Today I was thinking I’d share my biggest surprise of the young season, and ask you for your biggest surprise, whether its a player playing really well or a guy struggling. I know which guy most people are going to talk about, so instead I’ll go for a guy who has kind of flown under the radar, despite getting off to an excellent start. The Phillies jumped Matt Spencer over Lakewood, despite him not having the greatest of debuts, and so far, he’s responded.
Here is Spencer’s line to date;
65 AB: .323/.392/.554 — 4 2B – 1 3B — 3 HR — 8 BB — 14 K
To me, that is a fantastic start. His debut last year at short season Williamsport looked like this
179 AB: .263/.320/.469 — 10 2B — 0 3B — 9 HR — 11 BB — 46 K
Spencer is controlling the strike zone reasonably well, he’s hitting for average, and he’s hitting for power as well. For a team that lacks power prospects of any kind really, its nice to see Spencer coming out of the gate strong. He still has a ways to go, obviously, but this is a promising sign, and to me, one of the better performances out of our prospects this spring. This was my writeup on Spencer in my Top 30;
16. Matt Spencer, OF — Age 22 — (SS) — 2007 (3rd Round)
2007: 198 PA — .320 OB% — .469 SLG% — 5.6 BB% — 23.2 K% — 40.4 XBH%
The Phillies lacked anything resembling a true power prospect in the system prior to the 2007 draft, so the braintrust picked 3 guys in the first 6 rounds that fit the bill, Matt Rizzotti, Michael Taylor, and the best of the bunch, Matt Spencer. Spencer, a junior out of Arizona State, had a somewhat disappointing college career after being considered a quality prep talent in the 2004 draft, starting at UNC and transferring to ASU due to a lack of playing time at UNC after dealing with injuries. He has great raw power, and has shown it with wood bats, most recently on the Cape in 2006, where he compiled 16 doubles and 8 HR in 179 AB. In the pitcher friendly NYPL, Spencer logged 10 doubles and 9 HR in 179 AB, a sign that the power is there. The BB rate and K rate are troubling, and he could easily struggle next season at Lakewood or Clearwater if he doesn’t adjust, but the raw power is there, and he is at least an average right fielder, but could end up in left. The Phillies still lack a true impact power prospect, and Spencer could be that guy. He’ll need to put in more quality AB’s and work the count. The strikeouts are likely to always be there, as they are with most big power hitters, but if he can get in the 11-13% BB rate area, he’ll be a Top 10 prospect at this point next year. If he opens in Lakewood, he’ll be 2 years too old for the league, but he should be able to take advantage of weaker competition and put up big numbers before moving on to Clearwater in the summer. He profiles as an every day corner OF with 25-30 HR power, lots of strikeouts, and hopefully a decent amount of walks as well….a three true outcomes kind of guy possibly.
It looks like I might have underrated him a bit, as I didn’t expect the Phillies to jump him over Lakewood. Now share your pick for most surprising performance so far.
Phuture Phillies 
Greg Golson has always been my guy and the plate discipline he’s shown this year has been a very pleasant surprise. Thus far, his walk rate of 7.8% is a career high
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For me, a three way tie between Golson, Spencer, and Monsterios, with Marson getting an honorable mention.
– Golson has been consistently with multiple hit games, and is actually drawing some walks. He’s becoming quite an exciting player
– Spencer, for the reasons James mentioned – he has been putting up some really nice numbers. I wonder if he might get bumped to Reading around midseason if he keeps up.
– Monasterious will hopefully salvage the Abreu trade. Nice game last night, and he has been very good all year
– Marson gets a mention mostly for his OBP (although he is a quality prospect)- I noticed that he has more walks than Ks at this point. Hopefully the Phillies call him up when he is ready rather than burying him at AAA for 2-3 years like they always do with their catching prospects (Estrada, Estalella, now Jaramillo)
– Jeff
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Suprise – Monasterious
Disappointment – Carpenter
I would pick Golson but I picked him to break out this year. Hopefully he keeps it up.
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I’m actually starting to be somewhat impressed by Golson. He’s had a good couple of weeks with the bat and his K/BB numbers are improving. He just might turn the corner this year.
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Golson has a history of starting quickly (at least in new leagues)- but he’s never kept it up for this long. I can’t wait until someone interesting gets promoted to the Iron Pigs so there is someone interesting to pay attention to in their box scores.
Michael Taylor’s numbers are very surprising to me- i’m still not a great believer that he’ll carry that up through the organization- or even through this year, but i’m not gonna complain!
Michael Durant- he’s the better prospect over Taylor, he’s been walking and hitting pretty well, but with every downturn in his batting average this year i’ll keep wondering ‘ok, maybe that was it, thats all he is’. Definitely very excited about him though.
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Agree with pretty much everything said above.
