Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 13 6/18-6/24)

by

Last Week’s Schedule

*Part of double header #completion of previous game

This Week’s Schedule

  • Lehigh Valley (35-39) @ Durham (36-40)
  • Reading (31-37) vs Bowie (32-37)
  • Jersey Shore (40-29) vs Greensboro (41-27)
  • Clearwater (44-25) vs Bradenton (31-37)
  • FCL Phillies (21-16)
  • DSL Phillies Red (4-11)
  • DSL Phillies White (5-10)

Hitter Spotlight

C Eduardo Tait

8-22 2 2B 2 HR 8 RBI 2 K 2 HBP 1 SB

Not as good a week as last for Eduardo Tait who only hit .364/.417/.727 on the week. No walks, but 2 hit by pitches and only 2 strikeouts in 24 plate appearances. He is now hitting .321/.403/.696 in June. He is only hitting .120/.290/.120 off of lefties and it is concerning that the quality of contact has been poor, but 6 walks to 3 strikeouts tempers that, especially given the sample size is 31 plate appearances. There is about a month left in the FCL season, and given how Tait has played it would make sense for them to push him to Clearwater to end the season. For now there he is one of 5 players 17 or younger who have at least 120 plate appearances this year (a functional proxy for playing stateside) and he trails only Rangers prospect Pablo Guerrero in OPS (Guerrero plays in Arizona and has a strikeout rate 12% above Tait’s). He isn’t as projectable as your typical teenager, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have plenty of upside when it comes to polish, especially defensively.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP George Klassen

5 IP 0 H 0 R 2 BB 8 K

After a messy start in his hi-A debut, Klassen was much more dominant in his second appearance. His 20 swings and misses was a season high to go with the 5 innings of no-hit ball. Klassen is a great prospect, and I think he is one of the best prospects in the Phillies system, as evidenced by his updated ranking. All that said, there were some cracks that showed up in this week’s start and they are something he will need to work on. So far he has pitched more than 5 innings once (April 26) and he has thrown more than 80 pitches ones (June 15). Some of that has been the injury and ramp up, some has been some babying the Phillies have done since he is going to set a career high in innings, but some of it is lack of efficiency. Klassen has averaged over 4 pitches per batter with Jersey Shore and depending on traffic on the bases that has led to some high pitches per inning numbers. It is clear he can get out of at bats, he has missed bats and generated weak contact all year. However, he continues to make really uncompetitive pitches and not in the “going fishing with a breaking ball” sort of way. He will leave curveballs up and away and have stretches where he can’t find the strike zone. Overall, his walk rate is starting to creep back up. None of this is to say he is going to collapse like Griff McGarry or that the Phillies should sell high. There was a chance he was going to battle some things vs better hitters and it looks like it is trending that way. If these problems continue to manifest maybe you are looking at a reliever or maybe he is just a 5-6 inning guy. These are the sort of things that separate elite prospects from merely good ones, and now as hitters are less blown away by his sheer stuff, we will see if he can make that next step.

Notes and Thoughts

  • It continues to be a roller coaster of a season for Justin Crawford who has 4 hits, 3 for extra bases, but hit .167 with 0 walks and 7 strikeouts. He is now walking less, striking out more, and has a lower ISO with the BlueClaws now than he did in his cameo last year.
  • Aidan Miller is hitting just .237 in 11 games with the BlueClaws, but he is at 8 walks and 10 strikeouts. His underlying numbers look more like his last month with the Threshers and his struggles at the new level being more of a BABIP small sample size than anything.
  • Buddy Kennedy must like being closer to home as he hit .421/.522/.790 this week, nearly in line with his first week. He likely isn’t more than depth, but the IronPigs went 5-1 this week.
  • He is technically a rookie, but not really a prospect, but Weston Wilson hit 4 home runs this week and has 6 in 8 AAA games this month. He didn’t see much action in his time with the Phillies, but he is an interesting depth piece who started at 2B, SS, 3B, and LF this week.
  • Michael Mercado’s last minor league appearance was his most starting pitcher like. He made it to 6 innings and 91 pitches. He probably will be a reliever the rest of the way and he will need to do a 180 of how he has pitched. On Monday, he showed a bit more velocity out of the bullpen but there is almost certainly another gear.
  • Max Lazar has a 0.281 WHIP in June and it is surprising he didn’t get a call up this time. He might get the next one.
  • In a must win game for the Threshers Mavis Graves put up his 3rd 10 strikeout game in his last 5 games. He had a bit more velocity after getting more than a week off, but he still is working at a deficit. However, he had 10 of his 20 whiffs on his cutter (71% of all swings) and a minuscule 30% zone contact rate.
  • With Miller up north, Diego Gonzalez has been getting infield reps for the Threshers (mostly 3B with some SS) and while he has not shown any real power he is is hitting .324 over the stretch with a .474 on base percentage this last week.
  • Jean Cabrera followed up his 14 strikeout game with a gutty performance in his own must win. He went 6 scoreless with 8 strikeouts and a career high 110 pitches to finish the 6th inning.
  • Much like Gonzalez in Clearwater, Juan Villavicencio has been taking advantage of Aroon Escobar’s absence from the lineup to hit between Caba and Tait. He is hitting .318 in June and hit .308 with a .450 OBP this week. He has shown very little power, but he has added more walks to his game this month and is a good infield defender (primarily sliding into 2B with Escobar out)
  • Starlyn Caba’s average is down to .230, but he still has a .420 OBP. He is getting a little passive at the plate and this week he played in 5 games, came to the plate 21 times, walked 7 times and struck out 3 times. He put the ball in play 11 times and went 0-11 on those balls in play.
  • Enrique Segura got to have his second start for Clearwater without rain shortening it. His velocity continues to be down, but he is pitching deep I to games with more control and has heavy sink on his sinker and changeup.
  • It has been a very not Marcus Lee Sang June. He is batting .313 after batting .317 in May. He is walking more than May, but less than April, and he is hitting for more power. What is abnormal is he struck out 3 times this week and has just 10 strikeouts in 77 plate appearances in June. He is hitting lefties this year (though a tiny sample size of 32 PAs) and he has a .834 OPS on the road and .789 at home.
  • Tyler Phillips has a K/9 of 9.7 in June and over his last three starts has walked 3 and struck out 23 in 20 innings. He still has a 4.32 ERA in that time, but if he can miss bats then he might get himself in Mercado’s place as the next starter up if there is an injury.

Injuries and Transactions

Links and Things

Minor Thoughts

Around the Web

Videos and Tweets

2 thoughts on “Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 13 6/18-6/24)”

  1. Hey Matt,

    In your June snap shot you don’t mention Marcus Lee Sang. Probably because he wasn’t originally mentioned in the initial write up prior to the start of the season.

    Where do you see him and what ceiling does he have?

    Thanks!
    Nick from Trenton

    • My gut would be he is bench outfielder upside guy and prior to this month I would have said his contact problems made that unlikely. Now I would say that he is a guy that I need to go watch some games and see what it looks like. I still don’t know if I will see more than a bench guy, but that probably puts him more in the 25-40 range of list, which is where he has been for most of his time in the Phillies system.

Comments are closed.