Thank you for all of the emails. I received a few emails with very similar questions, so I just picked one and went with it. If I didn’t get to your email this time, I’ll try and do better next time. I’m currently working on a big draft related piece that covers lots of philosophical/economical topics, but I’m going to wait until I have all of the data to analyze. I’ve got a few more things cooking, so stay tuned. Check below the fold for my answers to your questions.

From Robert

Which pick do you think will be the fastest riser? As in which pick do you think will arrive in the Majors first? Who were the steals and who did we overpay? Can we expect Rupp (Rd. 3) to be a major league caliber catcher?

When it comes to how fast guys move, it depends on the role. A polished pitcher like Mario Hollands (10th round) has posted good numbers at Williamsport, and he turns 22 in a week, so he should move quickly. If the Phillies would turn him into a reliever, he could be in Philly in 2012. If not him, it will likely be a reliever drafted after the first few rounds. The Phillies didn’t really overpay anyone, that I can tell. The potential “steals” would be Eldemire (6th round) and Morgado (4th) if he can start throwing strikes. As for Cameron Rupp, it seems the question is whether he will hit enough, as he’s a good defender. If he hits for power, he could still make it to the bigs even if he hits only .250, as long as his defense is above average.

From David

I wondered if you could do a bit of a retrospective on a Phillies drafts. I wondered how the Phillies actually did in the a draft / signings that you can close the book on – say 2007 or 2006? How many players made it to the majors; how many we’re used in valuable trades; how many All Stars, etc. What regime was this? Then a grade.

Hi David. I did a crude review of the 2002 draft a few years ago. This is definitely a project for the offseason, thanks for the idea.

From Tim

Great work on the draft coverage. I feel draft is only getting woret. Do you feel the same? If so how would you change the format?

Thanks Tim. I actually wrote a lengthy article proposing a few draft changes a few months ago, which you can read here and I followed it up with another theoretical article here. At its core, the draft is meant to help the worst teams acquire the best talent. But often times, elite talent slips down draft boards because teams are afraid to pay the price tag. This not only impacts the ML teams, it impacts the game as a whole, because talented two sport guys are choosing football over baseball. This is largely due to MLB trying to get teams to give picks after the first few rounds no more than a $150K bonus. For an elite two sport stud prospect, its a no-brainer to go to college. The areas I would focus on would start with getting rid of the slot recommendations, changing the eligibility rules for players who forgo pro ball out of high school, and allowing teams to protect prep players for 1 extra year before they have to go on the 40 man roster. I’ll be covering a lot of these topics in my large draft piece that is in the works.

From Joe

Id love to hear your thoughts on some little talked prospects, specifically Julio Rodriguez, Geancarlo Mendez, and Ebelin Lugo. What is wrong with Antonio Bastardo’s stuff in that he dominates in AAA, but struggles against major league hitters? What are you feelings on the progession of the Cliff Lee deal prospects?

I got multiple emails on Julio Rodriguez, so I’ll just cover him here. I ranked Julio Rodriguez 30th in my 2010 Top 30, and going back to the 2008 draft, I said I liked what I saw in terms of his projection going forward. He’s very tall and lanky, and my reservation on him centered around his velocity. Last winter, the report I had was that he consistently threw 86-90, which for a RHP, just isn’t enough. There have been conflicting reports on his velocity this season, some saying 87-90, some saying 89-92. If he is more toward the 92 side, then I’ll be upgrading him this winter. On Mendez, I can’t give you much now, as he’s a guy I didn’t really pay attention to in the DSL (because he was older), but I’ll do some more digging this winter. Lugo seems like an organizational arm, as he doesn’t have overpowering stuff. With regard to Bastardo, I think sometimes guys just take a while to get comfortable and settle in. If he hasn’t been comfortable in the majors, that would explain his command issues. He may also be trying to overthrow, what with the adrenaline and all. I think he’ll play a role next year if he can stay healthy. As for Aumont, Gillies and Ramirez, its been a disappointing season. JC Ramirez showed flashes at Clearwater, and he held his own in AA before hitting a rough patch. He profiles as a #3/4 starter at this point, or a power arm out of the pen. Aumont has really struggled, but he’s still plenty young. Gillies has lost most of the season to nagging hamstring/hand injuries, and I’m not going to draw really any conclusions on him after this year.

From Chris

Question for you, can you please explain the trade details once the July 31 deadline passes on players in the minors and in the majors? Does every team have to decline on the player before any single team can make an offer? Why are some seemingly untouchable players on waivers and then pulled back, such as the Red Sox Closer Jonathon Papelbon? Thank you!

MLB’s waiver process runs in cycles, and it doesn’t make sense. One cycle begins after spring training and then the July 31 deadline ends another cycle, and then you have the August through the end of the season cycle. For a player who is on the 40 man roster to be removed from the 40 man roster and be sent to the minors, he has to go unclaimed by the 29 other teams. Before July 31st, any player can be traded to any team. After July 31, the player has to go unclaimed on waivers. Teams generally put 7 or 8 players on waivers at the same time, players they might want to trade and players they have no intention of trading. This is done to disguise your intentions. In the Phillies case, say they want to trade Raul Ibanez and Antonio Bastardo, but you have no intention of trading Chase Utley or Ryan Howard. You might want to waive all 4 guys at the same time, because other teams will see the guys they know you’re not trading and then also see other guys and not really know what your intentions are. When a player is placed on revocable waivers (which almost everyone is), if the player is claimed, the team can pull him back and opt to not trade him. In August, if a player is claimed, he can only be traded to the team that claims him. If the two teams can’t work out a trade, the player is pulled back and he can’t be waived again during this period. If a team wants to get rid of a big contract, they can waive a player, and if a team claims him (either because they actually want the player, or because they want to block another team from getting him) they can just tell the other team to take the player. The other team assumes the player’s entire contract. Every August, most players are put on waivers, no matter how good they are. Most are pulled back, a few are traded, and every once in a while, a team just rids itself of a bad contract.