Surprises: Golson, Monasterios, Spencer, Taylor, Durant, Brummett
Disappointments: Carpenter, Berry, Diekman, Jaramillo and Happ (and pretty much everyone on the IronPigs)
Very impressed by Monasterios, Golson, and Spencer in particular, as everyone’s mentioned. Still early though, so this can obviously change a lot.
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ditto on Golson, Monasterios, Spencer, Taylor. also very happy to see cardenas rake. he must have hurt himself as he hasn’t played lately. but he looks like he is way above high-A in ability.
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Well, the major surprises are all obvious and covered. Off the radar a little is Matt German, 6 G, 8 IP, 3 BB, 12 K, 0.00 ERA, .077 BAA, 1.40 GB ratio. 0.63 WHIP. Big 6’8″ lefty. Anyone know his stuff? Is he a hard thrower?
I thought Tyson Brummett would do well, based on pedigree and his first pro experience, but he islighting it up, 28K in 24 IP, 1.04 WHIP.
Fabio Castro is also a suprise with his consistency. I would like to know if that means the light has gone on for him a little and he is more advanced in his mechanics and mindset than last year.
Maybe my biggest surpise is that a passle o’ mashers are all doing well, hopefully showing Phils know how to spot talent after the premium guys are gone: Spencer, Taylor, Durant, Brown, Slayden.
Disappointments? I thought Diekman would be more effective, but it’s early. Also, Mattair is struggling as much as last year and may need to take the slow train to majors if he even has a ticket to that destination. I thought Jaramillo would build on last year’s improvement, but it could just be the cold weather. He looks like a perrenial .260+ guy with 10 HRs, etc. I was hoping Blackley, Happ or Bisenius could help this year, but they’re not taking their second or third AAA exeperience and running with it yet.
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“Off the radar a little is Matt German, 6 G, 8 IP, 3 BB, 12 K, 0.00 ERA, .077 BAA, 1.40 GB ratio. 0.63 WHIP. Big 6′8″ lefty. Anyone know his stuff? Is he a hard thrower?”
Low 80’s soft tosser with low arm slot sweeping slider.
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Hmmm. That’s interesting. Just seeing his size would lead you to believe he was a flamethrower. Still, he’s putting up some terrific numbers. Despite his lack of velocity, he’s probably brutal for lefties to pick up.
Another reliever who has been doing pretty well is The Bear. His walk totals are a bit high 5bb in 9 innings, but nice gb ratio.
– Jeff O
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” ‘Off the radar a little is Matt German, 6 G, 8 IP, 3 BB, 12 K, 0.00 ERA, .077 BAA, 1.40 GB ratio. 0.63 WHIP. Big 6′8″ lefty. Anyone know his stuff? Is he a hard thrower?’
Low 80’s soft tosser with low arm slot sweeping slider.”
Hmm . . . let’s hope for Tom Glavine-like command. High minors hitters will start to lay off the sweepers and he will have to start coming in. Still, he is what he is and good to see a guy lights out.
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Who is “The Bear”? Reminds me of Zags, but he’s not pitching.
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Good surprises to me would be Fabio, Golson, Spencer and especially Michael Taylor. I don’t agree that Taylor will flame out. He’s a guy that’s been watched for years with the “potential” tag and he looks great to me. When you see what he looks like physically, if he can put it together, you might have a major unexpected player there. On the negative side for me, it would have to be Jaramillo, Diekman, and Harman (promotion not withstanding) as well as the overall poor won loss records of the teams.
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Tyson Brummett. He is emerging as the ace this year for Lakewood and is standing out from the big five that started at the end of last season for the Cutters: Naylor, Savery, Diekman and Chapman. Last year he was 5-5 with a 3.40 ERA, nothing special. After four starts he leads the Sally in strikeouts, opponents are hitting .202 and his FO/GO is an excellent 1.80. At 23, he should be moved up soon.
“I pitch for strikes and let the defense do the work,” he said. “The Phillies want me to throw my fastball a lot more this year. In a couple of games, I got away from it.
“As I mature, the fastball will become more of a part of my game. It was clocked between 88-92 miles per hour last year. This year, it has been at 89-92. I touch 93 with it occasionally.”
“Tyson goes out there, works quickly and throws strikes,” Lakewood manager Steve Roadcap said. “He knows how to pitch.”
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‘The Bear’ is Rich Hill
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I am positively surprised the most by Golson and Durant. Taylor doing a little better than expected. Don’t know what to make of Castro. He has pitched well, but why was he demoted to AA? Biggest disappointments are Jaramillo, D’Atby Myers, and Carpenter, whom I fear is injured. Galvis and Mattair haven’t hit, but are very young. Mitchell is older, but really stinks — not a disappointment, I don’t see him as even approaching prospect status. Spencer doing very well, but expected that. Monasterios also, though he is not young for the league.
