Reader Top 30 #21-Mitch Gueller

2013 Reader Top 30

A whole large set of names have been added, the plan is keep with them until we are done, so if there is anyone missing let me know

List so far:

  1. Biddle
  2. Quinn
  3. Morgan
  4. Joseph
  5. Franco
  6. Ruf
  7. Asche
  8. Pettibone
  9. Martin
  10. Tocci
  11. Aumont
  12. Gillies
  13. Watson
  14. Greene
  15. Valle
  16. De Fratus
  17. Collier
  18. Wright
  19. Cozens
  20. Hernandez

Here is the compiled spreadsheet of all rankings out so far https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq9atTaYBdErdDFibUpEVENleTB0Mnk1X0dSb19DSWc

About Matt Winkelman

Matt is originally from Mt. Holly, NJ, but after a 4 year side track to Cleveland for college he now resides in Madison, WI. His work has previously appeared on Phuture Phillies and The Good Phight. You can read his work at Phillies Minor Thoughts

79 thoughts on “Reader Top 30 #21-Mitch Gueller”

  1. You probably got everybody who could legitimately be voted top 30. Just to be devil’s advocate:
    You list Cameron Perkins but not Chris Serritella, who hit better and was a higher draft pick. Also, Perkins over Ludy is debatable. Sergio Velis (17 year old 100K bonus) over Lewis Alezones (16 year old 520K bonus) or YoelMecias (BA one to watch). Power are Reliever, Knigge over Power arm Starter, Percy Garner?

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    1. My thinking on those guys:
      Perkins appeared on more lists that I saw and hit as good as Serritella while playing all four corners. Ludy in my mind is org filler (but I could be wrong there). Velis is on reports, kid doesn’t have amazing stuff but I have heard multiple reports on great pitchability and a guy to really watch for. I asked Sickels about Mecias, he likes him better than Vargas who has very real command problems right now, Mecias combines really good stuff from the left side and is showing the ability to throw it for strikes. We have very little on Alezones who probably won’t pitch any meaningful innings for at least a year (the innings count on a 16 year old arm is going to be low). I personally wouldn’t have Knigge that high but he is on some lists, Garner doesn’t miss bats but I would have him over Knigge personally.

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  2. There are just too many guys to choose from at this point. Can you cull the list to 8-10 per spot please? Something like the top 8 vote getters from the previous vote plus the top write-in vote.

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  3. Went with Gueller, but that’s just dreaming based on scouting reports. I like Pullin, Colvin, and Walding (in some order) next.

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  4. In the comments section of one top 11s on baseball prospectus, Jason Parks said, “the Phillies system could take big steps forward if a a few players blossom” when asked what system could really improve in the next year. A good sign.

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    1. That’s pretty encouraging after the negative assessment he gave our system on crashburn alley recently.

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  6. I like Gueller here even though I voted for Walding. Clicked on the wrong Mitch(ell). Looks like it won’t matter.

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    1. He was harsh but not that harsh, like most of the other rankers he acknowledged that there is talent it is just risky and far away. Here is his line:
      “Their highest-ranked prospect on my top 100 (no team was shut out entirely) is the lowest of any team’s highest-ranked prospect. They do, however, have a number of intriguing, high-risk guys from low-A on down, especially on the pitching side.”
      He really values having upside stars in your system, also he is notably down on Asche, Ruf, and Valle. I have heard positive things about both Morgan and Martin (not sure they were that he would be a starter but at least he was a steal in the trade). I find it hard to argue the system in front of the others, but it is definitely a group of players that could take a leap to the top half with some breakouts.
      And he just tweeted:
      keithlaw ‏@keithlaw
      Yes. RT @brianros1: is the Phillies system one that could jump quickly if those guys in the lower levels have a good development year?

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      1. Matt–is there any chance of having Keith do an interview with the site? It’s something James would do in previous years (with both him and KG), and I felt it was a really valuable source of information. I think we even crowdsourced some of the questions, which could make it a more interesting exercise than the series Crashburn Alley is running at the moment.

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          1. This is the reason the site would have trouble getting professionals to give their time for an interview.

