Friday Releases

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The Phillies announced a number of releases yesterday of players up and down their minor league system, including some familiar names that have been with the organization for some time. The releases are as follows: Catchers Zak Farkas, Jorge Guerra, and John Purdom; Inf Eric Campbell and Yonderman Rodriguez; OF Freddy Guzman; and Pitchers Pat Overholt, Santos Hernandez, Eryk McConnell, Darren Byrd, Jared Simon, Jessie Zuber and Jason Salers.  Overholt was the most advanced home grown player of this group, having reached Triple A last year, but his inconsistencies continued taking him out of prospect status. Darren Byrd had been with the organization for five seasons but failed to rise above Clearwater (A). Similarly, Yonderman Rodriguez was released after five years in the organization, after seeing fairly regular time in CLearwater last season.

22 thoughts on “Friday Releases”

  1. Thanks for the update. Do you think they’re done with cuts? I wonder when they’ll release the official assignments….

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  2. Trashing dead wood.

    Q: What percentage of draftees ever reach the bigs?

    Bet it’s not more than about 15%.

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  3. who is Jason Salers? I’ve never heard of him. Do you have a link for this? Thanks.

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  6. Campbell was one of my super deep sleepers for this year, and it seemed like he was hitting well in the minor league ST games. I wonder if he had some kind of out clause in the deal he signed. Kinda disappointing, but no major loss.

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  7. I guess Cody Ransom and Dewane Wise accepted their assignments to AAA. That forces Sellers and Q Berry back to AAA. With Gillies in CF, I guess that makes Berry the LF at Reading.

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  8. I’d be teed-off if I was Berry. After having a decent year last season and making the 40-man roster, he’s back in AA.

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  9. I completely do not know what to make of the Carlos Monaasterios thing. Has anyone seen him pitch? This seems more than a little bizarre. At least David Herndon, by way of comparison, had some time at AA.

    I guess one thing it may tell us is that our farm system is pretty good – better than we think.

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  11. Wow Lehigh Valley might be older then some MLB teams…no real top prospects. They have Savery, Bocock, Mayberry, Zagurski, and Mathieson. After that a bunch of 30 yr old minor league vets. Kind of shocked about Berry. I would rather see him at AAA over Chris Duffy. I guess Reading is going to be the team to watch if you want to see some prospects who are not too far away.

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  13. I hope to make 25-30 Reading games this year. Look for unofficial write-ups in comments throughout the year.

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  14. The best major league ready prospects now populate AA rosters. A players like Berry getting sent down to AA shouldn’t be pissed. They will be playing with the best talent in the system against the top talent in other systems.
    AAA is treated as an extension of the MLB team’s 25 man roster. If there is a short-term injury, the MLB team needs players that can step in an perform at the MLB level. Look at all of the MLB experience on the LHV roster. In a tight pennant race, I have a lot more faith in Nate Bump making one or two starts than rolling the dice and letting any of the top pitching prospects debut with the team.

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  16. Most prospects hit AAA. Personally, I think it’s just that when a player hits AAA, he is likely to get promoted far quicker than a player is from AA. When an MLB team has an opening or injury, fans clamor for the prospect to come up. MLB teams don’t face the same pressure to fill a AAA opening (i.e., Domonic Brown will not get called up just because John Mayberry twists an ankle in April).

    Having seen a great deal of AAA, most AAA teams have maybe one or two blue chip prospects. They have a few mid level prospects, the Trevor Plouffes of the world, and then good AAA veterans. And honestly, I like watching those guys play. I think once a prospect gets to that level he needs to start earning his playing time and start outplaying the veterans. And in turn, playing against the veterans give the prospects valuable experience that you can’t replicate against other prospects.

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  17. Art D, I’d say the percentage of draftees who hit MLB is something shy of 10%. It’s late and I don’t want to go into a full study, but here’s a quick glance at five Phillies drafts. The first number is the players who reached the majors and the second is the total picks made.

    1998: 8/43
    1999: 5/44
    2000: 3/39
    2001: 4/48
    2002: 5/48

    2000 looks bad but one of those players was Utley. I’d call that a success.

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  18. I think it depends on the organization wrt AA/AAA. Some teams seem to like to jump their elite prospects from AA to the majors. In some cases, it might be an organizational belief based on the talent level in AAA, and I think in some cases its proximity to the big league team. If a team’s AAA affiliate is 900 miles from its big league club, but the AA team is only 50 miles, it might have an impact. I think in some cases, there are more “legit prospects” in AA than AAA. So you might get a truer sense of where a player is developmentally. Then again, AAA is filled with minor league lifers. For pitchers, I think AA might be a better test, because you’re maybe facing more elite hitters. For hitters, getting to face AAA junk ballers might have its advantages.

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  19. Haven’t seen Monasterios pitch, but just checked out gameday from yesterday.

    Fastball’s between 90-92, decent movement on it
    Change up 76-78, lots of sink and run

    He mixed in a couple 75 mph curves, that looks to be a big overhand breaker.

    I have a hard time seeing him last the entire year in the bigs, but who knows. Certainly should be interesting to see how he does.

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  20. Of all of these cuts, I guess I am most surprised by Overholt and Byrd, especially the latter. Overholt never really got a grip on his command, but Byrd is still fairly young and came on very strong in the second half last year.

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  21. Byrd:
    2008 – 21 years old/Clearwater/18 G/17 GS/4.88 ERA/1.555 WHIP/4.9 K/9
    2009 – 22 years old/Clearwater/24 G/14 GS/3.99 ERA/1.489 WHIP/6.2 K/9

    Repeat A+ as a 22 year old and still throw up a 1.489 WHIP = an easy cut.

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  22. Monasterios is someone I know nothing about, but since someone else covets him, I immediately want him back. It sounds like they are serious about keeping him. I wonder how bad he has to do before they think about sending him back.

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