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Monasterios is definitely the guy whose performance has jumped out at me. The G/F rate is compelling, and it’s always big to see the numbers improving as the player moves up the ladder. He’s 22, so it isn’t like he’s young for high-A, but at the least I’m thinking he could develop into a very useful middle reliever, and at the high end a decent #4 who keeps the ball in the yard.
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To allentown, Myers is in and out of the line up, sometimes he starts in the 7th, or 8th innings and he gets only 1 at bat. 90% of the batters do not reach base saftly until after their first at bat.He is hitting in the 7th, 8th or 9th batting order, he is the fastest on the team and he’s batting at the bottom of the line up. I go to the games to watch him run, he brings exceitment to the game. Maybe the line up will change, in the last 2 games he was the lead off man and he reached base both times, he got 5 at bats and reached base 5 times as the lead off man. I think that should be his position.
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“Bear” is actually Ron Hill.
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I’m very pleased with Golson’s start, and I can’t argue with
most of the names listed above: Spencer, Monasterios,
Taylor, etc. etc. Durant seems to be cooling off, but I still
have hopes for him. I was disappointed to hear about
German’s stuff because I had fantasized about him
throwing in the mid to upper 90s… I guess we’ve got to
give Galvis some time to learn what to do with the lumber…
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Matt German is a lot closer to 6’3″ than he is 6’8″ but he has been carving them up at Clearwater.What is GO/AO,I noticed Rocchio is at 19 and no one else is even close
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GO/AO is the ground ball to fly out ratio.
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Wow! Hasn’t anyone on this site noticed LHP RJ Swindle in Reading? He has a 0.77 ERA in 11.2 IP with 12 Ks and 1 BB (it was intentional) and he has only given up 6 hits. He is leading the Reading bullpen in innings pitched, so luckily for him the Reading coaches are noticing him.
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Isn’t Swindle the guy that throws that 56 MPH curveball or some kind of offspeed pitch.
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yes. The curve comes in around 52 -56 and he throws his fastball around 79-83, with a variety of other pitches in between those velocities.
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Actually German is alot closer to 6 foot and 200 lbs. No where close to the reported 68 240. Low arm slot. Shows fastball. Works with different sliders. Has been effective througout career, college and professional. Not a true prospect but numbers don’t lie so far. And yes Swindle is the guy with the ephus pitch.
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Reading’s pitching coach Tom Filer calls Swindle’s mystery pitch the “super looper” and he has a good back door breaking ball.
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Not really a surprise, but my fave, Antonio Bastardo has stepped up his game in Clearwater. He’s only given up 4 runs in 22.2 IP, with a 34/9 K/BB ratio, 18 HA, and a .41 GO/AO (not pretty). Tonight, he got out of the 6th inning for the first time in Clearwater, going a full 7 (perfect through 4), giving up 4 hits, 2 ER (both solo shots, the first of which broke the perfect game) and 0 BB to go along with 12 K (3 looking, 9 swinging). At the very least, his splits indicate he has the stuff to be a LOOGY. 24 outs recorded, 3 HA, 1 BB, 16 Ks, .115 BA.
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kudos to ducky bastardo should be at reading he is a star in waiting whether it be the pen or rotation. and with all apologies to the pigs triple a is the last place a prospect wants to be. any bb fan knows that double a is wear your future players are. triple a is as close to independent ball as there is.
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“Actually German is alot closer to 6 foot and 200 lbs. No where close to the reported 68 240”
my first thought was this was hooey, I don’t remember him not looking big- but sure enough, his illinois senior profile has him at 6′ 185 lbs.
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Yeah, I saw that Bastardo had another strong outing last night…he needs to go to Reading to face more advanced hitters….he is simply dominating A+ right now.
Also Victorino was supposed to start his rehab in Clearwater last night but I didn’t see him in the box score…does anyone have an update on his status?
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1. Where are our flamethrowers. Would like to see a few 94+ guys developing with maybe one getting to majors?
2. The GO/AO abbrev. has always confused me. I have also seen GO/FO. For a time, I speculated the GO/AO was ground outs to all outs, which would give a ground ball precentage. That would make sense to me and easy to understand for anyone. The ground ball to fly ball is a ratio and does not show Ks as part of the stat. How about someing like g/f/k, which would read 36/30/34, for example, and would always add up to nearly 100% (with runners tagged out and K victims being put out at 1B being the flies in the ointment).
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Bastardo, anyone? 12K last night in 7IP (0 BB, which is even more impressive). This guy is simply mowing guys down. It will be interesting to see how he is handled because it’s getting to the point where he needs to face better hitters to truly gauge how good he is/can be.
