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.

01. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
02. Lou Marson, C
03. Jason Donald, SS
04. Kyle Drabek, RHP
05. Michael Taylor, OF
06. Dominic Brown, OF
07. JA Happ, LHP
08. Travis D’Arnaud, C
09. Joe Savery, LHP
10. Zach Collier, OF
11. Jason Knapp, RHP
12. John Mayberry Jr, OF
13. Edgar Garcia, RHP
14. Antonio Bastardo, LHP
15.

79 thoughts on “Reader Top 30; #15”

  3. I’m biased because he’s sitting on a fantasy team of mine, but I’m going to go with Valle. #7 prospect in the GCL, highest ranked non big name, hits left handed, still 18, has plenty of time to develop. The first thing the Rangers did when they reestablished their system was bring in some absurd catching depth in Salty, Teagarden, and Ramirez. The Phils now have Marson, d’Arnaud, and Valle, and that’s a pretty good start.

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  4. Well just call it a hunch but I think the light has come on and
    Berry will have a big year in 09 . I am assuming the Phils give him some times with Lopes in fact it may be time for a
    Davey Lopes steal their butts off camp before spring training
    say when pitchers and catchers report.
    Damn that’s a good idea I am glad I thought of it.

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  7. I will also go with Segastien Valle , here. Thing is, I believe he is a Right-Handed Hitter. If you carefully look at the roster it says throws Left, bats Right. I don’t know if he throws left or not, but I saw a still picture that was on some Phillies site, and he was holding the bat as a Right-Handed hitter would. I don’t know for sure as I haven’t been to Clearwater lately, or the Domionican, or Mexico, so whoever knows for sure, they should clear that up.

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  9. Voted for Valle. Funny thing is I can’t argue against Sampson, since I voted for him over Bastardo and Garcia, but in reading more info think it should go Valle then Sampson. Number 7 prospect in the GCL swayed me. As was discussed at the time, he did it on performance unlike Hewitt who was potential. At some point, the Phils need to play the catcher card combined with another prospect or 2 and get a Peavy type player that other teams are salary dumping.

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  10. My next four are Sampson, Mattair, Naylor, and Valle. Really hard to decide between these four, at least for me. I will discredit Valle a bit just because he is so young and hasn’t played above the GCL, anything could happen with this kid yet. Mattair has shown flashes but certainly nothing to write home about; he still has a lot of projection there, so I will throw him out. Then it is between Sampson and Naylor. The two have somewhat similar numbers, albeit Sampson pitched at Lakewood while Naylor was in Clearwater. Factoring in the age difference and the scouting reports, I will have to give the edge to Sampson.

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  11. Valle, though I have voted for Galvis recently, he;’s just not getting the support I thought he would get.

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  12. I went with Stutes. I realize that last year may just be a case of a college pitcher dominating in the lower minors, but, man oh man, did he ever steamroll the competition. Obviously, Sampson has a huge upside, as do Mattair and Valle (and maybe even Freddy Galvis – I expect him to shoot up the list in the next year or two), but for now, based on the impressive stuff I’ve seen, I’m voting for Stutes.

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  18. @ Catch 22 f/k/a H Man: sorry, I missed your question on the other thread. I’m at Boston University.

    I’ve gotta go with Naylor here. I made an argument for Garcia over him based on age, but Garcia at least had a fairly decent track record to go along with his youth. Sampson has good size, mechanics, and a good fastball, but it’ll be some time before his secondary stuff comes around. And while I like the scouting reports on Valle, his numbers weren’t that good in the GCL that I feel the need to include him at this point.

    Naylor certainly struggled in Clearwater, but he turned it around a bit before the end: he got his walks down, his ground balls back up, and aside from only 6.25 K/9, he generally looked like the 2007 Williamsport and 2008 Lakewood version. It’s similar to Garcia: yes, he struggled in his final stop, but you can’t discount his success prior to that.

