Last Week’s Schedule
Lehigh Valley (3-3) vs Durham (3-6): L 10-28, W 3-2, L 6-10, W 9-4, W 6-1, L 9-12
Reading (1-2) vs Portland (0-1): W 9-8, W 5-1, L 0-11, L 2-9*, L 4-5*, L 5-9
Jersey Shore (2-1) @ Hickory (0-3): W 8-1, L 0-1, W 4-0*, L 0-5*, W 13-0, L 8-10
Clearwater (2-1) vs Fort Myers (2-1): L 4-5, W 8-7, W 10-5, W 3-0, L 0-10, W 5-3
*Part of a doubleheader
This Week’s Schedule
Lehigh Valley (6-6) @ Scranton/WB (10-4)
Reading (3-6) @ Binghamton (3-5)
Jersey Shore (5-4) vs Brooklyn (4-5)
Clearwater (6-3) @ Dunedin (7-2)
Hitter Spotlight
4 G 6-16 2 HR 1 BB 2 K 2 SB 1 CS
It was a good week for Crawford, and much different than the first series where he made 15 trips to the plate and walked and struck out 5 times each. The Hickory camera angle was not great for judging anything, so any real breakdowns of his swing will need to wait, but it looks better on first look and much more connected. Hickory is a park known for power, but the first home run looked to be off a high fastball and went to left center, and the second was more outside middle and was hit to left more towards the line. The quality of contact is still not great through 7 games for Crawford, but it is a really miniscule sample size, but the home runs and the visual swing improvements do stand out because they are real differences from where he was last year.
Pitcher Spotlight
RHP Jean Cabrera
1 GS 5 IP 1 H 0 R 3 BB 10 K
Jean Cabrera followed a good first outing with a dominant one. It was even better when you consider he spent 20 pitches to face the first three batters of the game (2 walks, 1 strikeout). Cabrera has been on the periphery of the prospect conversation, but he has been slowly adding and holding velocity. Last year he added a sinker to his four seamer, and based on the video posted by the Phillies player development account (included below) he has gotten his sweeper slider working. Cabrera was up to 97 in the Spring Breakout and throws a pretty good changeup as well. While he still is very skinny, but he is already 22 and facing his second year of Rule 5 eligibility (just like Aldegheri who is also off to a strong start) so if he keeps this up, he will be one to watch for a midseason bump to Reading.
Notes and Thoughts
- Outside of a bad Jack Dallas outing last week and two poor Jonathan Petit appearances, the BlueClaws bullpen has been dominant. Gunner Mayer has taken to the conversion to reliever with 1 earned run in 4 innings to go with 0 walks and 8 strikeouts. Charles King looks to be the closer for now, but Wesley Moore and Danny Wilkinson has been dominant and (3 IP 0 BB 5 K and 2.2 IP 0 BB 5 K respectively) and the rest of the arms have been good as well. Estibenzon got roughed up a bit on Sunday, but they have a team ERA of 3.09.
- Samuel Aldegheri with another good start (6 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 7 K). For those who might be trying to catch his starts, he and Cabrera have flipped rotation order with the rainout and double header.
- We knew Reading would be bad, but they have had some ugly losses this season, and are now 3-6 through 9 games with a -34 run differential.
- After going 0-5 in his debut, José Rodríguez has been one of the lone bright spots for Reading. He hit .300/.462/.500 on the week with 6 walks to 4 strikeouts along with a home run. One week does not make an improvement, but Rodríquez walked 31 times in 106 games last year, so 6 walks in 7 games is a big improvement.
- Max Lazar looked good this spring as a funky righty throwing in the mid 90s. He appears to be Reading’s closer, so the Phillies are already looking at him positively. He only made two appearances this week, going 2 innings in his second appearance, but so far he has not allowed a base running and has 8 strikeouts in 4 innings.
- It wasn’t a particularly dominant stat line (2 BB 1 K), but Lachlan Wells returned to affiliated ball this week allowing 1 run over 5 innings.
- Eiberson Castellano moved to the rotation this year and was dominant in his first start going 5 scoreless innings with no walks and six strikeouts.
- Otto Kemp has consistently produced some of the better exit velocities in the Phillies system. He is currently on rehab assignment with the Threshers where he went 6 for 11 this week with a double, triple, home run, and 3 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 3 hit by pitches in a sort of weirdly symmetrical stat line. He is a 24 year old NDFA signing from 2022 who struggled greatly with Jersey Shore last year, but he is worth keeping half an eye on when he is up in Reading.
- Aidan Miller hit his first regular season home run of the season this week (he hit his first pro one in the postseason last year). It wasn’t the hardest hit call he had this season and was likely a bit wind aided, but it showed as Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo pointed out a much cleaner and quieter swing.
- George Klassen has cemented himself into the org’s top 10 prospects and is probably their best pitching prospect after the Painter, Abel, and Kerkering group. His fastball averaged 96.8 mph, but it doesn’t have elite shape and I wonder if it gets split into a distinct sinker and four seam, but it has elite results. He used his cutter less this start and started to work his curveball more. The curveball average 85.5 with big vertical movement and got 4 whiffs on 6 swings, and he also was able to throw it in the zone. They are likely to have him work on some pitch usage and other things, but they can’t keep him Clearwater for very long.
- Jaydenn Estanista had a dominant second outing, striking out 5 with no walks in two innings. His fastball averaged only 94.9 mph, but had elite ride and got 8 whiffs on 14 swings and a zone contract rate of just 42% in his outing. If he can continue to throw strikes he is a very interesting reliever.
- Mick Abel and Michael Mercado’s velocity was down as Lehigh Valley once again had a game delay and played in cold and wind. Abel was able to battle through with secondary pitches, but it was another rough outing for him.
- No walks in two appearances for Griff McGarry this week, but 3 runs in 3.1 innings, though he did strike out 7. His velocity was down like most of the IronPigs pitchers, which is just something to watch as it could be just bad weather or a concerning trend.
- Scott Kingery has 3 home runs in 10 games, he also is striking out at a 33% rate, so some good and some bad.
- José Ruiz probably just got buried on the bullpen depth chart again with Orion Kerkering back, but he continues to be good and might be the callup if they had an injury.
Injuries and Transactions
- Raylin Heredia had to be helped off the field on Thursday night after hurting his right leg. He was added to the IL on Sunday back dated to Saturday.
- Andrew Schultz and Baron Radcliff were added to the 7 day IL for Reading.
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