VSL Phillies Season Wrapup – Top Prospects

1. VSL/DSL

The VSL Phillies finished their 2007 a little while ago.  The team was a little younger than in past years and consequently struggled a little early in the season after last year’s championships.  This year the team finished a respectable 36-31, finishing in 4th place 11.5 games behind the Pirates (who fielded a very old squad).  The Phillies were about average for the league in age, though they had several younger prospects with notable performances.The rest of this post will look at my take on the team’s top prospects.  Note that these opinions are based on statistics and the age of the players only.  It is a rare sight to see an actual scouting report on a VSL prospect.  One rule on looking at prospects is common sense, however.  The better prospects generally get more playing time than the lesser prospects.  So a 17-year-old getting 200 at bats and hitting .230 may be a better prospect than a 20-year-old getting 120 at bats and hitting .300.

The prospect list is a little heavier this year on offensive prospects rather than pitching prospects.  The starting rotation was largely composed of older pitchers in the VSL, so it is hard to know who is a real prospect there (older pitchers often compile good stats with lesser stuff when pitching against younger players).  All that being said, here is my take on the prospect list:

1. Winder Torres – CF – 16 – Torres started and led off for the team as a 16-year-old.  He hit .292 with some power and decent strike zone judgement to compile a .790 OPS.  The one negative is that his season appears to have been cut short by injury a month ago.

2. Cesar Hernandez – SS – 17 – Hernandez came on strong after a slow start.  He got the majority of the team starts at SS.  He ended up hitting .276 with a .764 OPS.  He has some power and speed, as evidenced by a team high 8 3B.

3. Freddy Ballestas – RHP – 20 – Ballestas was the most dominant pitcher in the entire VSL.  He ranks 3rd here simply because of his age (20).  On the year Ballestas went 9-3 with a stellar 1.26 ERA.  In 100 IP he gave up only 62 hits and 19 BB with 98 K.  He is a likely candidate for the GCL or even Williamsport next year.  At 6’3″ and 170 he is hopefully a late bloomer with some projection left in him.

4. Luis Martinez – DH/LF – 17 – Martinez is a big kid at 6’5″ who held his own offensively at age 17.  He ended up hitting .267 with a .699 OPS, though he was over .300 until the last couple weeks of the year.  It is possible Martinez was hurt early in the year as he DH’d until the last month.  He will need to find a defensive position if he is to be a prospect.

5. Kirlian Campo – LHP – 17 – Campo is listed here on instinct, not on statistics.  He got knocked around to the tune of 1-5 and a 6.87 ERA.  But the team kept giving him regular innings at age 17 and he had decent peripherals aside from control (38 IP, 34 H, 30 BB, 43 K).

6. Juan Colmenarez – LHP – 20 – Colmenarez was the number 2 starter on the team and dominated at times.  In one game he through the bulk of a combined no-hitter.  On the year he was 6-5 with a 2.52 ERA.  His peripherals were also good (93.1 IP, 76 H, 11 BB, 89 K).  At his age, however, time is running out on his prospect status.

7. Yonderman Rodriguez – IF – 20 – If you hit .361 you have to make this list.  Rodriguez is a middle infielder playing 2B, 3B, and SS.  His OPS was a stellar .868 and he has some speed as evidenced by 19 SB.  But he is also 20 and in his third season in the league.  IMO he has been surpassed by Hernandez (and obviously Galvis), though he may have enough offense to at least get a shot next year at GCL.

Others to watch in future years include Francisco Diaz (C, age 17, .559 OPS), Jorge Guerra (C, age 19, .808 OPS), Levi Rossi (CF, age 20, .770 OPS), and Harold Garcia (3B, age 20, .785 OPS).  On the pitching side Daniel Lara (age 19, 4-4, 2.50) and Raul Romero (age 20, 8-2, 3.44) filled out the rotation while Victor Diaz is a huge (6.6″, 229) prospect with lots of difficulties finding the strike zone.

In a couple weeks after the DSL season ends we will take a quick look at the top prospects there.  The DSL team has now won 18 games in a row, with lots of contributions from younger players.  While 3-4 VSL players might get stateside promotions next year, I would not be surprised if 5-7 of the DSL players got promoted.

12 thoughts on “VSL Phillies Season Wrapup – Top Prospects”

  3. Great work, Andy–much appreciated, as James says.

    A question: what is a reasonable expectation of “success” for the VSL club? I imagine a very, very low percentage of these guys ever so much as sniff the majors; maybe one in 100? Less? With that in mind, there are presumably other measures–boosting the organization’s profile in-country, filling out the other minor-league clubs, etc. I’d like to have a better sense of this.

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  5. The first measure of success is how many of these guys will actually come state-side and perform reasonably well in GCL. There is another huge leap needed from doing well in GCL and being a major league contributor, but we really have very few that have even cleared that first hurdle. Our expanded Latin American effort, albeit with diminishing bonuses, is not nearly as recent as the apologists claim. Look at our top minors. How much of a Phillies Latin American representation is there? Even if you ignore AAA and AA, what about full-season A ball. At AAA we have Brito and Hernandez. At AA Carrasco and Julio De La Cruz. Carrasco is a very solid prospect, the other 3 are fringe. Full-season A ball features the failed Wellinson Baez, still prospect Edgar Garcia, solid prospect Bastardo, I don’t recall if SS Hernandez was originally signed by us, and fringe prospect Concepcion. Not a huge product stream. As I recall, Carrasco and Garcia both got bonuses larger than those we are currently giving internationally.

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  6. Here’s a question regarding foreign prospects on the GCL Phillies, albeit a bit off topic…

    Heitor Correa is leading the GCL Phils in innings pitched with 55 and while his ERA isn’t great (4.09), his K:BB ratio isn’t too bad (44:18) and opponents are hitting just .238 against him. Plus, he’s been a groundball pitcher this year (1.42 GO/AO).

    Why am I repeating his statistics to you off the website? Because phuturephillies wrote in a prospect wrap-up back in February to keep an eye on the kid, seeing as he’s still 17 until August 25. Phuturephillies (or anyone else knowledgeable): is this the kind of year we were hoping for out of Correa? Where does this place him now?

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  7. Freddy Galvis was also signed last year and so we also have Murillo, Rincon, and Quiroz among the Position players doing ok.

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  8. I’m not sure how good their numbers actually are. Murillo at .750 OPS has the best numbers of the trio, but he is a 21 year old 1B in the GCL. Galvis is a solid prospect and Correa seems to be a stud.

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  10. Excellent write up.

    I am very much looking forward to your DSL review and your comments on one player in particular- Catcher, Sebastian Valle. For just turning 17 in late July (7/24/1990) he put up perhaps our most impressive numbers amongst our VSL and DSL rosters: .289/[b].410[/b]/.408 for an .818 OPS. Very impressive considering he walked more than he struck out 29/25 and had 15 XBH in 168 AB. It seems like he has an excellent approach at the plate and I’m sure the power will come once he fills out.

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  12. Expectations for lots of the dsl and vsl prospects are somewhat similar to low round high school draft picks. Most don’t make it but maybe 3-5 from each club should advance each year. One difference is these guys are often 1-2 years younger than hs draftees, making them a little farther away. Plus, low round hs picks go to college or jc more often. There are simply more dsl and vsl prospects, making the success rate low.

    As for valle, I think he is our best prospect on the 2 teams combined. That might only get him near the bottom of our top 30. He is not as good as Galvis or he would already be in the u.s. We also don’t know about his defense. If he is not a catcher long term he is a lesser prospect. Hopefully we see him at gcl next year to start answering these questions.

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