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  19. PhillyFriar, I wish I had known you are going to BU, I just graduated from Tufts. Anyway, I choose Sampson over Naylor because Sampson has three years to develop the necessary breaking pitches before matching Naylor’s age. Also, they are only one level apart, which says to me that Sampson has so much more upside and time on his side.

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  20. I chose Sampson here. Although I am a fan of Valle, I just can’t put that much faith in GCL success. Sampson has plus stuff an has succeeded on a higher level.

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  23. Naylor. Sampson has potential. But so did Keith Bucktrot, Darin Naatjes, Scott Mathieson, Andrew Baldwin, Joe Bisenius, and many, many other hard throwers. I am conservative on young,, projectable hard throwers with no record of dominance or a second pitch that is plus. How many make it? 1 in 10? Probably not that many. Naylor has performed enough to earn this spot.

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  24. Galvis again 🙂
    As i have said —he is a must see to appreciate. He will be special. Of course accrobatic shortstops are out of vogue these days.

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  25. its all a wash from here on out.

    i voted for stutes. its 50/50 on stutes and valle for me.

    everyone is young and unproven and only really has projection.

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  26. Diamond Derby – Goldstein called Sampson’s breaking ball ‘above-average’ – don’t know if that equals plus or not.

    Perhaps I should have voted Sampson instead of Naylor.

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  27. Went with Sampson on potential. I think he will take a major step forward this season. He edges out Valle and Hewitt in my mind at this point. Hewitt belongs near the bottom of the top 20 on tools, regardless of his short season performance.

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  28. Friar – if you are interested in remaining in the greater Philly area (rather than Boston or some other region), I would enjoy the opportunity to speak to you about the law (I am at a law firm in the greater Philly area). If this is of interest to you, with PP’s help, perhaps we could exchange e-mail addresses. I have been impressed with your posts. Let me know.

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  29. Everyone – sorry about the last post. I did not know of any other way to convey that message. It is generally not my goal to take these posts off topic.

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  30. Catch 22: I’d certainly be interested in exchanging emails. If you enter yours in the email field when you make your next comment, I can go ahead and grab it (since PP granted me administrator status on the blog) and shoot you an email.

    Again, apologies to everyone for sidetracking this.

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  32. I voted Naylor. Really close between him, Valle, Sampson, Galvis. Could nave really voted for any of the 4.

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  33. Business at work. Amazing place the internet is.

    …make sure you two don’t spend too much time talking prospects during billable hours.

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  36. My vote goes w/ Stutes. Could change after lunch though(I’m on the west coast) to Worley or Naylor…… Big De Fratus phan as well (yep, bigger than you James). I will add that we do have a very nice group of pitching prospects to choose from don’t we?

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  38. went with Stutes…I continue to vote prior to reading everyone else’s comments/votes so as to not have any armtwisting.

    After reading everyone’s thoughts, I’d go with Sampson…but there’s something about Stutes….

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  40. Rodeo. Good to know he has an above avg curve. That’s the kind of info I look for here. Where are the best sources for scouting reports on prospects? I read the MLB stuff on draft day, but is there updated info anywhere after 1-2 years against pro competition? Or is it just googling till you find something?

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  43. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    Q: Will you work out with (Phillies pitcher) Adam Eaton this year like last year (Sampson lives in Sammamish, Washington, close to Eaton’s off-season home)?

    JS: We’re going to start playing catch pretty soon. He lives five minutes from me. It’s cool. You can talk to him about what he’s going through. He signed out of high school and he told me how he went through the system. He was in the same boat I was. He worked his tail off to earn the promotions.

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  44. Garcia then Bastardo is the way I had it on my own personal list, so I’m glad to see it shake out that way.

    I think its time for Sampson at this point. He edges Naylor because of age and upside, and I’ve got him ahead of the college pitchers we drafted for mostly the same reasons. Galvis is in the group as well, for me, with Valle maybe just a little lower. I’m looking for Sampson to make some noticeable improvements next year as he’ll likely repeat at Lakewood.

