Sorry I don’t have time for a more substantial post today. I’ve been thinking about nothing but Arsenal’s match against AC Milan today, and unfortunately it’s prohibited me from thinking about anything Phillies related. But I did want to quickly sum up the Phillies 2008 draft picks, as the order looks close to set.
#24
#34
#51 (could be as low as 53 if both Shannon Stewart and Mike Piazza sign with other teams)
#71 (could be as low as 72 if both Shannon Stewart and Mike Piazza sign with other teams)
#109 (could be as low as 111, same reason above)
#111 (could be as low as 113, same reason above)
So, 6 picks in the first 111. This draft needs to be a home run, plain and simple.
and COME ON ARSENAL
Phuture Phillies 
Yeah I totally agree with you but its scary how the Mets have 2 – 1st round draft picks before our 1st pick. And I could see them definately breaking their rule to abide by the set amounts from MLB.
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Hopefully their 1st two will be colossal busts after they sign them grossly over slot.
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This draft is the vindication of everything Pat Gillick has tried to do for this Franchise. He has positioned us to succeed here.
If we do not, SHAME ON THE OWNERSHIP.
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Surely agree that PGH is and has been focused on the draft since he came to Philly.
An experienced and successful General Mgr knows that the success of his franchise depends on its drafting/signing/developing players, well.
In that regard he is the Anti-Wade. Wade was always looking for a quick fix to bring success to the big club by getting present players in exchange for longer term success. His choices to enhance the team were poor except for Thome. Meanwhile the minor lg system languished without many guys capable of becoming good players to reach the bigs.
Perhaps this was a major reason why he’s not here anymore.
Watching PG maneuver to get more high round choices is a pleasure; plus he is great at tweaking the roster during the season…without which they’d never have made it to post season last year. That’s why I’m gonna be sad whenhe leaves the GM-ship after ’08.
My hope is that Amaro (or whoever is to be GM) has been a good study as to how PG operates. He works quietly and gives no hints of what he really is heading toward…until he gets it done.
So…now that he has positioned the team to mine prospects with 6 choices in the 1st 3 rounds, it is squarely in the hands of the team owners. How they use these 6 should tell us whether PGs message has gotten thr9ough to the owners. If they can’t/won’t use this wealth wisely, it would be timke for an OPEN campaign for them to sell the team to people who are able to write appropriate checks.
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I absolutely agree. This draft will be one that defines the franchise for years to come. Third base and outfield definitely should be priorities. My hope is that they actually bust slot on a few of these picks and can thus get top-notch talent. I mean, I’m not holding my breath because I know the way this franchise operates, but I’m an eternal optimist.
6 picks in the first 111. That’s awesome. It would’ve been 7 (I believe) if Rowand had signed with a better team.
With Pat Burrell’s potential departure, Pedro Feliz manning the hot corner for the forseeable future, and most of our hope in the outfield lying in toolsy guys (Golson, Myers, Berry) or college guys who haven’t done much yet (Spencer, Slayden), this year’s draft would be a good time to draft guys who can flat-out play the game. The Phils need to follow the example set by the Red Sox and A’s — drafting guys who can hit well (Pedroia and Ellsbury for the Sox, Swisher and Barton for the A’s) and know how to play the game. I get terribly frustrated when I think about this, but I’m a little bit excited about this draft. However, with the way the Phillies draft and the scouts they have, I’m remaining guarded in my optimism.
And Art D., I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with your stance on Pat Gillick. He’s deceptive, and that’s why the fans never know what he’s going to do. I look at GMs like Dayton Moore, Billy Beane, and Ken Williams, and they seem much more genuinely interested in the fans and in-tune with what the fans want. Pat Gillick is responsible for the Adam Eaton signing and gave Abreu up for basically nothing. I’m not sure how you could be happy with either of those aspects of his tenure here.
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Wade was always looking for a quick fix to bring success to the big club by getting present players in exchange for longer term success.
“Always” is a a rather large overstatement. In his early years, Wade was quite stingy with prospects. Even in his later years, he would not trade his top two or three prospects under any circumstances, despite sometimes facing public pressure to do so around the trade deadlines. We are reaping the benefits of that today. He did trade mid-level prospects liberally during his later years, and obviously some of the free agent signings hurt the system, but that’s not the whole story.
I look at GMs like Dayton Moore, Billy Beane, and Ken Williams, and they seem much more genuinely interested in the fans and in-tune with what the fans want. Pat Gillick … gave Abreu up for basically nothing.
Huh? Did you ever attend any Phillies games in ’06 before Abreu was traded? I don’t think the Phillies front office’s problem is its unwillingness to give the fans what they want. If anything, it’s precisely the opposite. Why do you think we’ve had so many gritty, talentless players over the years?
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The Phillies roster in 2006 was largely built by Ed Wade. Pat Burrell and Bobby Abreu were the top-flight outfielders, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins were (and still are) the young gun infielders. Wade did some good things with putting this team in a position to win, which is what the team is now doing.
With the Abreu trade, I challenge you to find one non-financial aspect that was good about the trade. The Phils got a bunch of crappy prospects and not much else.
If the fans want a better farm system to keep the team in a position to win, why hasn’t Gillick delivered when it comes to improving the scouting, technology, and draft strategy? It’s hard to deny that Gillick’s a big fan of a guy who looks good in a uniform — guys that look athletic but may not be the best players around (Jayson Werth is one example, even thuogh he turned out to be fairly productive in a platoon). That, for me, makes it hard to say that Gillick and Co. are in touch with what the fans want. They’re still far behind the curve in terms of minor-league talent and evaluation. That’s obvious to any regular Joe who knows anything about baseball. If it’s such a glaring need, why hasn’t Gillick done anything about it? Why hasn’t he talked to the owners about it if he GENUINELY knows and cares about what’s good for the team?
