Pretty good night. Boxes below the jump
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Still early but Tyler Greene may be over-matched at Lakewood….come June he may be at WLMSPT.
Perhaps but the dude was consistently raking in the spring games so I’m not there yet after 4 games.
Going against pitchers 2/3 years older can be difficult for a 19 year old.
That Lakewood outfield is really raking so far. They’re an interesting bunch to watch.
And Reading. Small sample size, but so far very nice.
Gillies and Valle are making me giddy.
Gillies and Valle are making me giddy.
Don’t forget Jiwan James.
Yea, I have my fingers crossed that Gillies and James will keep on mashing. That would solve a LOT of problems for this club.
I like both of these guys a lot too for different reasons (Gillies overcoming injuries, James seems like a nice guy). Plus tomorrow is James’s 23rd birthday. Happy early birthday, Jiwan!
My biggest knock on James is he does not walk enough and strikes out too much. I will be watching K% and BB% for both of these guys more intently than any other stat.
Not to knock Gillies who is becoming a great story, but James is off to an equally good start. He has had injuries as well that slowed his development, but he is a little younger and bigger than Gillies. Both have issues with drawing walks, though James improved last year moving up a level. James also has shown a little more power, especially when you consider that most of Gillies’ power came in one year in a great offensive environment.
I like them both but still think James might have a slightly higher ceiling. It is nice that we may be developing options if Vic leaves after this year.
The Phillies think Gillies has a higher ceiling, that’s why he was put n the 40 man while James was exposed. James is taller than Gillies but Tyson is broader and much stronger. Its been a tremendous start for both of them and that is great news for the organization. Add in the good starts for Valle, Rupp, Pointer, Altherr and Eldemire (and Dom is coming on) and our future looks a little brighter. Box score grazing is so much fun…
Protecting a player is not all about ceiling. It is about how polished they are and whether they can stick on a major league roster. Gillies had played at AA and was a little more advanced in their mind. I actually think they should have protected neither because each clearly needed more development time.
Not sure the first week has changed my feelings on the system. Good starts are all small sample sizes. Most of our players are not that young for their levels so let’s keep their performance in perspective. What got people excited about Gillies was him doing well at a really young age in High A. He no longer is young for AA. He is not old, but with both he and James we need to keep perspective. Pointer doing well is a nice surprise for me. Eldemire needs to move really quickly given his age, though I suspect the Phillies wanted to start him slowly and get him to Clearwater after 40-50 games.
I feel good about Gillies because the issues have never been he can’t field or he can’t throw or he can’t hit or he can’t run, it’s always been about staying healthy. The important thing is staying healthy and continuing to play and demonstrate the skills he had before he became a Phillie. If anything, I thought we’d see him get off to a slow start and we’d have to defend him by saying he’s been out of competitive action for so long that he needs time to get back at that level and show what he can do. If he continues to play like this despite that, I think it can only be a good sign. However, I would not be surprised at all to see him finish April hitting about .180 and as the season moves along we see significant strides made by him. If that happens, I would expect to see him open 2013 in AAA, not a part of the big club, inedpendent of how the Phils outfield situation progresses this year.
I think it’s about not just age but development time. Both James and Gillies have lost development time for various reasons. If James, at 23, has a big year at AA I think it means a little more than someone else the same age who’s been a hitter his whole life getting the same results.
Brian Pointer is a level above where I thought he’d be and he’s tearing the cover off the ball (just turned 20 and skipped WPT).
I am very excited about Pointer’s progress too, but wow is he striking out a lot so far. Still early…
Yeah he is. I’d originally thought that he was in Lakewood until the Williamsport season began but he’s just raking right now. He’s only got a few hundred MILB ABs total to this point so this has been a pleasant surprise.
Also love that he’s playing all 3 OF positions.
Pointer is just playing the corners I think with Hudson and Eldemire playing CF. Pointer has a short left handed swing that is a thing of beauty. I think that LWood team has faced some very good pitchers so far that have made it tough for them but they should hit well as a group. They’re young but oh so talented. Greene and Moore seem a little over matched so far but its very early and hopefully, Hudson and Dugan can pick up a few more hits too. Their pitching on the other hand looks pretty weak.
I watched some of all 3 Lakewood games on the net and they stuck out a ton. Pointer was in LF, Eldmire was in right, Hudson in CF. Hudson and Eldmire looked good running the bases as well.
Do you have the weight gain by James?….he def ain’t 180 lbs…looked bigger in ST….has to be 200 lbs plus of muscle.
I check those two before anyone else. I’m saying let’s call them up now!
Seriously, I really, really like those guys and hope they put it together this year, especially Gillies.
They both just need to play. Gillies has missed so much time that I’m sure he’ll hit some rough patches that he’ll need to push through and James historically has hot and cold months. He’ll need to eliminate or at least minimize the cold months. Defensively both could play in Philly right now and be an upgrade. How good must Gillies feel right now with all he’s been through the last two years?
Clearwater finally getting a few hits and faced Andy Pettitte for 3 innings.
Jeff Crupper!! Nice to see your name on here. Hope all is well in CLW.
9 runs??? An outburst!
