If you head to the top of the page and click the depth chart link, you’ll see all of the rankings. If you still strongly disagree with the placement on the list, you can leave a comment on the depth chart page and state your case, and maybe others will agree. I’m going to spend some time this week hopefully adding a few more player profiles and working on some other miscellaneous tasks for the site. Today’s question of the day; which Phillies prospect, if any, do you see making the 25 man roster out of spring training?
27 thoughts on “Depth Chart updated”
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Phuture Phillies 
Assuming no injuries, and this is tough to do because there probably will be some, Jaramillo (to allow Coste to pinch hit)and Snelling (as a lefty pinch hitter) will fight with the 12th pitcher for the 25th spot on the roster. That last pitching spot is probably going to come from among Shane Youman, Vic Darensbourg, Rosario, Travis Blickley, Condrey and Zagurski and Castro. I’m guessing Darensbourg makes it as the situational lefty for the last spot and one of these other guys (Blickley?) beats out JD Durbin for the long spot.
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Bisenius or Jaramillo would have the best shot. Bisenius made the team out of spring training last year so I figure he could do the same this year. Jaramillo because he is probably the most major league ready of the position player prospects.
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Don’t the Phils have a couple rule #5 guys ?
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Yes, Blackley is the likelier of the Rule 5 pitchers to make the team. Zagurski or Bisenius seem to have the best chance from farm to stick out of ST. Jaramillo probably deserves to be major league backup, but the Phillies probably start him in Allentown as injury reserve.
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One or more of Bisenius, Happ, or Mathieson would be great depending on his or their having a good spring traing in March-April.
Since the non-pitchers roster seems completely filled, barring ST injuries, the search should also include those several FA signees as well as the Rule 5 choices.
The FO sure would like toi see Jaramillo play day to day, so unless a need develops on the big club, he is unlikely to go N. w the Phils…except to keep on going to Allentown.
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barring injury or a late trade, I don’t see any prospect making the 25 man roster. The positional players are already set with Snelling being the most likely extra player added if needed.
The 11 position players are Howard, Utley, Rollins, Helms, Dobbs, Burrell, Victorino, Werth, Jenkins, Ruiz, Coste, and Bruntlett.
As for the pitchers, at least 1 of the 2 rule-5 picks will get the 12th pitcher’s spot on the roster spots unless they completely flop in spring training and I don’t see the Phillies trying to hide 2 pitchers(the rule 5 pick and an unproven prospect) in the bullpen.
The 12 pitchers are probably Hamels, Myers, Moyer, Kendrick, Eaton, Lidge, Gordon, Madson, Romero, Blackley, Condrey, and Chad Durbin.
I still think that Gillick will acquire another starter (Loshe?) before the season starts as well which makes one less spot.
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Update since I can’t count.
The 12 position players are listed. The 13th pitcher will most likely be either the other rule-5 pitcher (Holdzcom, J.D. Durbin, or Ennis)
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Bisenuis or Mathieson. Blackley could impress as a rule-5 also.
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One plausible scenario is Rule 5 Lincoln Holdzkom is lights out in his spring training appearances and then must be kept on the 25 man roster.
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I don’t think that Bisenius will break camp with the team. He seems to have taken a step back last season and didn’t perform especially well.
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Alan K, no disrespect, but you still can’t count. If a team carries 12 pitchers, they carry 13 position players (8 regulars and 5 bench players for every game). Typically, this is a backup catcher, 2 backup If, and 2 backup OF. Hence the terms 4th and 5th outfielder. So 12 + 13 = 25.
You started with 11, then bumped up to 12 position players. I have faith that you can get to 13! :~)
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Rickey B: Would be nice if Holdzcom could transform himself this spring. but the chances are slim. He is said to be a very hard thrower who is all over the place, both in his mechanics and where the ball goes.
Blackley has a rep for having decent stuff and good command. Has had some stellar minor league seasons. Just has to rebound a little more from his 2005 operation. Hopefully he will step it up this year.
So both of our Rule 5s are big ?.
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Rob: Bisenius has AAA disease. Seems like any B prospect Phils put there takes a nosedive. Segovia, Happ, Bisenius. They all come up with mysterious injuries after promising seasons in AA and below. You could be right that Bisenius (Happ too) is done as a decent prospect. All we can hope is that it was a 1-year bout with tendinitis or something and that better conditioning returns them to form.
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I think they’ll keep Blackley if he does okay and he’ll either be in the rotation or will be the long man out of the pen – they’ll keep him around in case pitchers go down, which they invariably do. They are taking a flyer on Holdzcom – IMO, they don’t expect to keep him, but if he’s lights out this spring that could change.
Bisenius is not ready – he’s not coming north for opening day, although he could be up later in the season. Mathieson will probably also not be promoted for opening day. My hunch is that they are grooming him to set-up or replace Lidge (yes, I doubt they intend to keep Lidge). He could be up by May or June, however.
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Assuming the Phils carry 12 pitchers and assuming 10 of those spots are already claimed (Hamels, Myers, Moyer, Kendrick, Eaton, C. Durbin, Lidge, Gordon, Madson, Romero) that only leaves two spots open for competition in the Spring.
