Monthly Archives: May 2007

VSL Update – First Two Weeks

1. VSL/DSL

After a fast start, the Phillies VSL squad has fallen back to a 6-7 record.  With a younger roster the Phillies will probably have less success than last year championships squad, but may still have some prospects.  Several 16 and 17 year olds are getting lots of playing time.  A 16-year-old hitting .230 in this league may end up being a better prospect than a 20-year-old hitting .330.  Unlike last year the Phillies also do not appear to have a dominant starter like Moises Melendez last year.  The two best starters are 20-year-olds Juan Colmenarez and Freddy Ballesta.  Both are having good years, though not as effective as Melendez or Mauricio Romero from last year’s team.  As usual, the team is offensively challenged, though a couple of new signees (Winder Torres and Luis Martinez) are potential solid prospects.

Brief notes on the better prospects and performers are as follows:

Continue reading VSL Update – First Two Weeks →

Final analysis of Phillies’ first two draft picks

2007 Draft

Ok, so we’ve done a lot of discussing, we’ve looked at a lot of different guys, and now it’s time to figure out who the Phillies should take, who they are likely to take, what the best case scenario would be, and on the flipside, what the worst case scenario could be. The draft is very volatile, meaning that one guy going higher or lower than expected could cause a ripple effect and influence many other picks. For that reason, I’m only going to guess the #19 and #37 picks, because, well, at #84, there’s really no telling who may have slipped because of signability. So, I’ll give you my “best case” for both picks, listing 3 players who would be ideal at that spot, in my order of preference, and then I’ll give the “worst case”, 3 guys I really don’t want to see, then I’ll sum it up with my exact guess on the pick. Tomorrow I’ll roll out my complete mock draft of the first round, we’ll see how close I can get. If you’d like to take a guess yourself, check back to last week, I made a mock draft post with the draft order, just copy that into an e-mail, fill it out, and send it to me, I’ll post your results along with mine. On to the picks

Continue reading Final analysis of Phillies’ first two draft picks →

Reading–Week 8

6. Reading

The Phils went 2-5 since we last spoke and are now 25-26, in 4th place and 5 games behind leading Akron in the Southern division.  Reading still has numerous players among the league leaders in categories both good and bad.  Landon Jacobsen is 4th in the league with 5 wins and 2nd in the league with 64.2 innings pitched.  Kyle Kendrick is the league leader with 66 innings pitched.  Matt Maloney is 10th in the league with 44 strikeouts, however has yielded 7 homers which ranks 3rd in the league, behind Tim McClaskey who is the league leader in homers allowed with 8.  In the hitting categories, Javon Moran, despite his injury still ranks among the leaders in runs (2nd, 36), hits (3rd, 53), and stolen bases (2nd, 16).  Greg Jacobs has been climbing the ranks and now ranks 8th in hits (50) and 3rd in RBI’s (32).  The Phils have two league leaders in hitting categories.  Jesus Merchan in  average (.371) and Jason Hill with 18 doubles.  Mike Costanzo ranks 2nd in homers with 10, and continues to lead the league in strikeouts with 67.

Continue reading Reading–Week 8 →

JA Happ Update

Other Stuff

Got an e-mail back, Happ left last night’s game for precautionary reasons due to his arm tightening up. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t even bother going further. However, I don’t like the sound of it. Ah heck, it’s a blog, I’m supposed to speculate. His control has been really bad this year, much more so than any stop in his career to date. I hate to even bring it up, but it might be ligament damage. I’m sure they’ll try rest and rehab, but you know what the ultimate outcome is. Again, this is all speculation. It might be nothing. But his lack of control was worrying to me, and this is as logical an explanation as any. Stay tuned.

I just want to clarify again. The e-mail I got simply said he left the game as a precaution due to his arm tightening up. The speculation part was all me.

Draft and Follow deadline is tonight

2006 DFE's

PGCrosschecker and Baseball America didn’t think much of our DFE’s this year, which isn’t surprising, except that Rashad Taylor did have a pretty good season all around at Skyline CC. Nick Morreale’s father checked in today in an old thread and said the Phillies aren’t going to sign him, and that he’ll play at Mesa again next year. If he isn’t drafted by a team in June, I believe he’ll be a free agent, but I might be wrong. If you have any info on any of our other guys, please pass it along. I did some searching earlier and haven’t found anything at all. Taylor and Patrick Murray were the two guys I thought we might make a run at, but it appears nothing is going to happen.

