Top 30 Prospects Update

** My Top 30 Prospects

As I promised, I figured I’d do a Top 30 update after the trade deadline, even though no prospects were traded (yet) and kind of give a brief thought to how my Top 30 would change. All stats are as of August 2nd I believe, so close enough. Again, this is only my Top 30 as of now, and its mostly just gut instinct. I reserve the right to change my thoughts on guys at any moment, and the next update could reflect that. Update below…

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41 thoughts on “Top 30 Prospects Update”

  3. how good of a sign is it for Knapp to have 26K in only 21IP? His ERA and WHIP aren’t terrible either, but how do those numbers project?

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  4. phuture phillies, you mention frayed labrum for bastardo, i know its a shoulder injury but how severe is a frayed labrum and when can we expect to see bastardo back

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  5. I know your stance on Hewitt, but it seems wrong to have him listed behind Jaramillo, a 25 yo with a 694 OPS who has never had a single breakout season.

    I can see an argument for putting him below other young prospects – Valle, Sampson, Collier – but this is a player who some scouts said had the *highest* upside in the draft, and he’s ranked below organizational filler like Brummett, Jaramillo, and Carpenter.

    I don’t know the criteria for the rankings, but this board would be in an uproar if the Phillies traded Hewitt for a journeyman lefty, while hardly anyone would care if Jaramillo were flipped.

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  6. Good stuff, James. A couple of observations/comments/musings…

    Drew Naylor’s struggles in Clearwater officially have me worried at this point. I know there’s an inevitable adjustment period, but he’s age appropriate for the FSL (even taking into consideration that he’s Australian). His pristine command from the past two years seems to have deserted him, and he’ll have to have a solid August to convince me that the concerns about his average fastball aren’t well founded.

    I’m more and more impressed with Dominic Brown each day. BP lists his EqA at .305 for the year, and the shortlist of prospects of a comparable age putting up a similar or better EqA in the SAL reads like this: Frederick Freeman, Jason Heyward, Jesus Montero, and Mike Stanton. Brown has better plate discipline than all of them, so he’s in some pretty illustrious company there. Definitely a Top-5 guy for us, and a good year next year should see him into the BA Top 100.

    From the splits you mentioned, sounds like Justin de Fratus needs to work on his change up to help him against lefties. Stamina is also still a bit of an issue for him — his splits show his WHIP steadily increasing as the game wears on — but he’s still only 20, so there should be plenty of time for him to correct both issues.

    Finally, a question for you, James: what’s your take on Kyle Slate? If management truly decided to take away his splitter for the time being, that just makes his current numbers (14.1 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 17:1 K:BB) all the more impressive. Given the CBP dimensions, I’m excited about having a 6’5″, 19 year-old with a splitter and good command in the system.

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  7. I would think that Hewitt might fizzle out or he might be a star. It’s too early to tell. Jaramillo is much closer to a finished product – a serviceable major leaguer. Yeah, it’s not exciting or sexy, but you have a good idea what you are getting, which (imo) counts in the rankings.

    Considering that Brown’s overall OPS is .810, how should we judge his .813 road ops? Is it good that his home/road splits are similar, or should he be doing better on the road given that Lakewood is pitcher-friendly? Either way, he’s becoming one of my favorite prospects

    – Jeff

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  8. how about schwimmer and rosenberg? i know their early starts were off the charts but why not try them in Lakewood other than the fact they are blocked by Jared Simon in a pennant race?

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  9. .

    Not exactly on topic, but former prospects. I was at the Blueclaws game the other night and overheard some of the “sponsor families” saying that Cardenas and Matt Spencer, recently traded to the A’s and moved to Stockton, Calif. are living with Karl Bolt’s parents. Looked ’em both up and Cardenas is doing well (still don’t think we should have traded him), but Spencer is ON FIRE, hitting .450 since arriving there. Maybe something in Bolty’s Mom’s cooking.

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  11. I don’t see how you can say Edgar Garcia has had 6 bad starts in AA, I’d say he’s had 3 ok and 3 bad/horrible.

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  12. Friar – what is “EqA”? how do you calculate it?

    i also like stutes. he might shoot up the list.

    and no love for my boy susdorff? what’s up with that

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  13. My guess for Susdorf is that he is old for his league. Let’s see how he does next year. He could become Michael Taylor, or he could become Tyler Mach

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  14. PP Fan: EqA is a Baseball Prospectus generated statistic that they explain in detail here. It’s a complicated statistical formula (which I’ll gladly admit I don’t fully understand) that measures a player’s actual output, but it takes into account league factors and is normalized so that the league average EqA is exactly .260. Fire Joe Morgan gives good advice when it says to think of it as “what you used to think BA was – a true measure of how good a hitter is.” Needless to say, .305 is very good.

    And I like Stutes too, along with most of the pitchers the Phils drafted this year. Worley, Stutes, Schwimer, Rosenberg, Cisco, and even guys like McConnell, Ellis, and Grieve have all pitched well so far this year and bear watching as we move forward.

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  15. This is just me thinking aloud, but how does Lou Marson’s minor league stats compare to Joe Mauer’s? I feel like they’re the same type of player, tall, lanky catcher who hit for average but not much power. I feel like Marson can compare to Mauer in most ways. It’s good to finally have a cornerstone catcher in the system.

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  17. Slate has one of the better change ups ive seen in a while..its got some serious movement on it..we could have something good in him

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  18. i love marson, but he is no Mauer. doesn’t mean that he can’t be a productive mlb catcher or even an all star. but mauer was the #1 overall pick. not a fair comparison. but if your point is that they are both, high average, high walk, non-home run hitting catchers that both can play defense, then yes, they are comparable.