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Victorino did start his rehab last night in Clearwater, but it was at extended spring training not the threshers
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AO is Air Outs, which I think may count line drives as well as flyballs, so its a slightly misleading stat. Its better to use minorleaguesplits when it gets updated, because it separates ground balls, line drives and fly balls.
And wouldn’t you know, when I start gushing about Spender he goes 0/6. ha
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****Victorino did start his rehab last night in Clearwater, but it was at extended spring training not the threshers****
Thanks…do they plan to put him in a lineup at some point this week so he can face live hitting?
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Bastardo had the most unusual pitching line I have ever seen last night: Of his 21 outs, none were by a ground ball, 12 K’s and 9 FO plus he gave up 2 home runs. Those are more like Hamels type numbers when he is on.
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Bastardo is going places . . . . soon. I imagine that, if his dominance continues at Clearwater, he’ll be in Reading by no later than early May. If he also dominates at Reading, do not be surprised to see him in Philadelphia before the season is over, particularly if there is an injury to one of our pitchers. I like the way the pitching is coming together at the minor and major league levels – I expect that, in the next two years, there will be significant turnover the major league team’s starting and relieving staff as a result of young pitchers forcing out expensive and less effective veterans.
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I hope your optimism is well-founded, Catch 22. It does look like we are deeper in pitching prospects than at any time in the last several years. There is no Hamels, maybe not even a Myers, but a passle o’ guys who could see the majors. We will need everyone of them to keep at it, as attrition wields its ruthless cutting knife through injury, unpredictable performance drops or confidence crises.
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So do I. Personally I think we have a very good 3-4-5 situation coming up in the next couple of years for the rotation. If Hamels is able to stay healthy (and gets resigned of course) and Myers stays as a good #2 we then have Outman and Carrasco coming up fast as well as maybe Savery and/or Bastardo in the next few years and whoever else shows up. I’ve already written off Kendrick but then I pretty much felt he was another Duckworth from the start.
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Hamels is here the next several years, whether signed long-term or not. The guy who could be leaving after next season is Myers and I think odds better than 50-50 that he does leave. Kendrick has already accomplished more than Duckworth did. As I recall, Duckworth had injury problems that finished him off. Another guy in pretty much same mold as Duckworth who got injured at Reading and traded to Mets, but was dominating at AA, was Adam Walker.
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“my first thought was this was hooey, I don’t remember him not looking big- but sure enough, his illinois senior profile has him at 6′ 185 lbs.”
So what’s with the 6’8″/240 crap then? Who’s responsible
for that?
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To Allentown: I agree on Myers…Although I think the Phillies would probably like to sign him to a long term deal as well as Hamels.
My Kendrick/Duckworth comparison was merely trying to state that each had an unexpected good year and never amounted to anything. I just don’t think Kendrick has what it takes to make it at the MLB level. He doesn’t have an out pitch and he doesn’t have the control to get by with mediocre stuff. I like his competitive nature but I don’t see him here much longer.
****So what’s with the 6′8″/240 crap then? Who’s responsible
for that?****
Probably a typo or a flipflop with another players statistics…
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to ne phil, what kendrick has is the head to get people out. its more than stuff, look at greg maddox. duckworth had all the stuff in the world but you put him on the mound and he was a deer in the headlights, same with gavin floyd. and to pp bastardo throws 92 he must have tremendous movement to do what he is doing.
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****to ne phil, what kendrick has is the head to get people out. its more than stuff, look at greg maddox.****
Maddux is the best control pitcher of the modern era…Kendrick is not. Other than last year, Kendrick has never had good control at any level and his K rate is scary bad. He may be smart but he has to locate pitches before I have any faith in him. Also, Maddux’s K/9 ratio is much higher than Kendrick’s in comparable years.
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Maddux used to throw in the 92-93 range, he wasn’t always in the high 80’s, and he had the best fastball command, probably in baseball history. Why anyone would compare any prospect to a pitcher like Maddux, regardless of how highly touted the prospect is, is beyond me.
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pp im well aware that maddox is the best pitcher of the last 20 years. the point i was trying to make is that their are pitchers who use intestonal fortitude to win. obviously maddox,s control has always been unbelieable, although i never remember him thowing harder than kendrick and ive been watching bb since 1958. i used maddox as the ultimate pitcher who outsmarted hitters which is what kendrick has to do, and i believe he does. but please dont think i would ever put him in maddoxs class, maddox is what kendrick should model himself after, a smart pitcher with guts of steel but of course he will never have his control.
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PP is correct…when Maddux came up and even till the mid 90’s he was in the low 90’s in velocity on his FB. He developed a cutter around 1995 when his velocity started to dip.
I understand where you’re coming from on Kendricks mental ability but he needs to start locating like he did last year if he wants to survivve. One positive I did see with him so far this year is that his GB/FB ratio is way up. If he can get into Wang or Webb range on that he could survive.
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