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            1. I find it hard to view his rankings as purely objective as his constant derision of all things Phillies Org seem to have a carry-over effect into his valuations.

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            2. I find Keith Law’s evaluations to to be informative, so it is grating for me, to read unjustified cries of bias, when the guy has no reason to be biased against any team, that he has never employed him.

              He likes upside players, with loud tools. There is nothing wrong with that. He and Goldstein laugh at the guys who cry bias all of the time on their podcasts.

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            3. I have no problems with Goldstein. But compare Law’s system rankings to the other ones out there. He is very consistent in having the Phillies below the industry average. Not sure how much statistical evidence you need.

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            4. Okay, here’s a challenge for you. How many rankers can you name, who have the Phillies above the industry average? Baseball America has us at 23. I saw another list with us in the twenties. I’ve not seen a list that rates us in the top half.

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          2. Keith has made it clear he does not like the organizations philosophy regarding its choice in players on the major league level as well as its disregard of advanced statistics (which somehow matches the general readership of this site). He is not kind to our system because it is not very good right now. If I remember correctly at the 2010 Futures Game ESPN popped up his Org Rankings and he had the Phillies as a Top 5 system. They then made the Pence deal and Worley and Brown graduated and they haven’t recovered. He has not said anything that any one hasn’t said here he just doesn’t sugar coat it or mince words. And as VOR said, it makes it hard to get people to talk to us and gain credibility if we are trashing those people and organizations on this site.

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            1. Funny you mentioned Worley, noone gave him any love, especially the upside-only fanatics like Keith Law. that’s why I think he’s underrating our pitching crop, as we’re going to have a pretty loaded top of the system in Wright, Morgan, Biddle, Pettibone and Martin and doesn’t even have a blurb about that because they don’t profile as potential Aces.

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            2. Worley is a #4/#5 starter that is nothing to write home about. Biddle, Morgan, and Pettibone are likely starters long term, but that is two #3s and a #4, that is not a great group of pitchers and one has yet to face AA, and as optimistic as we are on Martin and Wright the odds say they will be relievers long term

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            3. Was Worley ever regarded as a Top 10 prospect? Honest question. I don’t remember him ranking any higher than 11.

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            4. He was #11 in 2010, but to be fair here was the list in front of him:
              Brown
              Drabeck
              Taylor
              D’Arnaud
              May
              Gose
              Valle
              Cosart
              Bastardo
              Santana
              I would have rated him behind all of those guys, maybe in front of Santana but not Bastardo at that time.

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            6. Worely was rated higher than Biddle on the 2011 PP reader top 30. I believe James had higher than Biddle that year also.

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            8. I just find it funny how Braves guys like Randall Delgado got mad love in Keith Law rankings, and when they trade him away he’s suddenly a ‘fringy #5’. Of course his rankings don’t really mean a whole lot, but as much as I think Keith Law is a very intelligent guy, I don’t think his views are purely objective.

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      2. Braves at 20 is a joke. Their best position prospect hits like he has a piece of string cheese in his hands. Their best pitching prospects have lower upside than our guys, just check out the K rates for Graham, Gilmartin, Wood and Spruil. Pettibone would be the strikeout king among that slop.

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            1. Teheran is eligible. Graham and Wood have better K rates than Pettibone. Spruil was in the Upton trade. You can’t accuse a national guy of bias and then make biased and incorrect statements yourself.

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            3. Wood I’ll give you, not sure what I was looking at. Graham was 22 and averaged 6.0 K/9 in A ball before a late season spike in 45 innings in AA. Pettibone is younger and did most of his pitching in AA last season. Context matters. I never said Pettibone had the highest literal K rate, just the fact that I’d take him to be the strikeout guy over Graham/Gilmartin their best two pitching prospects after Teheran. Looks like they were able to peddle off Spruill – who was a top 10 guy in their system but yet another low K guy.