From Albert

Why does it seem the Phillies select only a few infielders in the draft? Is there some sort of philosophy at work here, or is this just a matter of the best players available being outfielders and pitchers?

I have to think it might be an organizational priority, but it may also have to do with where the Phillies pick in the draft. Middle infield prospects are the toughest to find, especially guys who can legitimately play there at the major league level. The Phillies may feel that it is smarter to try and fill the middle infield spots with proven MLB players. This is often more expensive, but drafting successful legit MI prospects is very difficult as well.

From AJ

Hey, great site, love reading it every day. I submitted a question last time about where our traded prospects of the past few years would rank in our system now. Know we all got swallowed up by the Oswalt / deadline chatter but if you have a chance to provide your thoughts on that this time, that would be great. Thanks.

I’m going to use this question to write a post devoted just to the subject sometime very soon. When you consider all of the prospects traded for Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt, there are a lot of guys to discuss. I think my Top 4 is pretty concrete at this point

Domonic Brown, Brody Colvin, Jarred Cosart, Jon Singleton.

The only traded prospects I’d consider ranking above Singleton would be Drabek and D’Arnaud. But I think I’d actually keep our Big 4 of those 2 guys. Gose, Villar, and Taylor would probably figure into the back end of the Top 10.

From David

Curious about ‘defensive value’ for prospects. I was wondering what the relationship is between the different positions. For example, use Sebastian Valle. How much does his value drop if moved from C to 3B or to 1B? Kelly Dugan moves from CF to LF to 1B?

I wrote an article about this very topic a while ago. You can check it out here. If you were doing “factors” to try and quantify the defense, 1B would be 1.00, LF would be like 1.08, SS would be like 2.78, and C would be like 2.90. That should give you an idea of the defensive value there. The other positions would fall in between there. With the Dugan example, CF would be like 2.02, LF 1.08 and 1B 1.00. So the loss of defensive value would be pretty significant, and the importance of the bat increases.

From Steve

What would you do differently on the site if time and money were not a limiting factor?

If I won the lottery and didn’t have to work for a living, having a lot of disposable income, I would go see each of our affiliates in person, for at least 6 games a piece, and shoot a lot of video/take pictures/write up details reports. I’d also pay to have someone build me a database, capable of scraping data from minorleaguebaseball.com that would allow me to more easily calculate things like my SONAR score.

From Robert

Can you please explain to me why we don’t use Standard Errors and Confidence Levels to solve sample size related debates?

Robert wrote a lot more and went into detail with equations. The short answer, Robert, is that I’m not comfortable enough with these type of advanced statistical calculations, and in short, I don’t think that level of detail is really necessary. But its certainly an interesting thought/perspective.

From Ron

1.Who gets added to 40-man, 2.Which minor leaguers get dropped from 40-man, 3. Which prospects/chance prospects are we likely to lose through Rule 5 and a 6-yr. FA.

I plan on looking at this in more detail after the season ends, but just doing a quick preview. There are, by my count, 38 players on the 40 man roster, and one of those players, Jamie Moyer, is out for the season and could be transferred to the 60 day DL, thus opening up another spot. But he will be a free agent this winter, so his spot will clear anyway. Current prospects already on the 40 man roster include Drew Carpenter, Sergio Escalona, Yohan Flande, Scott Mathieson, Drew Naylor, JC Ramirez, Jesus Sanchez, Vance Worley, Mike Zagurski, Domonic Brown, and John Mayberry Jr. The current players in the minors who will have to be protected for the first time, by my calculation, are D’Arby Myers, Joe Savery, Matt Rizzotti, Chance Chapman, Justin De Fratus, Jacob Diekman, Harold Garcia (I think), and Heitor Correa. I think this list is correct, I glanced quickly.

Looking at that list, I think Harold Garcia will almost certainly be protected, and I think it would be a pretty big mistake to not protect Justin De Fratus. Rizzotti has certainly had a monster year, and I think he’d stand a good chance as well. Savery’s performace in Instructional League will probably determine whether the Phillies attempt to protect him. Diekman, Chapman and Correa don’t seem likely, and I don’t see a team taking any of the 3 and keeping them on the major league roster all year. D’Arby Myers is an interesting case. He’s probably still too raw to be MLB ready (from the Phillies perspective) in 3 years. There are players on the 40 man that could be removed to make room, guys like Escalona, so it will be interesting to see how things shake out.

From Bay Slugga

How does the Phillies minor league system stack up against the other teams in our division? Which teams have more depth, and which teams have more elite prospects?

Off the cuff, its tough to say without me digging into the numbers from the other teams in the division. Atlanta has a number of high ceiling pitching prospects, including Julio Teheran, who is arguably the best pitching prospect in the minors. At last check, they don’t have any more Heyward-esque position players in the queue. Florida’s big prospect is Mike Stanton, who will lose his prospect status. They have a few interesting pitching prospects, and 3B Matt Dominguez is a defensive whiz, still very young, but with a questionable bat. Logan Morrison, who has played some LF, is another good prospect, but he’s kind of in limbo now. The Nats obviously just added a nice haul in the draft, and they have a few interesting guys coming. Danny Espinosa, a SS, is one of my favorite underrated prospects, and Derek Norris (a catcher) who had a monster year last year has been injured this year and had a very poor season. The Mets system is below average, but they do have a few interesting guys in the low minors, led by Wilmer Flores, a 3B (for now) who will likely move to a corner OF spot. The Mets, thankfully, don’t use their financial muscle in the draft.

Thanks everyone.