Phillies Minor League Recap (Week 17 7/16-7/22)

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Last Week’s Schedule

All full season teams played 3 game series Friday-Sunday

This Week’s Schedule

  • Lehigh Valley (48-46) @ Rochester (51-43)
  • Reading (39-50) @ New Hampshire (34-53)
  • Jersey Shore (51-39) vs Aberdeen (47-43)
  • Clearwater (50-40) @ Tampa (35-53)
  • FCL Phillies (31-25)
  • DSL Phillies Red (10-23)
  • DSL Phillies White (13-21)

Hitter Spotlight

IF Otto Kemp

3-12 1 HR 3 RBI 0 BB 2 K 1 HBP .250/.308/.500

A 3 game series is a good time to highlight a player who has been under the radar for a while. Kemp is now batting .314/.426/.557 on the season and .262/.370/.533 with Reading. He hits the ball hard, though until his time in Reading he mostly had been hitting line drives instead of balls in the air. The increase of balls in the air has led to more home runs, but it has led to a sharp drop in BABIP and uptick in strikeouts. Kemp can play around the diamond, but is mostly a second and third baseman, though not plus at either. Kemp is 24 and wasn’t great last year, but he has definitely broken out as an interesting future bench player this year.

Pitcher Spotlight

RHP Christian McGowan

1 GS 3 IP 1 H 0 R 1 BB 4 K

This was supposed to be Christian McGowan’s fully healthy return from Tommy John surgery, but he missed just about two months and is now in his 3rd rehab appearance. It was both an encouraging and discouraging appearance. He was up to 97.8 mph in the first inning and was largely 95-97 early. By the third innings he was more 93-95. His overall pitch mix is scrambled by bad pitch mapping, but there looks to be a changeup at 89-91 and in the 86 to 91 range he was mix both a shorter cutter and a slider with a bit more sweep, that all to go with a mostly sinker heavy fastball mix with some occasional 4-seamers. He missed 9 bats in his 3 innings with Clearwater, most of it with high velocity sinkers. The real question is going to be whether he is a starter or a reliever. For now, it looks like they are stretching him back out as a starter, but if he is going to continue to lose velocity like this over starts once he is fully back, then the bullpen might be his future home.

Notes and Thoughts

  • Congratulations to Darick Hall on setting the Lehigh Valley IronPigs career record for home runs. It probably is not the record he wants, but he has been consistently one of the best power hitters in AAA for a long time.
  • Over the last 2 weeks, Reading has gone from the worst team in the org to maybe the most interesting. They have imported most of a rotation with the arrival of Jean Cabrera, Samuel Aldegheri, and Eiberson Castellano. Otto Kemp, Carson Taylor, Marcus Lee Sang, and others had kept the offense serviceable, but the arrival of Justin Crawford from Jersey Shore and Gabriel Rincones from the injury list gives them a deep lineup. They went 2-1 this week and are buried 6 games back of Somerset, but there is still a good amount of time left in the second half of the season. The only problem is that Reading is also now home to most of the players most likely to be traded in the next week.
  • Reading’s gain is Clearwater’s loss as Jersey Shore got an influx of talent to mostly replace what they lost. More releases and the nearing end of the FCL season hint at reinforcement coming to the Threshers soon, but for now they have had a skeleton crew plus rehabbers. They also should get some recently drafted players, but that might be even further off.
  • Speaking of the skeleton crew, TJayy Walton is back with the Threshers, and while he has not lit the world on fire (2-8 in two games with 3 strikeouts) he did hit a laser home run. He has missed so much time that it will be imperative for him to have a good last month and a half.
  • Raylin Heredia continues to flounder. He struck out 8 times in 3 games this weekend and now has 1 walk and 17 strikeout in July.
  • Estibenzon Jimenez gave up 5 runs with 2 outs in the 9th innings on Friday in a game that will probably haunt the BlueClaws as they attempt to get a postseason spot (they are 3 back of Greensboro who won the first half and are tied with Aberdeen).
  • It was an uncharacteristic 3 strikeout in 3 game week for William Bergolla. He went 5 for 15 with no extra base hits, and now in his 2 weeks back from injury is hitting .300/.330/.300 in 30 at bats, a step back from where he had been.
  • Wen Hui Pan looks to be settling into bulk relief as there may not be time to get him fully stretched out as a starter (and he has struggled to hold velocity). Steve Potter mentioned this week that he might be a candidate for the Arizona Fall League.
  • Eiberson Castellano joined his fellow Jersey Shore rotation mates in Reading and had a good debut, striking out 6 with 2 earned runs in 6 innings. The Phillies account claimed he was sitting 97, which would represent a large jump for him.
  • Chase Hopewell was up to 98 on Friday, but was 89-92 on Sunday and did not make it through 3 batters and left with an injury. Something to watch on the IL this week.

Injuries and Transactions

  • David Dahl was re-signed and assigned to AAA
  • Dakota Kotowski, A.J. Shaver, and Eury Ramos were released.
  • Wesley Moore, Matt Kroon, and Charles King all began rehab assignments

Links and Things

Minor Thoughts

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