Recap: Abbreviated weekly recap this week in lieu of a first-hand report from last night’s game and a lengthier season-ending writeup whenever the playoffs end. Lakewood went 5-2 on the week and won the SAL North second-half title. They’ll start the playoffs on Wednesday at Hickory with Trevor May on the mound. Good starts this week from May and Pettibone, another really good start from Julio Rodriguez. A quick glance through the box scores for the week doesn’t show anyone jumping off the page with a great performance, although Leandro Castro went on a bit of an RBI binge at the end of the week and looks like he’ll end up leading the team in that category. The most interesting things to look for in today’s regular season finale are whether Jiwan James can get the two hits he needs to tie Quintin Berry’s Lakewood single-season record and whether the ‘Claws can tie their single-season record for wins.
Game Report: Brody Colvin got the start last night. Lakewood played most of their regulars (although Singleton, Valle, and James all left after a couple of at bats). Also, I searched for the pack of guys with leathery tanned skin, straw hats, floral print shirts, and radar guns, but if they were there, they were gone early–maybe Sunday night before Labor Day isn’t a plum scouting assignment.
To my untrained, non-professional scout eye, Colvin appears to have an easy, repeatable delivery. His body language did not seem to change during the couple innings when he ran into some problems. During the first inning, he threw mainly fastballs and sat at 92-94 on the stadium gun. His fastball topped out at 95 during his five innings (and he hit 95 more than a handful of times).
The only other time I’d seen Colvin pitch was against a junior college team at the Carpenter Complex back in March, and standing behind the cage that day, I got to hear the Phils’ minor league brass openly laughing at how his breaking stuff was destroying the JC players. That seemed to continue last night, as he generated a lot of awkward swings on breaking stuff (which was generally sitting in the low-80s). Ended up with 5 Ks–four swinging and one looking.
He was “tagged” for two doubles, but these were both inside out squibbers down the lines. He also got into some trouble with his glove. The leadoff hitter hit a chopper to Singleton, who fed Colvin covering. He appeared to have the hitter beat by at least a step, but the ball rolled away. It was ruled a hit and that runner later scored. Later in the game, he got leather on back-to-back comebackers / choppers, but misdirected enough that the first ended up being a hit and the second prevented a double play that would’ve erased the first.
Just a couple other random observations:
- Singleton is very patient at the plate–lots of foul balls, seems to be quite adept at protecting the outer part of the plate with two strikes as he had a number of “lunging” type swings to foul off pitches that were away.
- Alan Schoenberger can play shortstop a little bit. Had better range (both lateral and coming in) than I would’ve expected and has a decent arm. Came away thinking that if Wilson Valdez can forge a four or five year big league career, Schoenberger might be able to as well.
- The Kannapolis third base coach took no chances running on Jiwan James. Quickest stop signs I’ve seen since the girls I hung with in high school. And college. And grad school.
- Sebastian Valle threw out a runner stealing on the back-end of a second / home double-steal to end an inning.
- Anthony Hewitt hit a laser over the high fence in left center–just a rocket.
Took a bunch of pictures–tried to get an idea of batting stances and Colvin’s motion. This is my first try with Flickr, so they ended up out of order and I was limited as to how many I can post, but here they are:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53675560@N07/?changedlayout=1
Finally, Lakewood’s twitter feed hinted that the cast of Jersey Shore was going to be at the game last night. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to grade Snooki on the 20-80 scale as relates to firing down Coors Lights and funnel cake. I suspect I would’ve been handing out more 80s than at the Futures Game.
Phuture Phillies 
Thanks for the info. Looking forward to playoffs.
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You can’t use an amateur scale for Snooki. She’s a professional.
Does James’ swing look like it will generate power?
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Point taken on Snookers.
Only got to see a couple at bats out of James and in that small sample, he looked like a prototypical leadoff guy (i.e. hit it on the ground or on a line somewhere and run as fast as possible). His swing almost seems like they told him to concentrate on contact for his first year as a hitter. Of course, his BB and K rates don’t scream leadoff hitter. That being said, he is a physical specimen–he’s a lanky 6’4″ and it’s hard to imagine that not eventually generating power. Next year in Clearwater will be interesting.
