A new week is upon us. First, Sunday’s scores
Williamsport won 4-3.
Lakewood lost 4-1 and lost 4-0.
Reading won 4-0.
Lehigh Valley lost 5-4.
* Jiwan James sees his hitting streak snapped at 24 games
* I don’t know what got into Vance Worley of late, but its a good thing
* Singleton has 39 BB and 40 K through 60 games. Highly impressive on both counts
* Rizzotti is still hitting .357 after 213 AB.
And…..go!
Phuture Phillies 
The good: Worley taunting the Phils to move him up to AAA (Last 17 IP, 6 H, 0 ER). Miguel Alvarez in Williamsport (.474 in last 10, .365 on the year, but he has 1 BB in and 17K in 27 G), Mario Hollands once again (5 IP 1 H, 8 K, 2 BB, 6-0 Go/Ao).
The bad and the ugly: Hewitt gets this honor a lot (.083 in last 10, 14Ks and 0 BB, 0-9 in last 3). I just have to move on.
The weird: At Wmprt, James Klocke PH in the 9th and ripped a 2 Run triple for Edgar Duran. That’s not the weird part… He stayed in the game at SS. He’s listed as a catcher and I hadn’t seen him in a box score playing elsewhere. Did he play SS in College? I’m sure he has the arm for it.
We’re getting close to the discussions about moving players up and out. It’s nearly time to talk about shutting starters down because of workload and who replaces them.
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Agree Bellman. Think some if the college guys go to Lakewood and help out with the workload. Kind of like hyatt did last year. This year it should be Angelle and maybe Pettis, though I’ve read they are concerned with his college workload and are already easing his load by moving him to the pen
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In my opinion which isnt that good , if you miss on a Hewitt a first round choice but hit on others like gose, is that so wrong, first round are not sure things , but gose looks like a player and there are others from that draft that look good. too much I believe is put on first round picks being superstars.
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i have been a big supporter of Hewitt, but i must admit, it looks like he is going backwards.
what is most amazing to me about Rizzotti is how his power number have exploded mid-season after jumping a level. his ISO is 220 in Reading after only being 51 in Clearwater. I know the FSL is a pitcher’s league, but that is kinda ridiculous. i hope he keeps it up. very impressive.
lastly, any recent reports on Worley? great ERA numbers, but the peripherals are not awesome. we have been teased by guys who get a good ERA in the minors but aren’t MLB prospects before. i hope he isn’t one of those.
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I agree mikemike, i think some people look at baseball drafts like football drafts. in the nfl if your 1st rounder is bad it sets you back alot, baseball is so different in terms of how hard it is to scout all these kids, the 4-5 years you know you will have to develop a baseball player as apposed to a football player, the difference between metal and wood bats. i think you really need to base your draft opinions in baseball on what percentage of guys from a draft make the pros, not neccesarily from what round they came.
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There are guys in the bigs who don’t have eye-popping pitches but still get the job done. Mark Buehrle comes to mind right away. If Worley becomes a solid starter, I would be happy. We need to preserve some cash because Hamels is likely to get paid.
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? for some.. What would it take to reacquire Michael Taylor? Obviously he is struggling horribly for the A’s.. (.262 avg, 4 hr, 50 rbi)
He is now 24..
Would Rizzotti plus a Mayberry or lower level prospect get him?
Just curious.. if he isnt ruined, he would potentially help us next year.. maybe our coaches could fix him?
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The first round is extremely important. That is the only pick to whom the Phillies will be willing to offer $1+million bonus. We certainly do find gems in later rounds, but there is a group of about 40 guys each draft whom are fairly universally regarded as quite good and who are not going to sign for what the Phillies offer as bonuses in the later rounds. You certainly want to get the best possible guy among that group of 40 guys. We usually have done pretty well, especially when gambling on HS pitchers like Drabek and Hamels, who have some issues. We do less well when we get infatuated with a certain type of highly athletic, super raw player like Jackson, Taylor, Golson, and Hewitt. The team needs to learn from these experiences. The first lesson is that we are batting zero on this sort of first round pick, while passing on better, signable prospects like Hughes to pick them. Second thing to learn is that you can get equally good or better super athletic flyer type guys much cheaper in later rounds. The guys like Brown, Bourn, James, Altherr, Gillies, even Myers are proof of this. Why surrender your primo pick and bonus for the kind of guy you can get later in the draft? You should be laying down your $1 million for a more-developed, surer thing. We don’t recognize that certain commodities in the draft, like good college hitters, very good HS or college prospects at 3B, C, SS require a primo pick. It’s possible you get lucky later, but not likely. Other positions like athletic HS OF and projectible HS arms on athletic bodies are gettable later in draft. I don’t mind using the first round for a projectible HS arm, not because it makes great draft strategy, but because our scouts are so good at evaluating the HS arms. Failing to bend to this axiom of the draft partly explains our dearth of 3B, SS, and C prospects. We are doing well in the draft, but with a smarter plan we could do better.