Arms to Watch Update #2

Other Stuff

I figured it was time for another update on the guys I spotlighted before the season started. To read the original piece, click here, and to read the first update, click here. Also, I wanted to give a heads up that I will be starting the mid season evaluation of every prospect I ranked in the system over the offseason. I’ll probably just go in reverse, starting with the last guys I graded and working forward. I’ll probably start working on that after the draft is over and we have time to analyze what happened, so stay tuned. Onto the update..

Continue reading Arms to Watch Update #2 →

Looking at the 2nd round of the draft

2007 Draft

If you’ve been following along for the last few weeks, I’ve begun to dissect the 2007 draft and started to ponder who the Phillies may end up with. While my belief is that you take the best available player all the time, our system is so devoid of position prospects, you almost hope that the best available guy is a position player, simply because of our lacking, but at the same time, pitching is still at a premium all around baseball, and this draft class is stocked with pitchers, especially prep pitchers. In previous entries I pondered the first round and the compensation round, hoping we’d be able to land guys like Devin Mesoraco and Nevin Griffith, and now we’ll look at who might be there in the 2nd round.

Continue reading Looking at the 2nd round of the draft →

Monday Morning 6 pack

Other Stuff

Let’s take a look back at the week that was and find out who was bringing it, and who was stinking up the joint.

Hot:

Quintin Berry: .448/.515/.552 — 7 R – 6 SB
Welinson Baez: .379/.419/.448 — 2 2B – 4 R
Carlos Monasterios: 13.2 IP, 2 ER (1.36 ERA) — 5 H — 7 BB — 8 K

Not:

Lakewood Trio (Cardenas, Milner, Henry): .179/.267/.284 — 12/67 — 3 XBH
Will Savage: 2.2 IP, 5 ER (20.46 ERA), 5 H, 4 BB, 0 K
Edgar Garcia: 6.1 IP, 6 ER (8.85 ERA), 12 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 2 HR

Notes:

* Brett Harker pitched four perfect innings, picking up 4 saves for Clearwater.

* Gus Milner, despite his struggles hitting the ball, still drew 5 walks last week

* Kyle Drabek had a nice week, just missing the list. 12 IP, 3 ER, 8 H, 5 BB, 8 K

* James Happ continues to struggle with his control….not a good sign.

* Matt Smith had a decent week, pitching 3 scoreless innings, but he did allow 3 walks. That’s not good.

* Josh Outman’s command remains a problem (4 BB in 5 IP), but the K numbers are returning.

Schedule for this week

Other Stuff

Here are some things I’m working on, with a schedule*

Monday: Monday Morning 6 Pack
Tuesday: Thinking about our 2nd round pick in the draft
Wednesday: Arms to Watch Update
Thursday: TBA
Friday: More draft stuff

* tentative, of course.

Some miscellaneous thoughts

– Carl/CJ/WhateverHeWantsToBeCalled Henry is now playing some outfield as well as 3B….hmm. It seems that most really athletic guys who struggle as infielders eventually move to the OF, where they can just let their athleticism take over and not micro-manage their defense. We’ll see if it helps Henry.

– Mike Costanzo can’t play defense….really, he can’t. With his error on Monday, he now has 17 errors on the season. For someone who was praised for his defense, this is disappointing.

– Javon Moran has 16 SB….and he’s been caught 9 times. Not good. Quintin Berry has stolen 21 bases, and been caught 7 times. That’s also not good, but he’s more raw than Moran and the speed is nice, as is his .360 OB% this season.

It’s official, Zagurski up, Coste Down, Myers on DL

Other Stuff

zagurski2.jpg

Press release.

Not really surprising, you can’t run the risk of hurting Myers further by having him out there less than 100%. Good luck to Zagurski, pray he throws strikes, and if he does, he should be up to stay. As for Coste, this isn’t surprising either, as he hasn’t really gotten AB’s since being recalled. The sad thing is, this means Barajas will remain a Phillie for a while longer.

Update: Mike was hitting 92-93 tonight. His velo is definitely up from 2005 and it looks like it’s up even from last year. If he throws like that consistently, he won’t be going back to the minors.