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            4. I know you are looking at numbers but here is the scouting report on Graham, (a 2011 college draftee in his first year as opposed to Pettibone in his 5th year out of high school). Fastball 93-97, two-seamer low-90s with good sink, sharp slider, and average change up, #3 starter ceiling. I would take that over Pettibone every day. I don’t like Gilmartin that much, he seems comparable to Pettibone and they are similarly ranked, Lucas Sims is a legit prospect as well and a good bit ahead of Watson is comparable for me.

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            6. I really don’t get your point. The Phillies have a ton of middling prospects and long-shots with tools in the lower minors. Not every team has as many middling prospects, but most teams have a fair number and every team has toolsy long-shot guys in the low minors. What the Phillies lack is primo prospects. Everybody concedes this. Teams are built around above average performers. Guys who project to be #1/2 starters and near-All-Star or AS position players. If you exclude the long-shot toolsy guys in the low minors, and who really knows what they will become, the Phillies don’t have any of those guys who project to be above-average performers in the bigs.

              This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. It’s been years since the Phillies have had one of the first 20 draft picks, as often as not they haven’t drafted in the first round and their first draftee has been a late thirties pick. They’ve done zilch to make up for that, in terms of either slot busting or big international spending. So good scouting gives us a lot of interesting prospects with talent and tools, which will yield some useful major leaguers, but no primo prospects.

              In addition to my above question about what ratings agree with your assessment that our farm is above average, who are the superior talents that you see as boosting our system above the talent that most other teams have down on the farm.

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            7. I never ever said our farm is above average. I just don’t think its the fourth worst in baseball. The only other rankings I’ve seen for this year were from John Sickels and he has us at #20, well ahead of the Braves who were at #27. I don’t see ANY way the Braves system can be ranked ahead of ours in light of their graduations and trades. We will see what the prospects people at BP and Fangraphs do for their ORG rankings, but I can almost guarantee they will have us higher and the Braves lower.

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            8. Okay, since you criticized him for consistently having the Phillies below industry average, I wrongly assumed you felt we were above average. As long as you are just arguing low 20s vs high 20s, I think you have a valid point.

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  8. How about Keivi Rojas? Compare him side to side with Mitch Gueller and MG doesn’t win on anything except invested cash.

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    1. After looking at it, here is the differences. Rojas is half a year older in his second year of professional ball, including an entire set of instructs and spring training, Gueller went right from high school to Florida, Gueller has better stuff (at very least a better three pitch mix). Gueller was used as a starter over longer outings, Rojas was a 1-2 inning reliever. Not saying Rojas is a bad player but scouting the GCL on stats misses a lot of factors involved.

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      1. According to the fangraphs link posted here recently Gueller’s stuff sucks balls. It’s also untrue that Gueller pitched longer outings in general, he just began games, but his outings were relief pitcher in length.
        .

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  9. Here was Law’s top 10 before the 2011 season:
    Philadelphia Phillies
    1. Domonic Brown, RF (3)
    2. Jonathan Singleton, 1B (27)
    3. Jarred Cosart, RHP (34)
    4. Brody Colvin, RHP (76)
    5. Trevor May, RHP (93)
    6. Sebastian Valle, C
    7. Jesse Biddle, LHP
    8. Aaron Altherr, OF
    9. Jiwan James, CF
    10. Julio Rodriguez, RHP

    Obviously no mention of Worley anywhere in sight

    Here is the 2010 list:
    Philadelphia Phillies
    1. Domonic Brown, RF
    2. Juan Ramirez, RHP
    3. Philippe Aumont, RHP
    4. Anthony Gose, RF
    5. Tyson Gillies, CF
    6. Sebastian Valle, C
    7. Trevor May, RHP
    8. Scott Mathieson, RHP
    9. Antonio Bastardo, LHP
    10. Jiwan (Nathaniel) James, OF

    Good old Juan Ramirez!.

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    1. The Phillies thought very highly of Ramierez at the time of the Lee trade. He has very good fastball velocity. Command is something else again and his FB has been fairly hittable.

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    2. nik….some of these national pub guys get jobs with MLB clubs, and perhaps in their quantative/sabr analysis depts, if they have them…maybe Law was rejected by the Phillies and Ruben! (tic).

