Phuture Phillies

If you missed it, Kyle Drabek has returned to the mound after Tommy John surgery.

3 IP – 1 H – 0 ER – 0 BB – 0 K – 9:0 GB/FB

Welcome back Kyle.

I remember when Drabek was drafted, lots of people weren’t happy, thinking the Phillies had wasted a draft pick on a kid with a lot of baggage who was never going to pan out. After his rough debut in the GCL, those people started to trumpet their message even louder. But now it appears that they might have been wrong, as Drabek is 1.5 years removed from being drafted, is 7 months into the post-Tommy John surgery part of his baseball career, and he seems to be saying all the right things.

As the Phillies were going through an early spring workout, Kyle Drabek cut between two practice fields on his way to a minor-league clubhouse.

“I’d like to be out there with everyone, but spring training is a lot of hard work,” the 20-year-old pitching prospect joked.

Seven months into his recovery from Tommy John surgery, the Phils’ 2006 No. 1 draft pick knows he has plenty of rehab work ahead of him.

This time a year ago, Drabek was in spring training with the Phillies less a year out of high school. This year, he received no big-league spring invitation, just a locker at the minor-league complex.

The Texas native has been in Clearwater since October working with Phillies trainers and now is throwing at 90 feet.

He has no idea when he’ll get back on the mound and predicts he’ll miss the entire 2008 season and not pitch again until next fall in the Florida Instructional League.

“My arm feels good,” said Drabek, who has lost five pounds and some of his baby fat while rehabbing.

This coming after the report from Kevin Goldstein in his Phillies Top 11 that Drabek has had zero problems in the last year in terms of attitude or off the field trouble. The arm is special, we’ve all known that, it was just a matter of him wanting to mature and become a pitcher, not just a kid with an attitude that throws hard. Sure, this is just a minor detail with two throwaway quotes, but to me, based on everything that’s been written about Drabek over the last year, it’s just one more step closer to him realizing his talent and making the Phillies gamble on him look pretty smart.

In case you haven’t read Bill1Chair’s latest nugget of goodness, you can find it here. As Bill often tends to do, he exaggerates and sensationalizes things to try and sound like a voice of authority, when in reality, he really provides very few facts and even less context. Here is the money excerpt from his latest piece, where he basically says taking Kyle Drabek was a mistake;

Drabek became the latest first-round draft pick to join an ill-starred list of can’t-miss righthanders who became damaged goods early in their Phillies careers and never amounted to much.

The list includes Roy Thomas (1971, No. 6 pick overall), Brad Brink (1986, No. 7 overall), Tyler Green (1991, No. 10 overall) and, now, Drabek (2006, No. 18 overall.) It turned out Thomas and Brink were injured before their signings. Green had been shut down in both high school and college. I am tempted to add Brett Myers (1999, No. 12 overall) to the list, but this was the first arm injury of his career and the jury is still out on the long-term implications of history’s longest-running shoulder “strain.” Lefthander Cole Hamels (2002, No. 17 overall) had back issues in the minors, but does a rigorous daily program that has kept him healthy as a major leaguer.

Bill attempts to paint the Phillies as incompetent because we’ve drafted 3 (4 if you count Drabek) guys who had major arm trouble in the low minors, over a 35 year time period. That’s right….4 guys in 35 years, considering the position and the unstable nature of amateur talent, and Bill is convinced the Phillies do no leg work on their draft picks. He somehow tries to sneak Brett Myers into the conversation, even though Myers hasn’t been hurt at all up until this year. Also, if you notice, he’s including Drabek in the same sentence that concludes with “never amounted to much”…do you think he knows that the recovery rate from TJ is high? Wanna see an organization that can’t draft pitching? Check out Pittsburgh over the last 10 years. Jon Van Benschoten, Sean Burnett, Brad Lincoln and Bryan Bullington were all first round picks who would up with major arm problems requiring surgery, and all were picked within a 4-5 year span.

This type of irresponsible journalism isn’t new, especially from Conlin. Every once in a while he spins a good yarn about the incompetence of the Phillies ownership group, but many times, like this instance, he’s way off base. I’d recommend sending him an e-mail, his address is right at the bottom of the article above. Just a warning, you may get a snappy return that does or does not mention his timeshare in the Dominican Republic.