Friend of the website Kevin Goldstein has his Phillies Top 15 prospects list up today, which you can check out here. Like everyone else, he’s bullish on Domonic Brown, and unsurprisingly, he likes Phillippe Aumont quite a bit. He’s not as high on some of our other prospects, dropping lots of 3 star ratings on guys who I might value a bit more, but his assessments seem quite fair. I’m going to attempt to work in another Q/A with him about his list, as its always a popular feature, but with his increased workload at Baseball Prospectus in 2010, I can’t make any promises. If you have any questions you’d specifically like to ask him, post them here and I’ll see if I can incorporate some of them if he’s able to do a quick Q/A.
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Reader Top 30; Final Spot
What a long strange trip its been. We’ve finally reached the end of the Reader Top 30 for 2010. There has been lots of good (and bad) discussion about the prospects who made it, and some who won’t make it. Matt Way took the #29 spot, and that means there are 8 players left for one final slot in the Top 30. Look for my SONAR piece on corner outfielders later today, and then if all goes well, my personal Top 30 will be posted on Friday. As I mentioned before, I was asked to provide my Top 30 this year, as well as a minor league overview for the 2010 Phillies Annual which is prepared by Jason from Beerleaguer. You can order a copy here to see what I have to say. My order for this website will be the same as in the Annual, but with more detailed info/writeups. Finally, if you want to submit a personal top 30 list, which I will attempt to log into an Excel spreadsheet for later viewing, please send an email to phuturephillies at gmail dot com and put “Reader Top 30” in the subject line. Thank you. Check below for the last poll.
Reader Top 30; #29
Catcher turned pitcher Jesus Sanchez takes the #28 spot, leaving just two spots left to go in this year’s Reader Top 30. My current aim is to have my own Top 30 ready by Friday, but that is, as always, subject to change. No one received write-in support in the last round, which is probably just as well, since there are only 2 spots left. Kevin Goldstein’s Top 15 for the Phillies should be up either today (Monday) or Tuesday, and I’m going to see if he can squeeze in a brief Q/A for the site once his list is posted. Check below for more.
Reader Top 30; #28
Three spots remain, as Jonathon Villar just barely edges out Jesus Sanchez for #27. Anthony Hewitt got a mention as a write-in, so I’ll add him to the next round. Here’s the schedule for the coming week. We’ll finish #29 and 30 early next week, I hope to have my SONAR piece on corner outfielders done, and then hopefully by the end of next week my personal Top 30 list will be posted. When we wrap up the Reader Top 30, I’ll put together a collaboration of individual top 30’s from those that submit them, but don’t send them yet. So, check below for #28…
Reader Top 30; #27
Before we get to the Reader Top 30, I just wanted to link two different articles. The first comes from notable prospect evaluator Alex Eisenberg at Baseball Intellect, where he’s posted his Top 15 Phillies prospects. Some of the content is premium and available only for subscribers. The second link is to a site called Diamond Futures, which covers prospects. You can read the author’s take on 19 of our prospects here. I always try and link stuff from people who get in touch with me, so I’m doing my good deed for the day there. Onto the Reader Top 30. We’re almost done, and blogger extraordinaire Michael Schwimer takes home the #26 spot in comfortable fashion. Travis Mattair and Mike Cisco both got a write in vote, so I’ll try and add them both. Check below for more..
Reader Top 30; #26
Zach Collier cruised through the voting for #25, taking 28% of the vote and edging out Michael Schwimer and a cast of others. We’ll move right along to #26, as we inch closer to finishing up the Top 30 for this season. Check below for the poll
SONAR takes on Catcher prospects
Welcome to the latest installment of the SONAR takes on series. If you’re new to the concept, I recommend you check out my intro piece on SONAR here, then check out the reports for first base, second base, shortstop, and third base so you have an idea of how I’m approaching the project. After catcher, I’m going to do the corner outfielders together, then centerfield, and that will wrap up the position player side of the ledger. I’ll then break down the pitchers, before finally releasing a top 100 prospects based on SONAR scores. After that, I’m going to reveal my top 15 prospects for each team, which will be a synthesis of my own personal opinions of the prospects, plus my work here with SONAR. We really won’t know how accurate my readings on these prospects are until we have multiple years of data, but it should be fun to look back at these lists next year and see which guys proved to be real and which faded into obscurity. So lets get started with the catchers…
Reader Top 30; #25
We’ll get back on track with the voting for #25. Im planning on leaving the voting open for about 24 hours for each of the remaining spots, so make sure to check in once a day and get your vote in. I’m also finishing up the writeup for the SONAR scores for catching prospects, which should be done in the next day or so. Colby Shreve, who has yet to throw a pitch in the Phillies system, takes the voting at #24. Its a leap of faith at this point, but the pre-surgery template looked pretty outstanding, and there haven’t been any reports that I’ve read indicating he’s had setbacks, some rehabs take longer than others. I initially thought I’d have Shreve higher on my list, but when I sat down to produce my Top 30, he ended up #29. There was a bit of write-in support for Jesus Sanchez, Matt Way, and Jonathon Villar. I actually was able to add all of them to the polling for #25, so check below for more.
Jim Salisbury’s “State of the Phillies” series
Over at CSN, Jim Salisbury has been going position by position through the Phillies system, talking about the prospects the organization likes at certain positions, etc etc. So far he’s covered catcher, first base, and second base. Check out his writeups and feel free to discuss them in this post, which I can bump up if it falls off the first page. Thanks to reader “David” for pointing out the story to me.
Also, a thank you to Todd, a contributor here who maintains the updated depth charts and 40 man roster entries you can find at the top of the main page. He recently created a spreadsheet in google documents with every player in the organization, prospect and career minor leaguer alike, and how that player was acquired. You can find it on the Rosters Page at the top of the site or by clicking here.
Reader Top 30; #24
Leandro Castro steamrolled his way to the #23 spot, taking 30% of the vote and edging out Zach Collier and Colby Shreve. Michael Schwimer received the most write-in support, so he’ll enter the ballot for #24. I won’t waste any more words here, you know the drill by now. Upward and onward.
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