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Agreed that 1st rounders are not a sure thing and you can’t base an entire draft on whether they are a success or not but at the same time that should be the most talented player you are able to obtain in the draft, that is the guy that your people should think the most of at that point in the draft barring signability issues. Also that is the guy that is getting the most money to sign so to just say yeah we missed with Hewitt but we did well with Gose is oversimplefying the situation. We gave Hewitt a million dollars of our draft budget and passed on other guys at that spot so yeah its not the end of the world but if you consistently miss with 1st rounders it is a big deal.
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I would take Mike Taylor back in a heartbeat. People think I’m nuts but a Rizzotti/Worley package may do it at this point. If Werth leaves, the Phillies need to go to ST next year with at least two players in addition to Brown who may be ready to play the outfield. I’d love to see old MT compete for one of those jobs and I have to believe that there’s a lot more ability there than what we saw this year. Anybody can have a bad year.
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you’re nuts.
Every system in the league has players like Rizzotti and Worley, guys way outperforming expectations both based on their tools and their past performance. You just don’t know about them, because no one here is paying attention to another team’s over age prospects. It’s a lot of fun to get track them, but you start tossing out trade proposals for top 50 prospects, even those that are struggling, and you’re losing perspective.
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I would luv MT back. Quietly for June and July he is about .300 with near .4oo OBP.
Not the huge breakout we are used to . What the heck was he on IR for.
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I don’t know what to do with Savery at this point, but I did crack a smile when I saw he’s batting .313 with an OPS above .800 and they’ve been using him occasionally as a pinch hitter…
Michael Taylor doesn’t help us right now. We have an trove of solid outfield prospects, one of which may be ML ready. I know Dom is left handed, but really. What we should be thinking about is a replacement for Rollins… who seems to be trending downward.
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allentown…your logic is slightly flawed. First of all, Hewitt was the toolsy infielder type when he was drafted. He was a disaster at 3B and is now in the OF, but you can’t forget that they drafted him with the idea that he would be a 3B.
Secondly, can folks on this board please stop using Reggie Taylor and Jeff Jackson as examples of a flawed Phillies drafting logic? I mean, what was that, 3 GM’s ago? That’s like a Mets fan saying that they should never draft a catcher in the first round because Steve Chilcott didn’t work out so well.
Drafting for a position of need is not something that happens in the baseball draft. The nuances of the draft prevent that from happening.
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It’s a nice thought, but why would Oakland trade Taylor for a 1B/DH hitting prospect like Rizzotti when they swapped Brett Wallace — shaping up to play a similar position to Rizzotti — for Taylor less than 6 months ago? That would essentially be trading Wallace for Rizzotti and an average arm, something I doubt Oakland would do.
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Fair points on overvaluing Rizzotti and Worley – perhaps you would need to add more to sweeten that package.
As for why Oakland might take a lesser return now it they gave away to get Taylor, well, Taylor’s star has fallen pretty steeply. I doubt he’s a top 50 prospect any more and may have trouble making the top 100. But, yeah, to save some face the Phillies would really have to make it worth their while.
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As for the trove of OF propsects, that’s true, but only one is major league ready. The rest are at least 2-3 years away. The problem, however, is that we may need to replace two outfielders in 2 years and, in any event, we need more depth there. As I said, I’d take Taylor back, but it’s unclear what we’d have to give up to get him.
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Nice post Allentown.
If I recall correctly, Hewitt was a shortstop in High School, but most scouts figured he would be an outfielder. Whatever the case, it doesn’t seem to be happening with him. I wonder if he’ll retire like Mattair, or just continue to stick it out for a few more years.
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Let’s cut to the chase and put Savery at 1b somewhere. The guy cannot pitch and seems to be able to hit the baseball. What do we have to lose at this point? Guys with his stuff are a dime a dozen.
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I question if you can end a hitting streak during a shortened game…but oh well.
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Allentown: very well stated.
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Nice sensible post GregA. Unfortunately just asking that every African American, High school player, not be compared to Jeff Jackson, is too much. Good news is the next generation can compare everyone to Hewitt now.