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  45. Mattair, Berry, Naylor are three whose final rank here I am most interested to see yet; J.A. Happ appreciates the love

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  46. That Sampson switched to a slider in the instructional league is good news- because his curveball was not an above average pitch. He was said to have a good slider his junior year in high school- but switched to a curve in his senior year. There comes a time when you have to question just how much a Kevin Goldstein knows about a guy like Sampson- sometimes if its not coming from a scouts mouth, you have remember sometimes what a Goldstein knows aboute a Sampson comes from the same stuff we can read about him.

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  47. It wouldn’t shock me at all to see Drew Naylor breakout in 2009. He should be a top 15 prospect. When he’s on, he’s dominating. One or two terrible outings spoiled his numbers. His WHIP up to now has been stellar. Now I’m thinking I should have voted him over Garcia.

    Sampson is all projection at this point. I have him several spots lower but I’m happy to see him getting love.

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  48. Hewitt. I wrote him in at 13 after voting for Garcia at 12. Had I not read that Goldstein had him in his top 11, I would have voted for Garcia at 13 and we wouldn’t have needed the tie breaker vote. But now I think Hewitt’s potential trumps all the other prospects’ caveats. Hewitt was a #1 pick. I don’t believe the Phillies drafted him too early. I do believe it is too early for his value to plummet.

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  49. I was just thinking about where Colby Shreve will be if he comes back healthy from TJ surgery…he was 1st round talent before he injured his elbow and fell to us in the 4th (?) round…he was something like the 213th overall pick off the top of my head, if you’ll recall. He was great pre injury though.

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  51. how can anyone possibly consider Mattair at all? He will never see Philly and should not be in the top 30–galvis right now

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  52. That’s disappointing to see Valle as a righty, I read in a couple of places when he first showed up that they had transposed the L/R. Just goes to show how little info there is about international signings. Even so, rest of what I said stands.

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  53. That Sampson switched to a slider in the instructional league is good news- because his curveball was not an above average pitch. He was said to have a good slider his junior year in high school- but switched to a curve in his senior year. There comes a time when you have to question just how much a Kevin Goldstein knows about a guy like Sampson- sometimes if its not coming from a scouts mouth, you have remember sometimes what a Goldstein knows aboute a Sampson comes from the same stuff we can read about him.

    I asked KG a question about Sampson’s stuff, so hopefully he can shed some light on it.

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  54. In this round I voted for Stutes. In looking at the remaining prospects I’ve been impressed with the numbers put up by a trio of pitchers at Lakewood- Michael Cisco, Michael Stutes, and Tyson Brummett. So i asked myself, how significant are performances like theirs in predicting future success? From 2005-2007, only one other starting pitcher at Lakewood put up comparable numbers (more than 30 innings, <2.00 ERA), and that was Antonio Bastardo in 2007. Looking at all of the Sally league in 2005, there were a *total* of 5 pitchers with that level of performance. 3 of the 5 have already made the majors.
    Troy Patton- Piched well for the Orioles in 2007 out with injuries in 2008
    Jason Vargas- Got into the Mariners rotation in 2006, pitched for the Mets in 2008.
    Gio Gonzalez- Pitched in 10 games for the A’s this year.
    Kyle Bloom- in AA in 2008
    Tim Worthington – in A+ (control problems)

    So with a small data set from 2005, the projection is that of these three 2008 Clearwater pitchers, 2 are likely to see the major leagues by 2010.

    Other findings from the exercise:
    1. At the A level, even very successful relief pitchers almost never make the majors.
    2. The best predictor of whether success in A-ball translates to success in the majors is age. someone pitching succesfully at age 20 in A has a very high probability of making the majors. James has stressed this factor, and I never really believed it. Next round I’m voting for Mike Cisco (age 21) over Stutes (age 22) or Brummett (24). But the player to look for from this year’s SAL is Madison Bumgarner, who put up numbers better than Stutes, Cisco, or Brummett but is only 19. Don’t be surprised if he’s pitching for the Giants in 2009 or 2010 at the latest!