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  10. I voted for Pullin here. As a 2B, I’d have him a little higher than this. As an OF, I wouldn’t have him in the top 30. This ranking reflects the probability that he can be a 2B. I am giving an incomplete to Gueller.

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  11. Gueller again. Looks like today’s the day. Which means tomorrow I have to start defending my pick of Brody Colvin. I feel like John Adams after the Boston Massacre.

    Can someone who knows history confirm for me that my reference just now is a good one? If not good, per se, at least accurate in its portrayal of the John Adams part. Pretty sure the fate of the nation or the sanctity of due process doesn’t depend on me convincing people to vote for Brody Colvin.

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    1. As a history major I can confirm it was indeed John Adams who defended the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. However, it is not a perfect comp unless you feel it is your civic duty to protect Colvin’s rights against the unruly masses who don’t believe in him (if you do than, you got your reference right). Though all seriousness, nice use of historical reference.

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  12. Gueller again.

    The Pullin/Walding contest is an interesting one. Both 5th round picks. Pullin a positional advantage if he can make the switch. Pullin superficially a big edge in terms of performance, but upon closer examination their performances were somewhat similar if one assumes that the BABIP edge to Pullin was just statistical noise. (Another “if,” this one going the other way). Walding a level further advanced but also a year older.

    I think I’ll vote for Pullin before Walding, contrary to the current voting, but I think it’s a close and interesting comp.

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    1. The thing about Walding which is encouraging, is the fact that scouts seem to be high on him even though he had a pitiful showing in the NYPL. There was a good write up about him a few months ago, which highlighted his successs and his struggles. Of course scouts are not the end all be all, however seeing players day in and day out, they can tell if a guy has the tools necessary to succeed. It’s then on the player to put those tools together. Perhaps Walding will have a breakout year like Cody Asche did this year.

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      1. I used to read a site that when two posters wrote the same thing and one beat the other to the punch, it was called a punt block. As this is a baseball site, I propose we call it a CS.

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      2. I think that’s because most scouts think Walding can stick at 3B and the jury is still out on Pullin at 2B. If Pullin can stick at 2B, I’d put him ahead of Walding. If he can’t, Walding is ahead of him.

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      1. There were large signability issues on Walding which pushed him down boards (as evidenced by the 800k it took to get him away from Oregon, Pullin also was an Oregon commit). Additionally, before signing Walding had a good summer in a college wood bat league which raised his stock. That being said I don’t think they are too different as prospects. Walding should have more power (but he is at third base) and given their performances and reports Pullin is probably safer (was polished coming out despite weak HS competition), but I would say that Walding has more upside because there is a good swing and room for strength that the bat (both hit and power) could really jump. Also if Pullin can’t play second he doesn’t have much of a future.

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        1. I was refering mostly to both players’ status prior/during their draft year. Andrew Pullin was a top 100 HS player by BA and ESPN, before the season. Walding came on after the season, as you mentioned.

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    4. If all we had were the stats I would agree with you, but I think the Walding voting is driven by the very positive scouting reports.

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  13. I’ll probably vote Gueller this round, but I want to start making a case for Gabriel Lino to make the top 30.
    Gabriel Lino (a catcher) had better numbers across the board than Dylan Cozens(RF) in the GCL, yet Cozens is our #19 and Lino isn’t being considered yet.
    Gabriel Lino has similar numbers to Sebastian Valle, in their 1st two years stateside. Valle has been consistantly voted into our top 15 every year since he was signed, but lino is not generating nearly the buzz.

    G Lino: GCL 2011, age 18, OPS .832, wOBA .390, BB 9.0%, K 14.6%, ISO .179
    Cozens: GCL 2012, age 18, OPS .782, wOBA .370, BB 11.5%, K 24.%, ISO .186
    S Valle: GCL 2008, age 17, OPS .748, wOBA. 354, BB 6.5%, K 16.8%, ISO .126

    G Lino: SAL 2012, age 19, OPS .645, BB 8.0%, K 25.8%, ISO .130
    S Valle: SAL 2009, age 18, OPS .644, BB 8.9%, K 20.7%, ISO .108

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    2. I made the same case a week ago, he has some serious holes in his game, but there is too much there to just dismiss him as a good breakout prospect.