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The old small sample size ogre may bite me, but Hewitt did better in last several (10?) games this last week or so. Hope never dies.
Calling for a “miracle.”
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.237 last ten games, brutal 14 Ks to 0 BBs in that time period. The post All Star numbers are almost mind-boggling. A .435 OPS!
It’s really hard to find a similar player who actually made it. Reggie Abercrombie had similar hitting issues and reached the bigs, but he only made it because he could steal bases.
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For whatever reason (I guess because he’s a local guy), I’ve been watching Billy Rowell in the Orioles system–similar age as Hewitt, drafted two years before him, bounced around positions. He just finished his third season at Hi-A at 21 and made enough progress that he probably removed the “total bust” label (although unlikely that he ever becomes a star). Maybe a second year in Lo-A for Hewitt turns it around. Biggest difference is that Rowell at least had some success at the low levels before plateauing at A+; not much to base a breakthrough for Hewitt on.
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Interesting that Julio Rodriguez will not get a start in the first round of the Sally playoffs …
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I talked with some american legion people they though rowell was overated, from the start.
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Can’t really argue against May, Colvin, or Pettibone. J-Rod has relieved a lot this year (his 13 appearances in Lakewood were split 7-6), so maybe they hold him back for the Colvin game since they’ll likely continue to limit Colvin’s IP.
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Yup, the ‘ol first and second round lottery pick strategy seems to be failing yet again. Before I get four hundred thousand responses explaining to me that most draft picks do not succeed (true enough, I get it) and how you can’t cherry-pick the players who fail and use that to support an argument that a particular strategy doesn’t work (true again, but I don’t think I’m cherry picking anything), please stop yourselves. I get it – believe me I do. But nobody can tell me that this team has been successful when it uses high draft picks on position players who have great raw athletic but little demonstrated baseball aptitude. Year after year, decade after decade, this has been a failed strategy and a strategy that looks particularly silly when you consider that they have done relatively well taking athletic players in later rounds who have promise (Brown, James, Altherr, etc. . . . ). By the way, I am not even saying that this general strategy (picking high “upside” but raw position players) is always a bad strategy – the Braves and Marlins implement this strategy succesfully. I am saying that, historically, the Phillies have not been good at picking these types of players.
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The Phils go for high upside players who will sign for slot with their first 4 or 5 rounds of picks usually. That means if they’re drafting a HS bat in the first round he’s going to be pretty raw to be willing to sign for that slot. Kids coming out of HS who are regarded as premium prospects and first round picks aren’t usually the ‘slot signs’.
see: Sean Coyle, Nick Nick Castellanos, etc… this year.
You have to go back 20 years to Mike Lieberthal in 1990 to find the last 1st round pick the phillies used on a high school position player who actually developed into a good major league player. Part of that is organization philosophy of not drafting high school bats(only 7 over the last 20 years), but I think it’s also impacted more recently by signing bonus demands.
The Phillies are actually better off as long as they are sticking to their budget/slot beliefs of not drafting a high school bat in the first round and instead taking a high school pitcher. Pitchers are generally willing to sign for less than hitters because they and their parents all know the pitfalls that exist for pitchers. So then the Phillies can draft their Anthony Hewitt type player with a later round pick. Guys that they have done so in past years and signed.
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Hewitt went on a 95-6 K-BB run to end the year. Still have to pull for the kid because by all accounts, he’s a hard worker and a nice guy, but it’s really hard to take any positives out of this season. .203 vs LHP / .202 vs RHP. .163 batting average after the break. .191 with RISP.
From Baseball America prior to the 2008 draft: “There’s also a huge risk that he simply won’t hit in professional ball: his raw bat was overmatched against quality pitching on the showcase circuit last summer, and though he dominated vastly inferior prep competition this spring, he still struggles to recognize breaking balls and can get locked up at times by ordinary fastballs.”
From an interview with him in the Inquirer this weekend: “I’m not laying off the breaking balls, and I’m not able to recognize pitches,” he said. “I know I can hit the fastball, but . . . you have to be able to lay off breaking balls and be able to react to the ones that are left up in the air hanging. It’s a learning curve that I didn’t experience much in high school.”