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Allentown – I’ve been saying, in so many words, for years what you said above (if I knew how to search the site, I could find those posts, but, trust me, they’re there) and I know Friar has echoed this sentiment. Stop with the risky, high round, raw, athletic hitting prospects already – it’s like Groundhog Day. Their success rate on these prospects is so low that it borders on being laughable. They do equally well (truth be told, they do far, far better) on the late rounders, so why waste the first round opportunity on these players? I’m not saying they should go with low ceiling prospects – I am saying they should use more discretion in drafting these particular type of prospects, because, apparently, they stink at doing this.
Honestly, I think they just can’t help themselves. They watch a kid play who is a great athlete with immense physical and they just get these bizarre visions of Willie Mays in their heads that they cannot shake.
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Mikemike: the problem with Hewitt is that there were obviously better players available at the time and those players have looked better and better every year. It’s not like the Phillies took the bast player available and he just couldn’t hit a curve ball or got hurt, they decided to take a big gamble on a raw talent with not much of a track record and missed and when you take that big a gamble, you have to be prepared for some griping.
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In other news, 9th round pick, Aaron Altherr hit his 1st Homerun today. Went 3 for 4 and is now batting over .300. He and Miguel Alvarez are clearly having the best seasons in the shorts season leagues for the Phillies. Both could take a BB now again, though.
Mikhail Franco seems to be holding his, also.
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I’m pretty sure the phils brought in hewitt to cbp before the draft and worked him out. You’d think they would of thrown the kid some off speed stuff during that bp.
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Altherr went 3 – 4 with a HR and 4 RBIs today. I’m lovin’ that. Maybe Hewitt’s expectations have done him in… so far. Altherr is another guy like Hewitt,. He’s performing but he was also a 9th round pick… not a 1st.
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Singletons k/bb is very rare at his age. The only recent prospect I can recall with plate discipline like that at his age was Carlos Santana. Lets hope he progresses the same way.
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No, Hewitt was not a toolsy IF prospect. To be that, you have to have 4 or 5 tools, one of which being good IF defensive ability. Hewitt never had that. He played SS on a NE US HS baseball team. The OF on the team likely were even less skilled in IF defense than Hewitt. What Hewitt had was a very athletic body, speed, and power ‘potential’. Lacked D and ability to hit for average or pitch recognition skills.
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“Mikhail Franco seems to be holding his, also”
Hopefully, you forgot a word here!!!!!!
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JBird: Just curious who you thought were better players. I’m looking at the 2008 draft chart right now and there are no big-time prospects all the way through pick 60. Now, I don’t follow other team’s minor league systems as closely as I follow the Phillies, but I don’t see players that were just light years better than Hewitt at No. 24.
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Was asking on my twitter about how to evaluate players in the GCL. Figured there might be something on this site or elsewhere. Any suggestions?
I generally only pay attention to under 20 year old kids there. Outside of walks and strikeouts idk what a positive sign for youngsters adjusting to wood is.
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Altherr progress over last year is encouraging.
But . . .
1 walk in 106 ABs, 22 strikeouts, that’s a yellow flag.
Hopefully, he is experimenting with an aggressive approach this year and can learn to be less of a free swinger when the pitchers get better at throwing FBs in and BBs off the outside of the plate.
But low .200s BA to ver .300 is some kind of significant progress.
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Its not about money, it about how many you can develop out of a draft, i agree in some respects with what you say. more talent in the first, but howard was a fifth, if it wasnt for the money, would you still think the same. we miss on kids in a lot of rounds. so do other teams, But the more i read there are more and more kids we draft in the majors and they arent first round picks, maloney was third, and so on.
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I wish PP posted sonar scores semi regularly. It would be interesting to see who has the higher sonar score between the .301 hitting Altherr, and the .220 hitting Mikail Franco. Both have the same amount of extra base hits in each category. They both also have similar strikeout totals. Altherr has the higher OBP.
I would guess Franco has the higher sonar score due to having 9 walks in 100 PA’s, while Altherr has 1 walk in over 110 PA’s. Not to mention Franco being 17 and Altherr being 19. Interested to see how these things are perceived by that system.
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Aumont was terrible tonight. 5BB in 2.2IP
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Now that is the Savery we would like to see. Please be a turnaround.
ps Is MT waking up ?
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Just looking at altheer numbers. Looks like he is a potential leadoff hitter with little power, right now projection off his numbers arent too bad 40 stolen bases in full season, good average, reminds me of some of the old pirate players like the catcher sandigo,never walked but hit near 300, like to see what this kid is like in higher league, when he learns the strike zone hopefully he does.
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