signing (19), but he is not particularly old for the league he now is in.
  • Eduardo Tait only went 3 for 22 this week with no extra base hits, but he had 4 walks and 2 strikeouts. He is hitting .255/.375/.404 in June, but 9 walks to 5 strikeouts across 13 games is impressive for him.
  • Much like Tait, Avery Owusu-Asiedu went 4 for 15 this week, but 6 walks and 2 strikeouts and he is walking more than he is striking out this month.
  • Carson DeMartini held his own his first week with Reading in a lineup that was suddenly without Aidan Miller (illness) and Keaton Anthony (promotion). He stole 5 bases which gives him a very surprising 23 on the year.
  • I wrote this week about how Dylan Campbell was trending down. It is important to acknowledge he is on a 7 game hitting streak, hitting .414/.455/.690 with 3 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 5 doubles to go with a home run. Overall in June he has a .960 OPS, so maybe in a month I will write about how he has turned his season around.
  • Keaton Anthony got a rare midweek promotion, moving up to AAA. It will be interesting to get actual exit velocity data on him. Early returns are he hit the ball hard-ish every time, but did not actually hit it very hard.
  • A two triple week is not what you would expect from Hendry Mendez, but it is what he did. He did a very Hendry Mendez thing and walked 5 times to one strikeout. He does have no home runs this month and the ground ball rate is ticking up.
  • With Anthony’s promotion, Felix Reyes has slid right into the 3/4 spot in the Fightin’s order. His OPS is up to .998 in June and he went 7 for 18 in 5 games with 5 extra base hits. In June he has just 4 strikeouts and his two walks this week doubled his season total. His one home run was just an absolute laser.
  • Brad Pacheco put up 5 scoreless innings on the road with 8 strikeouts for the second game in a row. He now has 14 straight scoreless innings as he turned his season around.
  • The Phillies bumped Alirio Ferrebus up to Clearwater to join the catcher, first base, designated hitter mix. He went 2 for 20 on the week, while getting hit twice. He struck out 3 times over the first two games, but got bat to ball the rest of the series.
  • We didn’t get full Statcast this week for Clearwater due to Tampa playing their backfield and not their stadium, so I can give you the pitch by pitch breakdown of what Sam Highfill did this week, but 8 IP 5 H 1 R 0 ER 1 BB 2 K on 77 pitches with 13 groundouts sums up a really solid piece of work while the offense behind him put up 14 runs.
  • Zuher Yousuf had a really solid season in 2024 as sort of a bulk reliever, logging 37.1 innings of 3.62 ERA with 49 strikeouts. He put up 5 scoreless innings this week and through his first two starts has 8.1 innings with 1 run, 0 walks, and 11 strikeouts. He has a lot going against him as a 5’10” 19 year old lefty that sits 88-92, but he has a nice changeup and will mix in a slider, and he has a fun attitude on the mound.
  • Seth Johnson is back to sitting 95-96 which is less than fun.

Injuries and Transactions

Links and Things

Minor Thoughts

Around the Web

Videos and Posts

Keaton Anthony with his first AAA double, his 22nd of the year across two levels, this at 103.1 mph … He’s got two hits for Lehigh Valley tonight, his 17th multi-hit game

— Mitch_Rupert (@mitchrupert.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T00:36:56.568Z

1 thought on “Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 12 6/11-6/16)”

  1. On the pitching side, with Painter/Miller graduating/traded and with Chace, Pan, and McGowan injured for the year what’s the state of phillies minor league pitching?

    Is it Pacheco and Cabreara? Degges? Graves and Seth Johnson seem to have fallen off. Mercado is hurt.

    Reply

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