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  56. Julian Sampson…based on his whole season with the Claws and the number of games that I have watched him pitch. A close second to Stutes and Naylor

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  57. I wrote in Vance Worley. Given his age Sampson is intriguing, but he’s hasn’t put it together yet. 4.6 K/9 combined with pedestrian control is a red flag. I feel more comfortable with Worley and Cisco since they’re far more developed right now. If Sampson is as good next year as Cisco and Worley were in 2008, I think we’d be thrilled. And remember that’s still an ‘if’…Stutes was great at Lakewood last year too, but since he’s a year older than Worley I have to give Worley the nod.

    Valle is just so far away that I have no idea where to rank him, but others who have him in this spot might be dead on.

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  58. erich Says:
    Jason Vargas- Got into the Mariners rotation in 2006, pitched for the Mets in 2008.
    Good points and we shall see. It takes a great manager and pitching coach to help young overachievers . Just because you can throw great pitches doesnt mean you are ready to go
    over 100 ,110 or the dreaded 120 pitches I believe it takes time to develop the proper blood flow to sustain the arm and shoulder(read Liarano)
    Jason Vargas was on his way to being a good to great pitcher when Trader Jack decided he Needed a complete game and left him out for 130 or so pitches.
    That is why I like Dave Huppert almost never lost a pitcher

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  59. erich Says:
    Jason Vargas- Got into the Mariners rotation in 2006, pitched for the Mets in 2008

    slight correction it was the Marlins rotation I do that too

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  60. DiamondDerby – I found that on this site in his mentions thread. I am looking for a place to get more scouting report information as well. Perhaps someone can shed some light. Should we just break down and get the fancy BP access?

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  61. Alan –good that now it is known That Valle bats and throws Right. Whoever puts those rosters on carried the whole throws left bats right thing from the Dominican League to the Gulf Coast League. Just because he is international doesn’t mean somebody in Clearwater could not look and see him one time. They have maintained that error for a couple years now.

    Note: Anyone thinking of putting Welinson Baez on the list can forget as he was released. Also Charles Vartanian and Douglas Morales. (BA)

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  63. “erich Says:
    December 31, 2008 at 12:03 am
    In this round I voted for Stutes. In looking at the remaining prospects I’ve been impressed with the numbers put up by a trio of pitchers at Lakewood- Michael Cisco, Michael Stutes, and Tyson Brummett.”

    In general, you have a pretty big flaw in your analysis- none of these guys pitched a full season in the league. Brummet got hammered as he was advanced to a more age appropriate league. Cisco pitched only 35 innings there- knowing that his stuff is average, can you really ignore that in place of a hot streak?

    Stutes is perhaps a little different, though he only pitched 42 innings there, as his stuff played up in pro ball- but none the less, he was on a hot streak as well. I actually like him alot, but i’ve got to see him a little more- from what i’ve seen from this point his delivery looks like shoulder trouble waiting to happen.

    “But the player to look for from this year’s SAL is Madison Bumgarner, who put up numbers better than Stutes, Cisco, or Brummett but is only 19. Don’t be surprised if he’s pitching for the Giants in 2009 or 2010 at the latest!”

    A teenager pitching in low a ball one year is not really likely to be pitching in the big leagues the next- unless his name is Dwight Gooden.

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  64. I voted for Valle in this spot, but I am curious as to why Drew Carpenter hasn’t even gotten a mention yet. He’s coming up on my list (My next four are Valle, Galvis, Naylor, Carpenter). Granted, I’ve changed my list about 100 times (wrote the darn thing in pen too…brilliant!) as I’ve been reading, but not even seeing his name mentioned has baffled me. The Phillies saw something in him to put him on the 40-man roster. Thoughts?

