The Phillies Have a Position Prospect Problem

Many of the Phillies’ affiliates are off to slow starts, and it isn’t because of their pitching. Outside of a pair of run explosions, the Phillies affiliate bats have been quiet. There is always some amount of variance, especially early in the year, but as I scanned the rosters, something appeared obvious. There wasn’t that much hitting talent on these teams. So I turned to my preseason rankings to see if the “data” backed this up. If we take my top 30 prospects and eliminate those in the majors (Crawford, Alfaro, Kingery, and Arano) there are 11 hitters and 15 pitchers on the list. That does not tell the full story. Of those 11 hitters, 3 are not on rosters yet, and only 1 pitcher is not. The only top 30 hitter in AAA is Roman Quinn, and the only top 30 hitter in AA is Cornelius Randolph. Now this has a variety of reasons, some concerning and others structural.

They Graduated a Lot of Hitters:

This is mostly a discussion of the farm system as it is structured going forward, so we should deal with what it has done so far. In this case, the Phillies in the last 12 months have sent Jorge Alfaro, Rhys Hoskins, J.P. Crawford, Scott Kingery, and Nick Williams to the majors. That is a lot of talent with all 5 arguably top 100 prospects when they reached the majors and with at least 3 (Hoskins, Kingery, and Crawford) very highly rated prospects. It would be unreasonable to expect the Phillies to replace that level of talent.

High Draft Pick Struggles:

The Phillies have taken a hitter with their top pick in the draft the past 3 seasons. None of those players have stepped forward to be impact players yet. Cornelius Randolph has been ok, but his position and lack of power leave much to be desired. Mickey Moniak has been a disaster, but is still really young. Adam Haseley has not been a disaster, but he also hasn’t hit at a level that indicates a quick rising impact hitter. Now there is Scott Kingery who the Phillies took in the 2nd round of the 2015 draft, who is not on the list for previously discussed reasons.

Pitcher Heavy Trades:

Since Ruben Amaro started the rebuild in the winter of 2014-2015 here are all of the prospects acquired by the Phillies.

Pitchers: Joely Rodriguez, Tom Windle, Zach Eflin, Ben Lively, Nick Pivetta, Jake Thompson, Jared Eickhoff, Alec Asher, Jimmy Cordero, Alberto Tirado, John Richy, Mark Appel, Harold Arauz, Tom Eshelman, Tommy Bergjans, J.D. Hammer, Alejandro Requena, Garrett Cleavinger, McKenzie Mills, Seth McGarry, Enyel De Los Santos

Hitters: Nick Williams, Jorge Alfaro, Darnell Sweeney, Joey Curletta, Jose Gomez, Eliezar Alvarez

For those who didn’t count, that is 21 pitchers and 6 hitters. This ratio shows a couple of things. One there was a focus on acquiring pitching, and that to build enough pitching depth at the major league level, one must build much more minor league depth due to attrition. Another part has been teams have been reluctant to trade hitters, especially good hitters. Outside of the Hamels deal where the Phillies got Williams and Alfaro, these have been mostly minor trades, and so we would not expect impactful bats back. On the flip side, a lot pitchers are some good development away from being useful, at very least as a reliever, so you can take a back of someone’s top 30 level pitching prospect and get something useful out of them.

Their Hitting Development Trails Pitching:

All this ranking is relative, I am pitting hitters against pitchers. In some sense, the balance can be shifted by just being able to make better pitchers. That is what the Phillies have done. Sixto Sanchez, Franklyn Kilome, and Adonis Medina all signed for next to nothing out of the Dominican Republic. Expanding beyond the top guys, Edgar Garcia, Jacob Waguespack, Kyle Young, Drew Anderson, Ranger Suarez, Manuel Silva, and Seranthony Dominguez were all signed for not very much. On the hitting side that list is much shorter with names like Jonathan Guzman, Keudy Bocio, Ben Pelletier, and Rodolfo Duran cutting a much small swath. The Phillies have countered this some with big money Latin hitting prospects like Luis Garcia, Jhailyn Ortiz, Arquimedes Gamboa, and Daniel Brito, but also have missed in that market with Luis Encarnacion, Jose Pujols, and Deivi Grullon.

Now all of this is not a big problem, for now at least. The Phillies have just graduated a great position player core, and it is ok to be weak in depth in the upper minors. However, if the Phillies want to build a run over years, they will need to develop waves of hitting. Having one of their first round picks or big money Latin signings have a breakout year, would be a big boon to the Phillies’ system.