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  19. It’s nice to see all the success of some players in the lower minors. But seriously you really can’t make any determinations until they reach AA. If they hold their own at that level, you might have something.

    There’s a young SS-3B at GCL by the name of Yonderman Rodriguez, who’s tearing up the league even though he flys open on his swing. He’s doing good now but by the time he gets to AA, unless he works at it, he’ll never go any further.

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  20. I think you’ve got Naylor rated too highly and Garcia too low. Garcia has held his own at a really tender age in AA. Given his size/speed and a .900+ OPS, I’d put Taylor higher also. Galvis has to be higher, just for the glove — sure an OPS that doesn’t quite make it to .600 is bad, but for a guy who is only 18 in full-season ball, that counts as at least holding your own.

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  21. I agree with PhillyFriar, I think Naylor’s star has dropped a lot after his recent performances. He should be dropped down the list. I also think that Jaramillo is not distinguishing himself at this point. His throws have been questionable and his batting has only picked up recently. The fact that the entire rotation has improved lately may be attributable to him, maybe some would say.

    I wonder if Walls deserves to be on this list, even considering his struggles after his promotion?

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  22. I know this site is about the Phillies propects but does anyone know how Eaton is doing in the minors

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  23. ya he got blasted in his first start with lakewood, i hope he never comes back up, and the olympics are not being kind to jason donald (0-14) so far, i also would like to see taylor moved up to double a to challenge him for the last month since clearwater is in last place

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  25. Money!!!

    They still have to pay them so releasing them offers no chance to recoup that investment. By keeping them around, they can hope to get lucky..

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  27. any thoughts as to where Drabek starts next year? Clearwater? He showed before the injury he could handle Low A ball.

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  29. He handled low A, but he didn’t exactly dominate. He had a 2:1 K:BB ratio and a 4.33 ERA…. not bad but not really forcing a promotion.

    I deffinately agree that they will leave him in Clearwater and promote him midseason if he’s lighting the place on fire… but there’s not need to rush a kid after tommy johns.

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  30. Makes sense to start him in Clearwater, with the warmer weather. I think if he pitches well, they can leave him there. He lost significant development time in terms of facing quality bats. He turns 22 in December. Leaving him in Clearwater for his entire age 22 season, considering he really only pitched 6 weeks or so in Low A, won’t be the end of the world.

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  31. skunky,

    agreed. Although i’m kind of tired how some of our prospects have to have the best peripherals before they’re moved up. that’s why i kind of liked the challenge they presented Carrasco with.

    That being said Mitch Williams (who i admittedly give very little credence to) had a comment today or last night about speculation he had about Carrasco’s promotion to Reading. he basically stated that maybe they’re grooming him for relief work because he can throw 96. First off i disagree with this entirely. its not as if he’s been throwing 96 all year and i think it would be a mistake to make him a reliever now when he’s been a starter all along. any thoughts anyone?

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  33. Oh I loved the Carrasco move. Alot of times guys just need to be challenged to lock in mentally.

    I just think, peripherals aside, they should let Drabek move on his own time until his elbow is absolutely no longer a question mark. He’s got the most live arm in our whole system and its not work risking it by rushing him. Thats all.

    As for Carrasco as a reliever… I’d like it if we actually really needed a right-handed reliever… but right now we don’t. They shouldn’t try and pigeon-hole one of our top pitchers when they could just see if any of the college guys we just drafted can shoot through the system. I hate when they convert relievers before they know for certain that they can’t start.

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  34. Leave Carrasco alone and let him finish the season in Lehigh…hell start him there next season as well unless he dominates in Spring Training. He’s still really young and needs to work on the finer parts…he’s looked pretty good so far this season despite some hiccups with control…but he’s young so those are expected.

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  35. Is Anthony Hewitt shaping up to be the new C.J. Henry? Maybe the Yankees will return Bobby Abreu for him.

    (I know it’s too soon to tell but the adjectives used to describe Hewitt and Henry are eerily similar and the 27 Ks are a red flag).

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  36. Jaramillo’s position on the list (21 if I counted right) seems correct. He doesn’t have a high ceiling, but he certainly looks like he could be the backup catcher in Philadelphia next season. His bat has been better since a very slow start this year and he looks good behind the plate. He’s one of the few guys on the list of whom you can say he is a virtual lock to play in the majors. That has to count for something, prospect rankings cannot be all about ceiling, without weighing the probability that a lot of them will fall by the wayside due to injury or failure to hold their own as they move up the organization. I don’t like to include new draftees in rankings, since we know so little about how they will develop. I guy like Knapp has high ceiling but far from a finished product, and the needed development plus the chance to be felled by injury over 5 seasons in minors, makes it hard to rank him above Jaramillo with any confidence.

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  37. I know Savery has been pitching better lately, but this was supposed to be a guy who according to Mike Arbuckle might have been worthy of a September call-up. The fact that he’s still stuck in Clearwater has to be a disappointment so far. Also, I was wondering who you guys thought based on sole potential, who projected to be the best major league players. In my opinion, it’s Drabek but that’s just me.

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  39. Interesting to see who they assign to the Arizona Fall League. Last year during the first week of Sept. they assigned position players Golson, Costanzo , and Marson who they replaced with Gosewisch because of the FSL playoffs and pitchers Overholt, Savery, Bisenius, and Outman. With so little young talent at AA, and High A wonder if they dip into the low A ball teams like they did with Savery or repeat some of those guys still in the organization or send Taylor or Q. Berry from Clearwater.

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  40. A guy like Carpenter would be a good candidate for the Arizona League. He should be able to handle a few extra innings and he still needs to work on some things.

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  41. I think Savery should go again. Overall I think this years crop of guys that they send will be a lot worse than last.

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