Tomorrow is opening day for the Phillies DSL squad. They play in the Santo Domingo North division and are coming off of a division-winning season where they went 45-18 behind a squad featuring lots of young players. While multiple players from last season’s team are likely to graduate to GCL this year (Sebastian Valle, Yohan Flande, Ferrel Gomez, Lendy Castillo, Leandro Castro, Vlad De Los Santos, Ebelin Lugo, and Reginal Simon), several younger prospects remain. Expect to see Rudney Balentien and Miguel Alvarez in the OF and Juan Sosa and Pedro Carpio heading up the pitching staff. In addition, we are also likely to see the debut of high priced SS Carlos Valenzuela and the first full season from RHP Gabriel Arias.
The VSL season is now almost 3 weeks old and the Phillies are off to a fast start at 9-3-3. The are only 1/2 game back at this point in the season. In terms of prospects, it is possible that this Phillies team is not quite at the level of last year’s team. 17-year-old OF prospect Winder Torres has yet to play because of injury. The top offensive player so far has been IF Cesar Hernandez who just turned 18 years old. Hernandez has mostly moved off of SS, however, where he played last year. He is hitting .380 in the early going with 3 3B. Two new infielders are getting lots of playing time. Tiny 2B/SS Eduards Tolo (5’9″, 140) is hitting .333 with a .777 OPS. Getting the most time at SS has been 17-year-old Edgar Duran. Duran has struggled with the bat, hitting only .196 so far.
The other top offensive players have been OF Levi Rossi (21 years old, .356 AVG, .958 OPS), C Anderson Alvarez (20 years old, .318 AVG, .969 OPS), and C/1B Jorge Guerra (age 20, .300 ABG, .834 OPS). None of these older players project as top prospects. C Francisco Diaz, LF Luis Martinez, and OF Vernal Bogle are younger players getting some playing time that might have more promise.
On the mound the best pitcher has been returning star Juan Colmenarez (2-0, 1.93 ERA). Colmenarez was in minor league spring training but got sent down to the VSL in a numbers game. He is now 21, so he really should be in GCL if he is any type of prospect. The other starters are Manuel Landaeta (age 19, 1-0, 3.38), Ricciard Rodriguez (age 20, 0-0, 2.19), Jesus Pirela (age 19, 0-0, 2.25) and Jose Hernandez (age 20, 0-0, 1.54). None of these guys are young enough or dominant enough to suggest that they are real prospects, however. The two 19 year olds (Landaeta and Pirela) are probably the ones worth watching the most.
The younger members of the staff have not appeared too much so far as the Phillies are easing them in with middle relief appearances. Some of the younger pitchers getting some innings include Jorge Guzman (age 16), Orlando Garces (age 17), Rafael Guevara (age 17), and Ely Izurriaga (age 17). None of these guys have thrown more than 8 innings, so it is difficult to get a read on their performance this early in the year. We will check back in several weeks to see if any of these young arms have started to emerge (as the younger DSL arms did last year).
Phuture Phillies 
Great stuff Andy. It’s always nice to see this team at least attempting to find some gems in Latin America, because these guys can have talent through the roof.
I’m excited to see what Valenzuela and Arias do in the DSL for sure.
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andy,
I’d expect Hernandez in the GCL, at least to begin getting accustomed to playing stateside. I guess he could start in the DSL, but haven’t the Phils started all the high bonus babies in FLA?
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Very informative, Andy. Thanks for your efforts. It will be
interesting to see how Valenzuela does with the bat since
our lower level shortstops aren’t showing much offense
yet.
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[It will be
interesting to see how Valenzuela does with the bat since
our lower level shortstops aren’t showing much offense
yet.]
Don’t look just yet, but Freddy Galvis is batting .307 in May (.353 in his last ten games) after batting .143 in April. His OPS in April – .382, in May – .700. Hopefully he can keep that going
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If Hernandez can’t stay at SS I wonder if he slips a little in prospect status. They are also bringing over at least one SS (Lendy Castillo) to GCL already, though I did think Hernandez earned a shot. Valenzuela could also come over, as you are correct that just about every high priced signing has made their debut in GCL (or NYP like Freddy Galvis).
If Galvis can put up close to a .700 OPS after his start then he starts to become an interesting prospect. I have a feeling he is already a major league utility infielder. He will need to hit, however, to have any shot at being Jimmy Rollins’ successor.
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It will be a great pleasure to have some of these Latin players give the bigclub some real help before much longer.
Andy: since you are Our Man in Havana–well at least in the Latin hemisphere–do you have any nominations for which 4-5 of all the Latin signees are most likely to breath Philly air at CBP soonest?
So far, the program has not yielded help for the big club. It LOOKS good “on paper” but hasn’t it been 3-4 years now that the Phils have begun a big push to regain a good footing in that market??
Your opinion??
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Excuse my ignorance, but reading all of this is so great to hear. Could someone fill me in on our latin program? Has Gillick helped to build this up or have we always had this? It sounds like we are getting some good talent. I don’t recall any big latin players brought up through our system on our roster.
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If anyone knows what happened to Kris Benson’s scheduled start at Clearwater today, email me and let me know. Thanks.
Chonors686@Aol.com
Joey
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“Excuse my ignorance, but reading all of this is so great to hear. Could someone fill me in on our latin program? Has Gillick helped to build this up or have we always had this? It sounds like we are getting some good talent. I don’t recall any big latin players brought up through our system on our roster.”
Ed Wade started by building new complex’s in the Dominican and Venezuela. They don’t get acknowledged as ‘state of the art’, but at least for venezuela, many teams are leaving and sending anyone they sign to the dominican to play due to politcal instability. Thing with the phillies is that they never spend ‘a lot’ of money in latin american. Maybe one notable guy a year. Which doesn’t mean anything terribly bad, because most latin bonus babies don’t pan out. But yes, they’ve been rejuvenated there since the late 90’s. The reason you don’t know much about them, sit that they havn’t played there very seriously. The only noticeable change since Gillick arrived is that the rosters have younger players instead of the constant string of 19-21 year olds who can’t be considered as prospects to a degree. The phillies have signed Carlos Silva, Anderson Machado, Robinson Tejada, and Carlos Ruiz. Maybe you’ve heard of them.
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Benson is scheduled to pitch TODAY in Clearwater…they changed it from Sunday to Monday at some point last week.
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All you need to know for starters.
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I’m trying to post a link- put it in the body and the message doesn’t post, put it in the ‘website’ box and it doesn’t show with the message?
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That was my anonymous post a couple days ago FYI. Traveling and it logged me out of the site. I have no idea why the links don’t post in the message area.
On the update front, the DSL roster has been posted (with a few errors undoubtedly). I will get a post up on that shortly that also covers the first couple of days (DSL Phils are 2-0). Both Valenzuela and Arias are playing well so far. The new players are also younger than the new VSL players, which is a good sign. Several of the new pitchers are age 17 and stand at least 6’3″, all good signs as we look for projectible young pitchers.
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