The VSL season ended up a couple of weeks ago. This post will summarize the season and provide a very speculative list of the top prospects. The 2008 VSL Phillies finished the season 32-33, in 4th place 12.5 games behind the Pirates. The Phillies took a small step back in Venezuela compared to the past couple of years as they did not add any high profile signings and did not feature a large number of younger players. The situation is a little better in the Dominican as the team’s two highest profile signings as well as several additional young players all made their debuts there.
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Williamsport and GCL Weekly Report (8/18-8/24)
Williamsport
The Crosscutters finished the week 2-2 after having the first three days off for the All-Star Break. They remain one game over .500 at 31-30, which leaves them in a tie for third place in the NYP Pinckney division, 7.5 GB of Batavia.
Continue reading Williamsport and GCL Weekly Report (8/18-8/24)
Lou Marson article
Sam Donnellon has a nice article with some quotes from Lou Marson. Lou talks about the excitement about a possible callup. Then of course we get the comments from the Phillies front office on the potential callup of Marson and Donald here.
Next up for Donald and Marson is more time in the Eastern League, then consideration for a September call-up to the Phillies, although neither is a good bet.
“They’re players we’ll talk about,” Arbuckle said. “I think it’s going to come down to need.”
Hey Mike. The big league club has gotten a combined .246/.325/.366 battling line from the C spot this year, I think there might be a need. And you know, Jason Donald’s bat might come in handy, considering the robust .214/.297/.291 line Eric Bruntlett has compiled.
But then again, what do I know?
Daily Discussion; 8/22
Before I open the floor for random banter, I wanted to point something out, because its something I’ve seen a lot here this year. There is no anti-Phillies bias in prospect circles. There simply isn’t. From an objective, outside point of view, the Phillies system hasn’t been very good over the last five years. We’ve always been a top heavy system (one or two very good prospects) and we’ve gotten the occasional ML performer on the cheap (Geary, Madson), but our system doesn’t compare with the type of guys that Boston, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and other teams have produced. The system is getting a lot better, and is as strong now as I can remember over the last 10 years. These publications are going to pick up on this and the Phillies will start to move up the rankings. Or maybe they won’t. But it really doesn’t matter. You have to remember also, Baseball America gets a lot of their info directly from the Phillies, and as we’ve chronicled, the Phillies don’t go out of their way to hype up their own guys to the degree that some teams (Mets, Yankees, Red Sox) do. But think about it from a practical standpoint. These places are trying to get more readers every day, and they are competing with other sites just like themselves. What benefit would they see in alienating an entire fanbase and being biased? Keith Law has no rooting interest in the Phillies or any other team. Why would he go out of his way to downgrade our prospects? He works for Scouts Inc/ESPN, ESPN wants as many new customers as possible. He is very consistent in his analysis, and he’s said “I was wrong on him, he’s gotten better since I last saw him” on more than one occasion.
There is no bias. Sometimes players legitimately fly under the radar. It happens in every organization. Now, onto the games…
Iron Pigs Report
A lousy week for Lehigh Valley who went 2-5, and now stand at 53-79. 26.5 games behind division leading Scranton. The 26.5 games back in the most Lehigh Valley have been back this year. Taking a look at league leaders, Brandon Watson is 8th in at bats (462), and 4th in hits (139). Mike Cervenak is 2nd in the league in average (.319). Andy Tracy is 3rd in doubles (32), 2nd in RBI’s (83), 6th in walks (59), 6th in on base % (.380) and 8th in slugging % (.525). On the pitching side, Les Walrond leads the league with 2 shutouts, JA Happ in 5th in ERA (3.30), first in strikeouts (143) and 4th in WHIP (1.15). The slumping Brian Mazone is 3rd in losses (11), first in starts (26), 3rd in IP (156.2) and 4th in homers allowed(20). Continue reading Iron Pigs Report
Reading Phillies Weekly Report (8/13-8/19)
Sad, sad week for the Reading Phillies. The Phils played 7 games, and lost, you guessed it, 7 games. When the offense managed to score some runs, the pitching was horrible. And, when the pitching was excellent, the offense was putrid. All in all, it was a perfect storm for an incredibly embarassing week. Lets move on and highlight some of the prospects at Reading, who for the most part, had bad weeks.
Wednesday Discussion; Top 10 hitting prospects
Yesterday we tackled our 10 best pitching prospects, so today we’ll open the floor for the hitting side. If you posted your Top 10 hitters in another post (shame on you!) then repost it in the comments here. Again, consider the following 4 conditions;
1. Performance
2. Projection
3. Health
4. Proximity to the majors
Place as much emphasis on each individual aspect as you’d like, then rank them from 1 to 10. I don’t think we’ll have any eligibility issues on this one, so go for it.
Tuesday discussion; Top 10 pitching prospects
I’m running kind of short on time today. I’m in the middle of working on something interesting to include in my draft recap type post, so today I’m going to just throw out a topic and allow everyone to weigh in and discuss. Today’s topic is simple; list (and rank if you can) the Phillies 10 best pitching prospects. Factor in the following criteria:
1. Performance
2. Projection
3. Health
4. Proximity to the majors
Take these into account in whatever order you feel is most important. You don’t have to take the time to rank them from best to least if you don’t want, but the more people who do, the more interesting the results will be. This also will serve as a tool for me as I want to see what the perception of our guys is. For now, JA Happ is eligible, as he won’t pass the innings mark to disqualify him from ROY voting, so we’ll use that criteria.
D’Arnaud and Taylor make the Ten Pack
Busy day today; Travis D’Arnaud and Michael Taylor show up in Kevin Goldstein’s latest Monday Morning Ten Pack at Baseball Prospectus.
Travis D’Arnaud, C, Low-A Lakewood (Phillies)
During the first half of the season, I felt a little foolish for ranking D’Arnaud ahead of Lou Marson going into the season. While Marson has had a breakout year and is now catching for the Olympic squad, D’Arnaud has certainly kept up his end of the bargain. After batting .309/.371/.463 in the New York-Penn League, the 19-year-old spent his first weekend of full-season baseball over the last three days by going 6-for-13 with a pair of doubles. Athletic and projectable, D’Arnaud has plus defensive tools and above-average power potential. While plenty of teams don’t have a single decent catching prospect, the Phillies have two very good ones.
Michael Taylor, OF, High-A Clearwater (Phillies)
Taylor began the year with a .361/.441/.554 line at Low-A Lakewood which created a mixed reaction. At six-foot-six and 250 pounds, Taylor looks like a potential monster, but at the same time he’s 22 years old and coming of of a highly disappointing three-year career at Stanford that left scouts scratching their heads. Moved up to the Florida State League in mid-June, Taylor continues to bump up his stock by mashing in a much tougher offensive environment, most recently by delivering multi-hit games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to raise his batting line for the Threshers to .342/.392/.546 in 53 contests. There are still questions about what it all means, since both his age and the three-year hole he dug himself in Palo Alto are a lot to make up for in some people’s minds, but the further this goes, the more his doubters fall by the wayside.
Cosart gets $550K
According to Baseball America, Cosart’s bonus was $550K, or essentially the recommended slot for the 73rd overall pick. I was going to just make a note of this in the bottom of today’s musings post, but this warrants its own mention. I can’t even begin to express how important this is. Add this to the Shreve, Pettibone and May signings, and the Phillies have made a clear statement.
Phuture Phillies 