Friday thoughts; vacation

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Happy Friday. Its an especially happy Friday for me, as I leave later today for my first true vacation in years. I’ll be out of town until July 7th, and in addition to relaxing and unwinding, I’ll get to see at least one or two Cape Cod League baseball games. I haven’t been to Cape Cod since I was a kid, so I’m looking forward to that part of the trip quite a bit. Gregg, our faithful Lehigh Valley correspondent, is going to start a daily thread while I’m gone. Feel free to discuss anything you’d like, but please do be civil in my absence. This place has really taken off over the last 6 months, its due in large part to you, the daily reader, so just be nice to each other while I’m gone. With all of that said, a few parting thoughts…

* I took a flier on Justin De Fratus, ranking him 21st in my Top 30, and it was kind of an off the board pick. So far, Justin is making me look like a genius;

2 GS — 13 IP — 0.69 ERA — 9 H — 2 BB — 14 K

There will be obvious bumps in the road, but I’m happy to see this start. The Phillies appear to be taking their time with many of thier young arms, and you can’t really fault them for it. De Fratus is 20, so he could possibly be in Low A, but he is still raw, and it won’t hurt him to pitch this year in Williamsport and move up slowly. If he shows he can handle it, the Phillies will probably get him to Clearwater next season at some point, so he’s fine age wise moving at the pace he is.

* Rob Roth, a 19th round pick in 2006, is healthy again, and his first two starts have been promising. His line so far

13.0 IP — 1.38 ERA — 6 H — 5 BB — 6 K

The Phillies were never really clear what was wrong with Roth, if they were I missed it, and while the peripherals aren’t great, its good to see him back on the mound and healthy. The more young arms the better, obviously, and Roth is still only 19, not turning 20 until August.

* I had a chance to watch the Reading Phillies game on TV last night, and I have a few general thoughts. I was doing other things and only had a chance to watch glimpses, but I came away impressed with Lou Marson, not surprisingly. I saw him play 1 game at Lakewood 2 years ago, I liked him then, but I’m even more impressed with him now. He just looks like a Major Leaguer. I know thats kind of a weird thing to say, for as much as I like to rely on numbers and scouting reports, but he really just looks like a big league hitter. He’s very quiet at the plate, not a lot of wasted movement. If I heard the announcer right, he’s gotten on base something like 59 out of his last 64 games. Oh, and he just turned 22 yesterday. The one thing that did worry me slightly is he didn’t look like he was totally comfortable in his setup behind the plate. He was very quiet receiving the ball, but his setup looked a bit awkward, but it may have just been that night, or something specific for Castro on the mound, or maybe I was just distracted. Jason Donald also has a quiet approach at the plate, and that was the first time I’d seen him play since college. I got to see Sam Walls for the first time as well, and I wasn’t overly impressed. His fastball looks very straight, and he breaks his hands real early. He was wild last night, and with a straight fastball, thats kind of concerning. It was only one night, so I’ll wait for more scouting reports.

30 thoughts on “Friday thoughts; vacation”

  2. I’ll be on the Cape over the 4th weekend. I also like to catch a Cape League game or two when I’m there. There’s often a lot of College talent playing. I particularly like to hjang out behind the backstop where the scouts hang. They’ll talk amongst themselves and not show too much interest most of the time. An then some kid will show up on the mound and the radar guns and notebooks come out. The talking stops and you start really paying attention. Enjoy!

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  3. PP – your description of Marson is right on – he just LOOKS like a major leaguer. It sounds silly, but the way a player looks and carries himself is really part of the whole equation. This is why, when Utley came up, you just knew he was going to turn into something special, even if the stat.s did not necessarily support that conclusion – he looked like a star.

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  4. was at the cape last year and took in a few games. orleans, bourne and anther. i really enjoyed it. have a great time.

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  5. A little off topic…has anyone done the Pa. baseball trip? I was looking into it (I live in MD.) and you can get to every team (except Clearwater, obviously) and you can even catch the Eagles at Lehigh on the way, and the Phils if they are in town. I was thinking of doing it next summer and was wondering if its worth it…I think it would by but I doubt my wife would…

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  7. How about this stat line from last night:

    Schwimer (BS, 2) 2.0 3 2 2 2 6 0 10.38

    Talk about all or nothing…

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  8. I did a Phillies/PA baseball trip a couple of years ago in late August. It was a lot of fun. Hit a Phillies game, then Scranton, Reading, Cooperstown, Williamsport (for the Little League WS before we had a team there), then wrapped it up at Lakewood.

    As a bonus when we were driving from Scranton to Reading we stopped in Pottsville to see the Yuengling Brewery. It was the weekend and they were closed, but some guy saw us taking pictures out front. It turned out he was the plant maintenance guy who did work on the equipment while they were shut donw on Sunday’s. He ended up giving us a 2-hour private tour of the place and took us where you wouldn’t normally go on a tour.

