Brad Harman, a personal favorite of mine, had a scorching second half of the season. In his age 21 season, playing at High A Clearwater, Harman finished the season posting OPS numbers of 1.033 and .998 in July and August. Knowing that, and looking at all of his numbers, where do you think he will rank in the Phillies Top 30 prospect list this offseason?
15 thoughts on “Where do you rank Brad Harman?”
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Phuture Phillies 
He definitely moves up the rankings after his second half this year. I’m still not at all sure he develops into a starting major league starter. I guess AA will tell the tale.
Among position players, I rank him behind Cardenas, Marson, Dominic Brown, Costanzo, for sure. I rate him about even as a prospect with Donald, Golson, Jaramillo, D’Arby Myers.
There are at least a half dozen pitchers ahead of him. Carrasco, Outman, Happ, Mathieson, Carpenter, Drabek, Savery, which I guess is 7 guys. I’d rate him about on a par with Garcia Bisenius, Bastardo, Monasterios, Naylor.
So, that puts him anywhere from about #12 to #21. If I have to pick a number, I’ll say #14.
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A curious case. Props for his reassertion of skills and for his grieving end for his family loss of the prior year. Fortunately, the Phils didn’t degrade him, and with careful handling and consideration he appears back on track toward the bigs…if he can keep this up, i.e., his 2nd half.
Here, we need to commend the Phils’ handling of his situation.
His power is beginning to assert itself, and though I know too little about his “arm” and the rest of his fielding, I certainly would look for a position other than 2nd base.
We all know the uncertainty at our 3rd base position. Why not work him at 32rd base??? That is an open position awaiting filling but 2nd base is overwhelmed with Utley and Cardenas.
He is still young by baseball standards and probably happy to learn the 3rd base position which would give him a realistic shot for fitting in a somewhat open position.
Hope that’s the tack taken.
IMO, that would greatly effect his poszition among our best prospects list. And, his performance at Reading would be of great importance…since it appears to me, that Donald, too, couldbe eligible for a position change to 3rd base.
MAYBE…Donald could playb at Reading for 1/2 of the season with Harmaqn moving to 3rd whenb Donald moves up (my hope) to AAA.
Having 3 candidates to fill 3rd basee, to include Costanzo, could be an interesting competition; competition there is GOOD.
Bye, bye to Helms (following ’08) and Nunez. Hello, the best of these 3!!
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Around #15 sounds about right – it would be nice if either he or Donald can develop into a quality utility guy
– Jeff
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Turns out the grieving Harman story was false and his mother is alive and fine.
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Just as Outman, Savery and Happ will battle for the top lefty prospect this Fall in Arizona, I hope Harman gets a shot at third in the Hawaiian Winter League to battle Costanzo playing in the AFL for the top third base prospect. Going into the Fall Leagues and after the great numbers he put up in the FSL in the second half and the championship series, I would rank him only behind Golson, Marson, Cardenas, D’Arby Myers and Dominic Brown of the position players and Happ, Outman, Savery, Carrasco, Byrd and Naylor among pitchers so that would be 12th.
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A-Town: Is that true?? How come we got deceived?? What’s the REAL story?
Thanks for any known info.
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It was reported on Philliesphans by a close follower (press credentialed) of the Lakewood team who asked a player who played with Harman. Harman’s Dad also posted on that board. It is strange. The death of him Mom was reported by BA in its prospect report for this season.
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Harman’s dad actually posted here on this blog. https://phuturephillies.com/2007/08/24/brad-harman-update/
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Art D. – you posted in the thread that Chris Harman posted in and even thanked him for his post, did you only read the first five words?
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I think you guys are underrating Harman.
He’s now had, I think, three pro seasons of full-year ball. He’s been good-to-spectacular in 1.5 of them. He’ll play all year at Reading next season, at age 22. He hits for power, draws walks and plays a high-value position. By all reports I’ve heard, his work ethic is great and his defense is fine.
Of the position prospects, the only ones I think are clearly ahead of him are Cardenas and Marson. Probably 3-5 pitchers rank ahead of him–Carrasco, Outman, Savery pretty clearly, perhaps Bastardo and Carpenter. Thus, in all, he’s probably no worse than 8th or so.
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Its a good discussion on Harman who had a great second half and arguably carried them along with Carpenter to the trophy. He defintiely has some value and will be in the top 20 prospects with all the names mentioned already. I have to think that someone from the last draft (D’Arnaud, Mattair, or Spencer?) might be ahead of him besides just Savery. Also, Myers and Berry are definitely ahead of him on potential. I’m not a big believer on changing his or Donald’s position at this point. Good middle infielders are valuable and you really need big bats at the corners and I don’t think Harman projects that kind of bat. If someone thinks that Harman can hit 25 homers in a season, then I would change my mind and try him on third but remember he already played ss at Lakewood so I don’t think it would be that big a change. I’d be curious to hear what people who have seen Marson play think about him. I’ve seen him in spring training the last couple of years and he looked great but his stats have just been okay, not eye popping. He did just catch two pitching staffs in a row that won championships on their pitching and I wondered if he deserves some of that credit.
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MRY: I claim no special know on Marson; yet I do recall reading a year or so ago a bit about how he has taken to the job of calling pitches and bringing pitchers along during games that sounds ideal for a position that should be taken seriously for its effect on games. The article also mentioned that the pitchers really appreciated his work ON THEIR BEHALF which has made them happy to be going up the line with him.
His offense has yet to reach its potential IMO. I recall that immediately after he reported to his 1st pro season that it had that certain sound when his bat hit the ball that made many suspect that serious power lurked there, somewhere. Though he hasn’t shown a lot of HR power yet, I suspect the coaches’ focus has been mainly on just making contact…for now. That seems to be working Re: ba and oba.
I would expect that he will continue to refine his catching skills at Reading with a chance he could end up at AAA during the season. Whether that suspected power will show up is anybody’s guess…but he seems a solid catching prospect exceeding MY expectations for Jaramillo.
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D’Arnaud and Mattair could zoom up the rankings next season, but since neither hit with even a .650 OPS this year, neither is going to crack my top 20. Spencer is a possibility, with an OPS near .800, so he could challenge for top 20, but both Harman and Donald play more challenging defensive positions, have better stats, and are at a higher level. For me, Spencer doesn’t rise above 19 – 20 on this year’s top 30.
Power can develop more slowly than other tools for HS draftees. Since Marson is already doing well defensively and has a quite respectable obp, I’m encouraged by his hitting. He just turned 21 in-season, so his age for high A is quite good. He has very decent size, so I think reasonable to expect the HR power will come.
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I saw Marson in spring training two springs ago take bp and he put on a show blasting at least 5 balls over the lf fence. The power is definitely there but doing it in games when they throw different types of pitches is very different as we all know. There are lots of bp home run hitters littering the minors. Jaramillo to me is not a starting major league catcher. He could be a solid career back up catcher though. Marson appears to be a guy who is right on the cusp in terms of whether he breaks through and becomes a possibility to become a starting level player in the majors.
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Reading something elsewhere today inspired me to look at Harmen in the context of the league in which he played. The FSL is a notoriously pitcher friendly league – Team OPSs hovering around .700. So I wanted to see how Harmen stacked up against other players rather than in a vacuum (790 OPS, 105/40 K/BB ratio, etc, not that impressive in itself). Turns out Harmen had the highest OPS of any middle infielder in the league. When considering players of prospect level age, it wasn’t even close. Granted that 2b isn’t the premium position SS is, but I’d rank it above 3b and on par with CF (maybe a little below) in the spectrum of defensive value. Could say something about the league, but certainly adds to how I percieve Harmen’s season.
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