Any chance we see Gillies this year? Victorino is Left, Gillies in Center?
No
I agree, no chance barring a Sept call up. Even an injury would cause them to look to LHV first.
Is there a chance? Absolutely. But it would probably be the result of a Victorino injury.
Zero chance
Maybe as a september call up as a pinch runner… He won’t see the starting line up this year or the majority of next year IMO.
I might argue with the “majority of next year”. If Victorino doesn’t get resigned, which is probably 50/50 at this point, they’d probably sign a one year stop gap guy over the winter and then give Gillies a chance to win the job in spring training. He absolutely has major league talent. Whether he can grow over the course of the year to be the player he can be, we’ll have to wait and see. The Phils know they have to find cheap alternatives somewhere if they want to keep Pence. They’ll also need a 3B and we don’t have any of those so that might cost real money too.
They wouldn’t need a stopgap- assuming Dom Brown is eventually up and playing left field and Mayberry has a reasonable year, Mayberry could cover center until Gillies is ready. That is in the unthinkable universe where all of your eggs hatch into chickens, of course.
Unfortunately, Mayberry expanding on last year is not a given to me.
It’s nice to see Jiwan James get off to a decent start. He has started off very slow the last two seasons, then hit in June and July. Maybe he becomes a legitimate prospect this year.
Being snubbed in the Rule 5 may have been the inspirational ticket to success.
Valle, James and Gillies are hitting..hope it continues
Guess we were wrong about the Clearwater line-up. Scoring some runs the last two games. Rupp and Barnes w/4 rbis each.Ok start for Wright. I think Perci Garner going the next game. Lehigh Valley getting some nice pitching. Elartons turn tonight. Diekman with the save and 3ks. Reading continues to be solid. JRod with the win and Gillies and James w/good games. Lakewood w/a rough start so far but have to like Brian Pointer’s start.
Watched the game on MiLB.tv and Elarton looked good as did Diekman. Was nice to see Brown advance Luna for the winning run.
Clearwater looking good. Rupp with home runs, D’Arby Myers hitting well also and making excellent defensive game winning plays.
Nice work by Elarton. Brown with another game-winning hit. It seems that when Diekman needs a K, he gets one.
I wouldn’t want to pitch against Reading right now. Nice work from Julio and Brummett. BJ provided excitement in the ninth.
Wright pitched well. The silent Clearwater bats are now noisy. Good to see Barnes and Rupp starting to hit.Sosa made it interesting in the ninth.
Kleven is interesting. He gives up three straight homers, but pitches pretty well in the other four innings. I had hopes for Morgado. He started slowly last year also and finished well. He was starting games last year also, but now he’s relieving.
Morgado really only started at Williamsport last year out of necessity … Pretty sure his future has always been in the bullpen
Austin Wright pitched very well tonight, he cruised through the first four innings only giving up an unearned run. In the fifth he gave up 2 runs, one on a wild pitch. He threw strikes all night (50 out of 77 total pitches) and had 11 swing and misses. There’s video of Wright on you-tube at TheGkit.
Thanks for posting all of the videos on youtube. Very helpful, for forming opinions on the guys in Florida.
Thanks for the swing-and-miss numbers. That is a good sign. I am still higher on him than most. Hopefully he can make AA this year.
Nice to see outfielders get off well…if just for a few games. All lookinhg good, of: Gillies. James. Alvarez, Eldemire, Pointer, Altherr…
It is too early to talk much abbout Gilles other than he is making good use of his legs and is making contact well…so far. Shot one outta here, too, tonight.
A dream: he will realize his on base skills to get on and create havoc at the top of the lineup together with some occasional power and turning singles into doubles and doubles into triples. The more hacoc he causes the more the succeeding hitters benefit.
Go, Gillies, GO!
kinda off topic, but Lindy Castillo pitched for the Cubs tonight. The Rule 5 draft needs to go; he should not be in the majors, the draft just hurts development
Maybe tweak it before trashing it all together??
I’m sure Lindy Castillo is pretty stoked to be on the Cubs.
Why would they get rid of it? The Phillies had a chance to protect him and decided not to. So now, Lendy Castillo is on the Cubs instead of being in High A. If Lendy Castillo ever made the Phillies, it probably wouldn’t be for at least 2 or 3 years.
No it doesn’t. What it does is give players a chance to be on a MLB roster instead of being organizational filler.
Exactly. I don’t know why it would bother someone that a guy like Castillo or Herndon gets an additional avenue towards making it to the major leagues.
it bothers because these guys are not ready for the majors and because of the rules, teams keep them stashed on teh bench, which stunts their development. So now Castillo gets to be a scarcely used bullpen guy, good for him? Id much rather have him at AA pitching frequently and continuing his development
The guys are ready for the majors, when a team deems him ready by keeping him on a Major League roster.
I’m sure Castillo is not complaining about his lost development time or the $400,000.00 he will make this year, over the 20K he would have made as a Reading Phillie.
Also, Castillo has been in the minors since 2007. We complain about certain players when we feel the organization is not pushing them. This is the mechanism for those players to get their justice.
Certainly hurt Shane Victorino and Johan Santana’s development.
