As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Keith’s work, and for those latecomers to the party, Keith did a Q/A on Phillies prospects for the site here a few months ago. Check it out here. He doesn’t pull any punches, he speaks clearly, and more importantly, he backs up his comments with explanations, and was even kind enough to answer questions in the comments section here. Keith has released his rankings of top prospects by position, top 5 prospects by team, and then tomorrow, his Top 100 in the minors, all of which can be found here on his ESPN blog. With 97.3% of ESPN’s site being “Insider content”, you won’t get much, but his coverage, especially come draft time, kind of makes it worthwhile. Unsurprisingly, no Phillies prospects ranked in the top 5 at their respective positions. He’s not high on Cardenas at this point because he doesn’t really have a defensive home as of yet, and I’m sure Carrasco, Outman and Savery would be in the 10-20 range for RHP and LHP. His Top 5 for our team is Carrasco, Savery, Drabek, Outman and d’Arnaud.
Update: Keith ranks Carlos Carrasco #53
The Phillies’ system is not strong, and Carrasco is the one legitimate above-average prospect in it at the moment. Carrasco’s best attribute is his easy velocity, mostly 90-94 and touching 95 at times, with fringe-average command. His secondary stuff is a work in progress, with his short downer curveball ahead of his changeup, on which he slows his arm too much. Because his arm works well, it’s possible to project him as someone who’ll have three average pitches down the road, and he might pick up a few more miles an hour as he fills out or if he lengthens his stride a bit, all of which would make him a solid No. 3 starter in the majors.
From his ESPN Chat
Danny(Philly): Hey Keith I know your not a big fan of Cardenas because of a lack of position. Was he still close to making the list?
SportsNation Keith Law: (2:36 PM ET ) He wasn’t close, but he’s a guy I’m keeping an open mind on for 2008. If I see more with the bat and/or an improvement defensively, he’ll be on this list next year. Maybe he should have been, but I’m sticking with what I saw.
James (Roxboro, NC): Joe Savery and Kyle Drabek, simply not good enough for the top 100 or do injury history/concerns drop them?
SportsNation Keith Law: (1:35 PM ET ) Drabek is still out with TJ, and I think I only had two guys on my list in that situation, both in the 90s.
Phuture Phillies 
i hate insider, they make enough money and should make the site free
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The concern about position is fair, but Cardenas seems to be fine at 2B. His future should not be discounted because of Utley. He can be traded, the value is still there.
I agree Carrasco, Savery, Drabek, Outman in some order of top 5, but REALLY, unless d’Arnaud is a heck of a lot better than we think, Cardenas has to be top 5. Given injury issues with Drabek and Savery, I think Cardenas has to be top 3.
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Really, this is just so typically Phillies. Most teams start with a bat and if the bat is great, they find a position. The Phillies fret and fret over D and a position home. They really penalized Howard and Slayden for this. Really, Utley lost a major league season to this disease. Hopefully, Cardenas is not the next victim.
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Its not hard to agree with the 4 pitchers since we all hope they’ll be starting in the majors fairly soon (Drabek a little later). Having him exclude Cardenas tells you something though. It might suggest that he really likes D’Arnaud and that’s great but it also might mean that Cardenas is a great hitter for a 2B but only a good hitter as an OF. A LF without power is not a huge commodity. Cardenas needs to stay at 2B or 3B to have value, without power. Obviously, if he can develop power like Utley has, then he’ll be valuable anywhere but that’s far from a given.
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Is there another team as stacked at catcher as the Phillies? Wow, talk about a position of strength. Seeing D’Arnaud ranked so high makes me much happier than seeing Cardenas up there. At some point the Phillies are going to have to extract top talent in exchange for one of their young backstops. Hopefully it will be a front line starting pitcher.
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We know from the chat that Keith is just not a fan of Cardenas defensively and likes D’Arnaud a great deal. All of these lists are very opinionated, especially after the top 20 or so obvious prospects. I do think he could have chosen another #100, as picking Brackman with zero pro history and Tommy John surgery does speak to a personal preference. Not that he is wrong, but Savery and Drabek are both as worthy as Brackman. Not that I think Savery and Drabek are top 100 prospects. I think they have some things to prove post-injury in pro ball to prove they are top prospects.