    Coming from Clearwater where we see nothing but flatness forever it was nice driving through the PA countryside. We don’t have that kind of scenery down here.

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  9. Colin…I was actually thinking of doing the same thing. If anybody out there is an organizing type, we should try to figure something out and meet up at some of the games.

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  11. The hard part is scheduling…who knows when/if each team will be home the same week. I don’t think next year’s schedules would be out until late winter ’09.

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  14. you can’t even begin to say things like “he’s not worth the money it would take prevent him from going to vanderbilt” how do you even begin to say something like that, obviously the phillies would not have drafted him first i they didnt want to sign him… he’s 19, how do you even begin to estimate how much money he is worth….ridiculous

    they analyze one year old in game swing with a batting practice swing, and then draw all these conclusion from it….. the positves, they put “is that his batting practice looked much better”

    they are rating and summarizing hewitt on one video snippet where he didnt even make contact…. assuming he isnt worth signing?? what? and they grade him a B

    the kicker they give schlereth a B, sheesh

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  16. I agree not worth the money to keep him from Vanderbilt. He seems unwilling to sign for slot, is old for a HS kid, is raw compared to a normal HS kid, will have to be added to 40 man roster a year earlier than typical HS kid. This is a pure athleticism draft, the sort of thing that has bitten the Phillies in the tail repeatedly in past. I’d prefer to use the $ to sign some of the HS flier picks and redo this pick with a makeup first rounder in the 2009 draft. I didn’t like this pick when the Phillies made it and Hewitt’s wasting of development time by holding out for more than slot decreases his value, indicates he overvalues his abilities, and calls into question how eager he really is to enter pro ball.

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  17. since when cant we sign him for slot?? i must have missed this

    are we sure he is holding out? i had no clue so 1.3 aint doing then huh

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  18. or are you just assuming that he wont sign for slot, because to assume he is holding out and drawing conclusions like “he overvalues his abilities, and calls into question how eager he is to play pro ball” and honestly how much time is he wasting by not signing yet…

    is this in print that he is holding out for more than slot??

    where are you getting this stuff from???

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  21. he can’t sign until people ahead of him sign,the agent if he is any good won’t let him,he has to answer to the players association,and other agents,would you takeless. remember for most of these players this is a once in a lifetime chance,a lot of them won’t make it to the big leagues,so get as much as you can now to start your life remember the phillies don,t feel bad charging you seven dollars for a hot cup of beer,

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  22. The only thing I’ve seen is Baseball America’s report:

    “Hewitt is the epitome of high-risk, high-reward. The risk starts with his signability: Any team that drafts Hewitt must be prepared to open its wallet and buy the academic-minded Brooklyn native-turned-Connecticut boarding school star out of a commitment to Vanderbilt. There’s also a huge risk that he simply won’t hit in professional ball: his raw bat was overmatched against quality pitching on the showcase circuit last summer, and though he dominated vastly inferior prep competition this spring, he still struggles to recognize breaking balls and can get locked up at times by ordinary fastballs”

    http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/news/2008/266273.html

    Plus there is the minor league report:

    “As a Northeast kid, he’s a little raw, but has shown good improvement this spring. His name had been climbing up charts everywhere and the only thing that could hold him back is signability due to a commitment to Vanderbilt.”

    http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/events/draft_report/y2008/index.jsp?mc=hewitt

    So I’m assuming that he means we need to go above slot.

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  24. Prediction: Myers, after his outing tonight, goes on the DL with some ailment or another and Happ is called up to take his next turn. Just a thought.

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  27. Sign him, don’t sign him, either way we don’t necessarily lose. I just hope that if they don’t sign him the money gets allocated to some other picks or to a latin american player.

    Either way we still have some time, so don’t go crying yourselves to sleep. Collier and Gose are better outfielders anyway.

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  28. Gregg, I agree with you. Myers needs a hiatus. I’d like the Phillies to do something like the Yankees did with Chamberlain. Start Chad Durbin and expand his pitch count each game he pitches. Say 50 game 1, 60 game 2, 75 game 3 and so on. Use Happ as the next pitcher in. Like the Yankees used Dan Giese (wasn’t he a Phillies farmhand at one time?). Durbin will become the starter. Happ gets his feet wet without throwing him to the wolves. I know this depletes the bullpen a bit but who needs a bullpen when you’re down by 8 runs in the 3rd inning? Plus you get that righty / lefty thing going. I’m sure once Durbin is up to speed, we’ll need Happ to replace someone else.

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  30. “Hewitt’s wasting of development time by holding out for more than slot decreases his value, indicates he overvalues his abilities, and calls into question how eager he really is to enter pro ball.”

    1.4 million, right around slot, so this couldn’t be more wrong atown

    to be honest, this couldn’t be any more ridiculous either….

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