Actually scratch Victorino… I think we put him in the minors… still there are cases where guys had successful big league careers. Most of these guys don’t stay on the roster unless they give the team that selected them a reason.
Rule 5 helped a guy like Roberto Clemente.
Brown hits, Diekman strikes out the side- good at LHV.
Nice to see Gillies homer, Valle double, and James steal a base successfully.
Like that Rupp had two extra base hits and a walk, and Austin Wright’s Ks and groundouts. Don’t like three wild pitches in one game as much.
Home run Pointer and doubles for Eldemire and Franco are good. Kleven’s line not so much.
Some of his WPs might be Rupp’s fault, 2 scouts sitting behind me commented that he had poor lateral movement. On 2 of them he just flung his glove at the ball.
he is a big structured guy…meaning maybe he can shed 5/10 lbs and be a litle quicker behind the plate.
Thanks for the WP info, gkit.
Things that stand out to me (and haven’t already been mentioned) are:
- LWD, CLW, and REA combining to take 2 BB (that is not good)
- The 3 BB by J-Rod, his stuff is not good enough to walking people
- Claypool to the bullpen (what is his stuff looking like in short stints and is he another college guy on the reliever fast track)
- We have a ton of toolsy OF who are raking and not much else on the hitting side
Umm, our catcher of the future is raking tooo.
Brown 2-4 nice, picked off of 2B not so nice….anyone see how he has looked in the OF so far?
I am very intrigued to hear how he is doing. I just checked the Gamecast for today’s LHV Pawtucket game and he had two putouts and a double hit towards him. No idea what that means but there you go.
very much appreciated good fellow
Very exciting thus far. It looks like Dom Brown is just getting into a groove by stroking some singles. Once he begins hitting for power again I expect to see him called up. You also have to love to see Gillies and Jiwan both raking. If even one of them can keep this up I would go ahead and let Victorino walk in the off-season. People will be instantly shocked at the improvement in defense that either of the kids can provide, and the team needs some young life. With Valle and Rupp both hitting, and the potential in Franco and Pointer, I’d say we finally have some hitting prospects on the way up. Still won’t solve that middle infield problem but we’ll see how Amaro handles that one…
Is Gillies better than James in CF? I’ve heard only glowing reports about Jame’s defensive abilities through out his minor league career.
Good question – I’d say that James is a bit smoother and throws a bit better (he was a pitcher) but they both cover a very large amount of ground and get good reads. I think James was moved to the corners this year because they think Gillies is a more likely future starter while James looks more like a 4th OF. If James has a breakout hitting year, that would be a fun problem to have. If Gillies gets moved up to LHV after the all star break (probably unlikely but not impossible), they’d move James back to CF.
I would think that Gillies playing center over James has less to do with defensive ability and more to do with James having the power potential to play corner OF.
Gillies will have to make it as a CF, whereas if James can unlock his power potential, he could play RF, especially with his arm strength.
Also, James has a better arm for right field.
It seems like a lot of the position prospects are off to a nice start. Yeah, they’ll likely cool down but a some of them are bound to keep it up.
Question: Is Harold Martinez injured? I noticed that he is being kept down in Extended Spring Training. I was guessing that he was going to get jumped to Clearwater (especially with Lakewood occupied by Franko), but maybe he wasn’t doing so well. Not that he tore it up in Williamsport last year, but I would’ve expected him to be on a full season team
Jeff
yeah I think it was a wrist injury of some sort.
BA notes Buchanan’s weekend start in this post and mentions he almost made their top 30: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/2012/04/top-pitching-performances-by-prospects-over-the-weekend/
Maybe James not being selected in the Rule 5 draft lit a fire inside.
More likely he is just maturing as an athlete and getting the 1000+ plate appearances most prospects need in the minors. The Phillies took a calculated risk not protecting him and that looks like a wise decision now. It does not mean they did not like him. Just that he was not ready to stick on a major league roster yet.
I think not getting selected by Houston hurt him more, he expected to be selcted by them.
James is weighing in around 205. The 180 lbs has been a misprint for over a year.
Or maybe he’s just late to develop because he was injured and is a converted pitcher? He never voiced his displeasure about not being protected in the Rule 5, and there were never any questions at all about his work ethic or makeup.
I probably should know this, but what is up with Anthony Hewitt?
4 Hits for the AAA boys today. Dom Brown wasnt in the lineup.
never mind, he was. Just lost him in the sea of 0s.
It must be April if we are slotting guys in AA into the major league lineup for next year based on 20-something at bats. That said, it’s nice to see Gillies and James succeeding in that limited sample, as opposed to the other way around. …
LOL, I saw some of these posts and was thinking the same thing. Four games at AA is enough to indicate that some of these guys are major league ready in 2013? Yeah, sure.
One note on Gillies, though, that I think might be worth remembering when we think about his future with the organization: I saw him get a lot of at-bats early in Spring Training. Same was true of Galvis last year, and in years past of guys like Jason Donald. The higher-ups certainly have their eye on him and want to see him play firsthand against major league competition. I can’t imagine this is entirely unrelated to their awareness of the decision to be made on Victorino.