Something to consider is that Rosario, J. Durbin, Condrey, Youman, Blackley, and Holdzkom all cannot be optioned to the minors (not sure about Ennis)…so I think the Phils would be inclined to keep two of these guys over any pitching prospects who still have options (Casto, Mathieson, Bisenius, Zagurski, Happ).
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jamaal: I agree if the competition is close. If one of the guys with options is really throwing well, though, he makes it anyway, hopefully. I am of the opinion that you need 7 guys in the pen you can trust to at least throw out there in the 6th or 7th inning who can get some guys out and not blow up. Gordon might be limited to 55 IP or so this year, so maxmizing the other 6 guys is critical–IOW, no dead wood.
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Catch 22: If Blackley makes it as long man, that nudges C Durbin into a regular 6th or 7th inning role, since he was considered to be the long man if he did not make the rotation. It all depends on Eaton and Moyer. If Eaton sucks the same as ’08, plug one of those two in. If Moyer looks like age is catching up, plug in the other one. In the latter case, I think Moyer ccan pitch like last year again, given his dedication to conditioning and the fact that he does not rely on power pitches at all, but guile and slight of hand.
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Diamond – I agree you can’t “hide” guys on the 25 man roster. However, I wonder if management will be hesitant to try and send players through waivers given the situation that ocurred last year w/ Germano. I don’t think the Phils actually kept Bisenius at the expense of Germano last year b/c IIRC Germano was waived w/ two weeks left in camp, but in essence that’s what happened.
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Others have the run the numbers with more precision than I have. But I don’t think the Phils will be too troubled by losing C. Durbin if they decide that Blackley is a better option. Their commitment to Durbin is tenuous at best and I think they believe, with some justification, that you can never have enough capable lefties. Whether Blackley is a capable lefty is unclear – he does appear to have some ability.
Anyway, if you had to ask me to guess the 12 pitchers who will go north with the club, I would predict as follows:
Hamels, Myers, Moyer, Kendrick, Eaton, Lidge, Gordon, Madson, Romero, Blackley, and Zagurski.
I also predict that someone is going to be on the DL by the end of spring training and, if so, I expect Durbin would join the club.
You know the more I think about the pitching staff the more obvious it becomes that Eaton is just a huge millstone around the figurative neck of the organization. What do you do with him? No matter how you look at it, he creates a problem. If they are lucky, he will enter the year on the DL and they can collect insurance and open a roster spot. If he continues to be as bad as he was last year.
It’s very hard to watch the Phillies try to screw Ryan Howard out of $3 million when they are paying Adam Eaton about $ 8 million. I mean, I understand all of the dynamics surrounding both situations, but, on the whole, it’s surreal.
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Hey, my math stinks too – I realize that I undercounted – I guess there is room for Durbin after all. My bad.
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Jamaal,
Are you sure you meant Chad Durbin will make the team….hopefully you meant JD Durbin. I think Chad has an outside shot to make the team and if he does it might be Condrey’s spot that he takes, but you hit the nail on the head about those with options remaining. Happ, Bisenius, Zagurski, and Mathieson will all open in AAA. Youman wont make the team, but probably will clear waivers. They like Rosario so he might grab that last spot….just depends if they like either of the two Rule 5s better……it should be an interesting battle.
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Someone’s forgetting So Taguchi as the 5th outfielder. That makes 13 position players.
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James, what happened to Taking Back The Hall? I was looking forward to voting on it.
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DiamondDerby,
I agree that Happ and Bisenius are done as A-list prospects. I remember prior to last season, people over on Beerleaguer were talking about Bisenius as the closer of the future. Now he just looks like a mop-up guy after a bad year at triple-A.
For some reason, I still believe that no matter where a player plays, he should perform to the best of his ability. I REALLY hope that both JA Happ and Bisenius have more ability than what they showed last season and can be serviceable if the Phillies need them to be. However, I don’t picture either of them really being much more than that. Happ’s strikeout numbers were incredible two seasons ago, but I think he was exposed when he got to the bigs as a (somewhat) soft-tossing lefty. As we’ve seen before in the bigs, those kind of pitchers can get rocked (check out some of Jamie Moyer’s stats from last season).
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Dave,
I think Chad Durbin signed a major league contract…if that’s the case then I think he’s pretty close to a lock to make the 25 man roster out of ST. I don’t see the front office waiving one of their “key” free agent signings.
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Too soon to write off Happ and Bisenius, as they both had health issues last year. This season definitely make or break, especially for Happ.
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I’ve already written about Happ several times, so I won’t chime in him. But I do not think that we should conclude that Bisenius has no future. If you carefully review his game lines and what is said about, what I think you might conclude (as I have) is that Bisenius has a very good arm, but struggles with his command. His outings tend either to be disastrous or dominant. If he really does thrown 95, he could take a step forward at any time and, for what it’s worth, his name is the one that Charlie Manuel continually mentions when people talk about players making the team out of ST. Now, I personally, think this would be a bad idea because he has not yet excelled at AAA, but the people on the big league team have their eyes on him.
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