Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 17 7/15-7/21)

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This Week’s Schedule

*Last game of FCL season is Thursday July 24

Hitter Spotlight

C Paul McIntosh

7-12 4 2B 1 HR 4 RBI 1BB 0 K .583/.615/1.167

McIntosh came over to the Phillies in the Jesus Luzardo deal, but has only played in 40 games due to missing a month to an injury and having mostly been the backup for Reading. He has hit well all year, with a .319/.388/.526 line for the season. His July line is especially scorching, but mostly due to this week where he played all 3 games of the series and had 5 extra base hits. He has exclusively played catcher and DH this season after mixing in some of left field in the Marlins organization last year. It hasn’t been amazing on defense with opposing base runners running pretty wild on him (35 for 39 in 26 games for Reading). The reality is that he is a 28 year old in his 5th major league season so he really is not much of a prospect. However, he has legitimate plus raw power and looks to now be the second catcher and occasional DH for what should be a good offensive team in Reading. Catchers do have a tendency to develop late, so maybe there is some Erik Kratz potential lurking.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP Ramon Marquez

2 GS 8 IP 7 H 4 ER 3 BB 14 K

After making Baseball America’s Top 25 FCL Prospects list it isn’t like Marquez is really under the radar nationally, but he is definitely a name that will surprise many when he starts showing up on prospect lists. His 4.50 ERA on a not great FCL Phillies team won’t stand out, but much of that comes from 6 runs he gave up on July 8 and his .345 BABIP in front of a poor defense. Marquez was signed as an amateur international free agent this January as an overage 19 year old, but the Phillies moved him to the FCL after the completion of DSL Spring Training. He isn’t physically overpowering on the mound, but there is probably some room for a full offseason to fill him out some. His fastballs has been more in the low 90s, but in his second start this week he was more 92-95 T96. His slider has looked better and could be an above average pitch. He has leaned on his changeup less of late, and to me it looks like a future plus pitch that was just tearing through complex league hitters. Without a jump in stuff he is trending as a back end starting pitcher, but also he has just 38 professional innings and has show a really solid base to build on.

Notes and Thoughts

  • Last week I did a AMA on Reddit and there were a lot of interesting questions about Phillies prospects and the Phillies as a whole. You don’t shouldn’t need to have an account to just see the answers.
  • Anderson Araujo, Romeli Espinosa, and Deiry Gonzalez all participated in the DSL All-Star game over the weekend.
  • Anderson Navas has not fully bounced back, especially with his 26.4% K% and 4.7% BB%. But he is hitting .253/.292/.404 this year and had a 2 home run game on July 15. He is weirdly hitting much better on the road than at home.
  • Given the injury and time away I am giving an offensive pass to Devin Saltiban for a little longer. However, he is also now near exclusively playing center field now, which with Aroon Escobar at second for the BlueClaws it will be interesting to see if Saltiban gets a day a week on the infield dirt or if he is now outfield only.
  • I don’t think there are many things that sum up the FCL Phillies season like Angel Liranzo being 0-5 with a 3.35 ERA. He allowed 2 runs over 5 innings this week, it was his 7th time in 11 games getting to at least 5 innings. He has not allowed more than 3 earned runs in an appearance and has solid stats for a 18 year old in the FCL, especially since he barely pitched last year.
  • Camron Hill has now made two rehab appearances and first impressions of the 2024 8th round pick is that he is weird. He is tall and long and comes from the side on his delivery. His velocity ticked up this week to touch 93, but he is low 90s. He has at least two breaking balls with huge amount of sweep including some sort of low 70s big breaking curveball pitch. They are probably going to stretch him out as a starter, but first look was as a funky reliever.
  • Alirio Ferrebus stated twice this week and went 3-8. He had his only extra base hit of July (a double), but he is hitting .268 on the month with a more reasonable 16.3% K% after a 21.7% rate and .123 average to open his time with the Threshers.
  • I don’t know how Gabriel Barbosa is doing what he is doing. He went 5 hitless innings this week with two walks and two strikeouts and has allowed 1 earned run in 3 starts (15.2 IP) with the BlueClaws. Going back to June 10 he has a 0.64 ERA in 6 games (28.0 IP). His fastballs are right about 90 without great movement, but he throws 6 different pitches including three breaking balls and opposing batters just do not look comfortable.
  • The Phillies brought Justin Crawford in for a pinch hit appearance in the 9th inning Sunday of a game that the IronPigs where down 8-0. This was notable because he normally has Sunday off and doesn’t pitch hit. It was Eduardo Salazar on the mound for Rochester, and while he is not a good major league pitcher this year, he has been a major league pitcher. It raised a couple of eyebrows for people who saw it.
  • I good sign that a player is MLB ready is when they are demoted to AAA they just take care of business and Mick Abel did that again this week. His stuff wasn’t overwhelming, but 6 scoreless innings on 85 pitches wasn’t quite as good as last week, but he just has gone down and attacked the zone again with good results.
  • I am not 100% sure how I am supposed to view Griff McGarry, but he allowed one run for his second start in a row, went a season high 5 innings and only walked 2 while only throwing 76 pitches. Saying Griff can start or is a major league prospect is like lining up to kick a football held by Lucy, but it is so tempting to take another try when he starts to put it all together.

Injuries and Transactions

Links and Things

Videos and Posts

1 thought on “Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 17 7/15-7/21)”

  1. been reading for a long time – love the website
    I created a spreadsheet that grades out Phillies trades retrospectively (since 2018) and updates daily based on WAR from baseball reference. I’m not sure what use it could be to you, but as we approach the deadline I was interested and I thought it was a cool tool – like how often prospects actually pan out and if the return is worth it. if you are interested in seeing it let me know and I’ll find a way to get it to you.
    I am working on adding a feature for other major MLB trades, but it’s not done yet.

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