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      1. I apologize. I didn’t read what your post on Lino. If it looks like I plagiarized, it was not intentional. But then again, maybe I did read it, and it was subliminal. LOL

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            1. Not sure I follow. Using this logic, why not bring of Colvin’s 2010 stats in building a case for ranking him highly this season?

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            2. I’m not sure what’s not to get.
              In 2010 (with a stronger system) Sebastian Valle was rated #10 by PhuturePhillies, and he had just put up the same numbers as Gabriel Lino has, the last two years at the same age. On top of that, there were questions of whether Valle could stick at catcher defensively, whereas there are no questions about Lino’s ability.
              This is another case of a ‘traded for’ prospect not being regarded as highly as the drafted or ‘team signed’ prospect. IMO, there is no way that if Lino was drafted in 2011 with Larry Greene and Mitchell Walding, he would have lasted this long on the poll with no buzz.

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    3. That year difference in age is huge when you are talking about that level and at that early age-period.

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      1. It is actually only a 2 month age difference, Lino is May so it is his age 19, as opposed to Valle who is July making it his age 18 season (GCL starts late)

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    4. I like Lino as much as Valle, but those numbers are a bit misleading. Lino’s GCL was an extremely small sample size, even by GCL standards. It’s very shaky judging someone on 89 PAs.

      If Cozens has the same disappointing second season that Lino had, then he would tumble out of the top 30. Right now, I’d consider Cozens the better prospect because he has legit potential 40 HR power, which should translate to an above average BB rate simply because pitchers are always going to have to be careful with him. He might struggle at Lakewood, but he hasn’t yet.

      Valle was ranked higher after his first Lakewood season than Lino will be, but Valle split time between Williamsport and Lakewood and was impressive in the NYPL. If Lino had been sent to the NYPL after the trade and had a solid 200 ABs there, he’d probably be getting more attention. That might not be fair, but that’s the reality of the rankings.

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      1. Except you are comparing a guy who possibly is forced to 1B in the majors, or at the very least a corner OF to a guy projected to be a good defensive catcher. The hitting expectations between the two are vastly different, as in .750 is fine for the defensive catcher, while .850 OPS is iffy for the 1B.

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          1. Why would you assign .650 as his likely OPS number. He was skipped a level, and played the level over two (2) years younger than the median age of the SALLY. That isn’t his ceiling. Is it reasonable to expect a catcher, too young for the level, to hit the median OPS of the league?

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  14. Not sure it has been pointed out in another thread, but Joe Jordan was quoted in the Philly Inquire saying, “Kenny Giles is a top Ten (10) prospect in the organization.

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    1. He seems to be alone in that belief. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong. If Giles stays healthy and develops normally, he certainly is projectable as a closer. Still, Jordan would be the first guy I’ve seen to list him in the top 10. Perhaps Jordan is just an enthusiastic talker, for whom all the guys he likes are top 10.

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      1. His statement caught my attention because out of the 25 prospects named in the piece, Kenny Giles was the only one he assigned a number rank.

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        1. Earlier in the summer, he did say that Giles had the best arm in the organization. Of course, that is not the same thing as saying he is the best pitching talent, or even the best handful of pitching prospects, weighting starter vs reliever and nearness to major leagues. I think he has to fall behind Biddle, Morgan, Martin, Pettibone at a minimum. Among relievers, I have him behind Aumont and DeFratus, because of nearness to bigs. Where we are now in the top 30 is not too quick to have him. I was going to say that I didn’t vote for him here, because I have him behind Pullin. Actually, I erred. I have Giles at #16 on my master list and Pullin at #18. I’ll fix that in next round.

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  15. Rupp here for me. I think he has a high floor but maybe not a high ceiling. I figure he can be a 10 year major leaguer at a good backup catcher. He might start but likely due to injury or ineffectiveness of a younger upside guy.
    Really no problem with Gueller though.

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