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Man, these evaluators drive me crazy (not Keith Law in particular, I tend to like his stuff) but is it just me or has ther been mention of Carrasco having one of the best change-ups in the minors? I just popped over to B-Ball America and saw he has best change-up in the Phils org, and also was rated the best in the FSL. Either there were some really sucky change-ups in the Phils Minors/FSL or just another large variance in scouts opinions. Keith says it’s his third best pitch and doesn’t seem to like it let alone love it.
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I think you have to remember that different scouts look for different things. KLaw mentioned that he slows his arm down on the pitch. In the minors, he might get away with it because of the quality of guys he’s facing. But at the highest level, good hitters will pick up on that immediately. His changeup does have good fade and movement, so it could be great, but if he doesn’t sell it well with good arm speed, batters won’t chase it at higher levels, and that’s probably what Keith is alluding to.
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KLaw also predicted that last year Kendrick would fall flat on his face. His is not always right.
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Guys who evaluate minor league players and rate them are just making guesses. They are educated guesses using the best available information. They are kinda interesting and fun to look at and talk about. But they really are just guesses when you get right down to it.
What would really be fun would be to get a top 100 list from 5 years ago from all of these guys and see how good there guesses were. Lots of good players would not be on anyone’s list and lots of highly rated guys would still be looking for their first big league success.
Guys use so many different criteria for these types of ratings that you just can’t get to worked up over them. I’ll tell you what. The Phils haven’t had many guys in the top 100 lately yet they have a lot of good youngish players. Utley, Howard, Rollins, Hamels, Ruiz, Victorino, Madson, Myers are all good to great players and they are still pretty young. That’s pretty decent.
Meanwhile, a guy like Gavin Floyd was once a top rated prospect.
Having a bunch of top rated prospects is certainly a good thing. But having a bunch of good to really good, young big league players is better.
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Yeah, it’s all hot air. If these guys gave glowing reviews of Phillies prospects, then their word would be gold.
No one has ever said that any scout or evaluator’s word is the final say on any player. But you learn who has a better track record, who is better equipped to evaluate, and you listen to them more carefully. Any player is capable of coming out of nowhere, but they are in the minority. Howard, Hamels, Myers, Rollins and Utley were always on prospect lists.
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It’s not hot air and I didn’t say anything close to that. They make educated guesses. It’s good information. It’s fun to read and to discuss. How many Phillies get on the list doesn’t matter all that much to me. I don’t see how that would make and of these guys’ guesses any better or worse.
It isn’t anything to get all worked up over, that’s for sure.
Whether or not the Phillies get a lot of guys in some guy’s top 100 is really not all that important. What is important is who actually does develop and who contributes to the team.
The Phils aren’t putting a lot of guys in anyone’s top 100 prospect list. Nor should they. They have some hurt guys and some really young guys who might pan out and make a future list. And a guy like Outman or someone might get his command together this season and be in the big leagues before he has a chance to make a top 100 list. If that happens it will be OK by me. If Outman becomes a valuable pitcher for the big club this season and he doesn’t ever make a top 100 list it won’t bother me a bit.
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I like Kendrick a lot, but he still might fall on his face.
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Catching does seem to be a strong point for the organization. Even 21 year old, lefthanded hitting catcher Joel Naughton, who backed up Gosewisch at Lakewood, is hitting .393 for Queensland in the the Aussie Claxton Shield tourney in which his team is battling to get into the finals this weekend down under. In the same tournament in 07 Naughton hit only .222.
All this is good Hot Stove debate but come April in Reading we will know rather quickly where this farm system ranks with a team of Golson in center, Donald at short, Harman at second, Marson behind the plate and a big three starting staff of Outman, Carrasco and Carpenter. If all or most of them produce at the AA level everything will be all right. If not the pundits will have been proven right. After all Kendrick and Coste made the jump directly from there to CBP last summer and helped put the team into the post season down the stretch. Not too many other of these highly ranked farm systems could make such a boast last year!
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