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taco bell’s point was that the fans are even further behind the baseball value curve. They don’t understand the importance of walks. Get way too bent out of shape about strikeouts when a guy bangs out a prodigeous OPS. Think W – L is the biggest measure of a starting pitcher’s worth. Overvalue the guy who makes the occassional flashy play, has a dirty uniform — even if it is from stealing at a 50% rate or diving and missing grounders than any half decent 3B would catch, and shows a ton of emotion.
Phillies draft scouting and philosphy seem well above average. We have a well above average success rate on our primo draft picks. Draft budget and number of picks over recent years have been distinctly subpar. International signing budget has been pathetic and that is where a team like the Mets gets the majority of its prospects. We have only Ruiz in the majors and Carrasco in the upper half of minors last season to show for our efforts. Again — I think the international scouting is fine, but they need the $ for bonuses.
Gillick has traded more significant prospects than Wade did — Gio, Floyd, Maloney, Bourn, I think even Costanzo are more significant prospects than Wade traded.
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I disagree with each of the last three responses at some level.
First of all I am definitely a fan of Gillick but wish he were a little more new-school in his analysis of players and a tad younger!
Overall Approach: I think he does a solid job of recognizing problems and trying to fill them. I don’t see him as innovative or particularly creative however and that is a definite drawback. In fact, when he has tried to be creative I typically hate the results (Myers to the Pen).
Trading: I’m a big fan of his trading skills. Even the trades that don’t work out (Abreu, Garcia) are well thought out and seem to be reasonable gambles. It is such a great feeling for me to have confidence in our GM.
Scouting: Let’s be honest here. Both Wade and Pat had the same staff so there really is no difference. I don’t believe either of those two guys makes the decisions on the draft picks. I will therefore give credit for Utley, Ryan, Burrell, and Jimmy to Arbuckle where it belongs. Conversely, the thin farm system we have right now I will also blame on Arbuckle who is not remotely as dynamic as I once perceived him to be. In fact, I would suggest that the Phillies have the most boring drafting philosophy in the world and that really has hurt us. He rarely bust our budget on a “hard sign” and as a result we pick a lot of low-risk players.
The future: I want to see this club be willing to take chances. I want to draft the Rick Porcellos and Joba Chamberlains of the world and have a philosophy that every pick counts. We have been way too willing to throw our draft picks away on low ceiling guys (Gavin Floyd’s brother for example). Ruben scares me as a future GM because he has only been exposed to the old-style of GM’ing. While I like him as a person and can definitely see that he’s a dynamic and bright guy, I wonder if he will be daring enough to try new approaches.
Long winded but this has been bottled up for a while.
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I hope the Phillies are smart enough to manage their picks well in the upcoming draft. I agree this has to be a home run. Stealing a little from my friend allentown I think I would like to see a strategy along the lines of this (assuming that the Phillies will not generally break slot early):
1. First/Comp Round (24/34): At least one college position player – Posey, Beckham, Raben, Darnell, etc. College position players are safe and we could still use corner OFs and a 3B in the system.
2. 2nds/ Phillies Third (51/71/109); Gotta go with HS guys here I think, at least 2 of them should be pitchers. Otherwise, you’ll never get the guys signed to slot money. If you can’t get them signed, you get the comp pick in the 2009 draft.
3. Compensation Third Rounder (111): College pitcher. Have to get a signable guy here because you don’t get a comp pick in 2009 for failing to sign this kind of 2008 comp pick.
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I don’t see how crustacean assigns the blame he does to Arbuckle. He is not the one who sets the budget for draft bonuses. He is not the one who sets the organization’s philosophy about exceeding the commissioner’s guidelines for slot bonuses. That person may be Gillick, but almost certainly this is a Monty/ownership decision. The only thing you can fairly judge Arby and his scouts on is the quality of talent they identify and sign within the budget and constraints the GM and ownership lay down for them. I think they do very well in that. I don’t know if it was an Arby decision or a GM/ownership decision to draft JD Drew, knowing the ownership’s stance on bonuses. If that was Arby’s decision, then it is a very bad one that can be laid at his feet. I also think he and the scouts rated Golson way too highly and could have signed Hughes for the same $. With those big boo boos acknowledged, I have to give Arby and the scouts very high grades.
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Squire, I don’t mind that strategy I suppose, but I generally think the first 2 picks have to be the best available player, non-huge signing bonus demands division. I mean, they should draft the best player, no questions asked, but we know they don’t operate like that. I don’t think we’ll see a Porcello type slide in this draft, at least at this point looking at the crop of players available.
I’d be ok taking college hitters and prep pitchers. But I really want the best available talent.
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Allentown,
I can absolutely blame Arbuckle but your point is still a good one. Monty obviously sets the budget and I would guess you are correct that we have been hurt by drafting for slots. Still, deep farm systems are created by succeeding in lower rounds also. In fact, I think we have succeeded at the top picks more than I would have expected. Conversely the lower picks have been pretty lousy as a whole. It just seems like our system always has one future star in it and then nothing else. That star has typically been a Round 1 or Round 2 guy (Howard being the exception at Rd 4). We get poor productivity out of our lower picks. This seems a little unusual. Maybe I’m wrong though…
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I am comfortable assigning a little blame to Arbuckle. He or his staff significantly misread the signability of Jason Cooper, Jordan Parraz and Joe Saunders and we shouldn’t have been wasting picks on them.
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Well, to be honest, I don’t know how much of that is Arbuckle’s fault. They figured out how much it would take to sign Workman, the figure was agreed to, he was drafted, and the front office said they couldn’t give him that amount and tried to low ball him.
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soccer is for girls…those guys hit the ground and they act like someone shot them in the knee.
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