Monthly Archives: December 2008

Thank you, and Happy New Year

Maintenance

Just wanted to quickly say thanks for the continued support here in 2008, and thank you for continuing to come back. 2008 saw the site pick up considerable momentum, peaking right around draft time. The site basically started at the end of December, 2006, so its essentially 2 years in the books now. Some numbers for 2008

Total hits: 1,125,603 (up from 514,000 in 2007)
Busiest day: 14,098 (June 5th, draft day)
Busiest month: July; 183,767 (busiest month in 2007 was June, with 78,561 hits)
Highest average hits per day: July; 5,928 hits per day

Total blog hits since inception; 1,640,739

Thank you again for coming, thanks for spreading the word, and I look forward to an even better 2009. Happy New Year.

Jim Callis chat hits

ESPN/BA/BP Mentions

As posted in the Info Outpost, Jim Callis answered a bunch of Phillies questions today

Andrew(Philly): Was it necessary to take 2 weeks off before giving us the Phillies top 10. C’mon, we’re the World Series Champions. Couldn’t you have stopped before the Nationals. How about a little hint. Who is prospect #11?

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:14 PM ET ) Prospect No. 11 for the Phillies? LHP Antonio Bastardo.

Pete (Philly): Michael Taylor of Dominic Brown?

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:47 PM ET ) Brown.

Zac (Flemington, NJ): Have any insight on Julian Sampson? He was supposed to have nice stuff coming out of HS, yet his k-rate was alarmingly low this year in A ball. What does he throw and how does it grade out? What kind of ceiling does he have? Thanks.

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:41 PM ET ) I still like him. He’s more of a groundball guy than a strikeout guy right now, but he has a nice sinker. He just needs to refine his slider and changeup.

Zac (Flemington, NJ): What do you know about Edgar Garcia? The Phillies continue to promote him aggresively, and he has always been very young for his league, yet his numbers have been pedestrian. Any thoughts?

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:24 PM ET ) Promising young arm but not real polished yet. He needs a year to catch his breath, and then he might turn into a pretty decent prospect.

Reader Top 30; #15

2009 Reader Top 30

The voting between Antonio Bastardo and Edgar Garcia again went down to the wire, with Garcia edging him out 71-69. As was mentioned, I’m going to put Garcia 13 and Bastardo 14, and we’ll move straight to #15. I’m going to add in 1 player to fill in the gap in the voting, and of course, write in votes are welcomed.

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #15 →

Reader Top 30; Runoff for #13

2009 Reader Top 30

In a surprising turn of events, the voting for #13 ended at a 41-41 tie between Edgar Garcia and Antonio Bastardo. So, to settle this we’ll do a simple one day runoff vote between the 2, and the move on to #14 on Tuesday. Argue your case and place your vote.

And now for something new; a message board!

Maintenance

So, this is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, and I finally got around to it tonight. We now have a phuturephillies message board/discussion forum. You can find it here. Proboards seems decent enough for a free discussion forum, its going to take some time to figure everything out and add different things to it, but I think it will serve the purpose for now. As I’ve mentioned before, the purpose of this site has never been to turn it into a message board, though the discussion is great. I don’t want to extinguish all of the discussion from this site of course, but I wanted to provide another outlet for people to discuss whatever they’d like relating to Phillies prospects. Its a work in progress, but it should be fun.

Site tweaking

Maintenance

I’m going to do some work on the site this weekend, including possibly changing the layout/design/color scheme and all of that stuff. It feels like its time for a face lift. So if you check back and things look out of whack, don’t sweat it, I’ll get it back in order. Thanks.

[Update 1]

So I’ve done a bunch of re-organizing. I changed the main theme of the site. It seems a bit more bright and less dark/dull, which I think makes it easier to read. I’ve changed the hierarchy on the left side, using a few more category headers and trying to better organize the categories. I also added a FAQ/Intro type statement and some site rules.

[Update 2]

Ok, I’ve scrapped the new design and brought back the old version. I changed the red color to a brighter red, and I’ll continue to work on some other things.

Baseball Prospectus Phillies Top 11

Top Prospect Lists

The list is up.

Five-Star Prospects
1. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
Four-Star Prospects
2. Michael Taylor, RF
3. Kyle Drabek, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
4. Travis D’Arnaud, C
5. Lou Marson, C
6. Jason Donald, SS
7. Dominic Brown, OF
8. J.A. Happ, RHP
9. Zach Collier, RF
10. Jason Knapp, RHP
11. Anthony Hewitt, 3B

Sleeper: Julian Sampson, RHP

Just Missed: Travis Mattair, 3B; Drew Naylor, RHP; Joe Savery, LHP

Thats the info available to non-subscribers. If you’re a subscriber and have access to the other info, please don’t post it here. Kevin is going to be kind enough to answer questions on his rankings. If you have questions, post them in the comments here and I’ll try to work them in.

Reader Top 30; #13 + Happy Holidays

2009 Reader Top 30

Newly acquired John Mayberry Jr takes him spot #12 in the Reader Top 30, while Edgar Garcia and Antonio Bastardo engaged in a tight race for 2nd place. The Phillies BP Top 11 list should be out today or tomorrow, when it is I’ll have some thoughts, but please don’t post the full text here. Kevin Goldstein, the writer of the list, has agreed to do a Q/A, and I’ll start a separate post on that to solicit questions for him. So lets just keep this to the discussion of #13. I’ll try and get that post of the Top 11 up when BP runs it, but that will be my last transmission until after Christmas. So, from me to you, Happy Holidays and thanks for continuing to come back. Now onto #13…

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #13 + Happy Holidays →

Reader Top 30; #12

2009 Reader Top 30

Another day, another step closer to completing the Reader Top 30. Hard thrower Jason Knapp took the 11th spot with a solid 46% of the vote. The group behind him was real closely contested, with Mayberry, Bastardo and Garcia all gaining at least 10% of the vote. I was hoping to write up something on Joe Savery, but I’m not sure if I’ll have time Friday. Anyway, onto #12….

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #12 →

Reader Top 30; #11

2009 Reader Top 30

We’ve now got 1/3 of our Top 30 completed, with 2008 supplemental first rounder Zach Collier rounding out the Top 10. Collier had an impressive debut and has already drawn Garrett Anderson comps, so the sky is the limit. Things will get tricky now as we move into the 11-20 range. Lots of interesting guys, and the voting figures to be tight. Also, just a heads up, Kevin Goldstein will unleash his Phillies Top 11 prospects at Baseball Prospectus in the next day or two, and hes agreed to do a Q/A for us again. If you aren’t a BP subscriber, now is as good a time as any. Not only do you get multiple prospect updates every week from KG, but you get good MLB analysis as well. So be on the lookout for the Phillies Top 11, I’ll have some thoughts on it when its posted (please don’t post the full scouting reports or anything of the sort) and then I’ll take questions for Kevin. Anyway, onto number 11…

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #11 →