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  65. Carpenter: my guess is that Carpenter may be downgraded by some prospect evaluators due to a somewhat hefty look and the thought that he doesn’t have a big time fastball or other outstanding pitch. But he is reputed to have 5 pitches including a kind of splitter used as a change-up and good command, so I would think he would fit in somewhere down the line. How this all really turns out is yet to be determined.

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  66. Sampson on potential. Wonder why there isn’t more love for Mitchell who had a better year then Galvis or Mattair.

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  68. Whoops. That was you Greg. Thanks. Carpenter deserves to be in the conversation at this point. I have to think his weight/conditioning have impacted his pitching. He was demoted to EST because of his conditioning, correct? So it’s a head problem maybe. Tough to fix, but easier than having no fastball or other good pitches. Having 4 or 5 avg pitches that include a splitter, which players don’t see much, can be a formula for success in majors–IF the pitcher is smart or gets good coaching and game calling.

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  69. DiamondDerby

    Sparky Anderson used to say he hated when a player had no set backs It made him think the game was easy Hopefully
    Mr Carpenter wakes up and doesnt want to be another Myers
    or Blanton for that matter Put him with Huppert again and we will see
    Happy New Year drink the beer and do silly things

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  73. “Hopefully Mr Carpenter wakes up and doesnt want to be another Myers or Blanton”

    Why wouldn’t he want to be either of those pitchers? They are both very successful major leaguers with World Series rings.

    Not to mention Carpenter doesn’t have stuff ANYWHERE NEAR the caliber of those two. In his prime Myers had a 95 mph fastball and a plus curve… and Blanton has an effective mix of four average pitches.

    It will be a miracle if Carpenter even sniffs AAA at this point… and we would be quite lucky if he ever became Blanton.

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  74. Explain to me how it would be a miracle if Carpenter sniffs AAA at this point when he ended last season there (and also through an inning for the major league team).

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  75. Looks like Sampson is taking this one. Good battle between two solid prospects in Naylor and Valle coming up. Pretty cool we still have good prospects to talk about at 16 and 17. Then Stutes, Galvis, Mattair etc. Not too shabby.

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  76. Greg-

    I was exaggerating, but regardless of whether Carpenter plays in AAA or not is irrelevant… I was simply saying that his lack of dominating stuff makes it pretty obvious that he will never be Brett Myers or Joe Blanton. About the only thing that makes the three comparable is poor conditioning.

    You’re not arguing against my point, just knit-picking my hyperbole.

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  77. Would you argue that Myers is only a shadow of what he could of been. Check Myers and Blanton’s effectiveness after 50 pitches before this year that poor mark is a sign of poor conditioning. That is the point not Carpenter’s ceiling . I hope reuniting him with Huppert works like it did with Carrasco.

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  78. skunky – I am arguing your point. Your point is that Blanton has an effective mix of 4 average pitches, which is what Carpenter does. He just doesn’t have the experience yet. I think he could be as effective as Blanton, but that would probably be his ceiling. I don’t think he’ll ever be as good as Myers was when he was at his best, but still could be a solid 4/5 starter in the majors if/when he learns how to pitch. I find plenty of potential there for a solid career, not somebody who will be lucky to sniff AAA.

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  79. i wasnt aware myers was on his last legs, is he using a walker these days? seriously just like madson they jerked him around so much his head was spinning and just like madson if they keep him in their current situations there both just beginning. the more i examine this ibanez signing the worse it looks. a player 4 years older bad defefensively,slow 3 years blocking taylor or brown.i realize burrell could have said yes to 2 years at 22 mil so he is also responsible but that is what financial advisors are for, to tell him in 3 months the economy will be worse bad advice.obviously werth will have to bat 5th there is no way this trading of burrell 2 years 16 mil for lefty ibanez 3 years 31 mil makes any sense. the same with paulino agood catcher righty decent hitter.normally it would make sense but not with marson.and i wonder if the phils who are finally beloved realize what not signing future hof,er howard will cost them in mercendising,appeal and winning which equates to fannys in the seats. at 25 mil for 7 years he,s worth much more here than not.

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