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Julio Rod gets a shout out in the Tuesday Ten Pack from KG, putting a ML’er grade on him frm scouts and saying his velo has hit 93-94. That’s extremely positive and puts JRod directly behind Colvin, Cosart, Singleton, and May for me.
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from espn.com on rodriguez
Julio Rodriguez, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies (Low-A Lakewood)
When one talks about a pitcher being projectable, that’s just saying he has a chance to find more velocity — it’s certainly not any kind of guarantee. An eighth-round pick in 2008 out of Puerto Rico, Rodriguez was a pitcher to dream on when he signed. Six-foot-four, skinny and loose armed, Rodriguez sat in the upper 80s as an amateur, but he’s slowly bumped that number up since turning pro, and the 20-year-old was among the top pitchers in the minors down the stretch, including a career-high 11 strikeouts over six two-hit innings in his final start of the year. Now sitting in the low 90s with a number of 93 and 94 mph readings thrown in, Rodriguez has the ability to generate swings and misses with his heater, while his slow, loopy curveball projects as a second plus pitch down the road. With a 1.44 ERA in 56 1/3 Sally League innings and 90 strikeouts, Rodriguez has blossomed from projectable arm to a prospect with true big league projections from scouts.
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There. Ya got it!
J-Rod hits 93!
And there’s more room for projection. Should we not add him to the other 3 to-be famous guys and move the quartet up through the system, one and two steps at a time.
Next year, Clearwater. Next, the world!!
It has never been that this franchise could look with favor of the possibilities of moving a whole starting pitcher staff to a MLB team all at one time.
That dream is outstanding.
Add in some of those worthy outfielders in the lower minors, and voila!…we’ve got another roster going to go for gold…and again.
Tough to be a Phils fan.
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Next year’s Clearwater team will quite possibly have the best assemblage of overall talent that the Phillies have ever placed on a single minor league team. There is literally not enough room for all starting the pitchers the Phillies would like to have on that team (Cosart, Colvin, May, Rodriguez, Aumont, Hernandez) – it suggests to me that Rodriguez and perhaps also Colvin will start in Lakewood again. But, man, o man, what a team! Having that much talent on the team will also help take some pressure off of Aumont, which is good.
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Matt Way(24), Josh Zeid(24), Colby Shreve(23), Nick Hernandez(22), Jarred Cosart(21), Trevor May(21), Brody Colvin(20), Jonathan Pettibone(20), Julio Rodriguez(20) are the Lakewood SP’s this season who may all be deserving of promotions.
Julio Rodriguez stays at Lakewood due to his age and that he had the least innings there of the other younger pitchers. He’s probably the Ace of next years Lakewood team. Nick Hernandez will depend on his health, but he likewise could start off at Lakewood and be looked at as a promotion candidate. Based on their Age both Matt Way and Josh Zeid are candidates for a jump to Reading, but I think Zeid is more likely to be moved back to the bullpen.
Clearwater definitely is looking pretty packed because Heitor Correa pitched horribly this season and doesn’t look like a promotion candidate so he would be back next season and Phillippe Aumont’s status will likely depend on Fall Instructional League/Spring Training ’11 to determine where he goes. Maybe they actually go with a 6-man rotation at Clearwater to try to fit an extra starter in?
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Hmm, too many prospects, guess we’ll have to trade some.
In all seriousness, the Phils started doing starter piggybacking somewhat more regularly this past year, i.e. Colvin pitches 5 innings, then Rodriguez pitches 3 or 4. I would look for them to do that again in CLW.
Having any of those guys flybynite mentioned start in Lakewood again would be less than ideal, but it has to happen. It will all play out in Spring Training, but my guess is that Correa, Zeid and Rodriguez get bulk innings out of CLW bullpen, Pettibone starts in A-, Way and Aumont go to AA, leaving a rotation of May, Colvin, Cosart, Hernandez, and Shreve in CLW. Someone will get hurt, someone will get promoted to AA, and someone will pitch poorly enough to move down to Lakewood again, meaning that all these guys will get enough IPs and starts to do a full evaluation.
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Just a note of encouragement to the Blueclaws as they start SALLY playyoffs. Bring home another Championship!
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Here is an article on Jon Singleton:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100908&content_id=14436054&vkey=news_phi&fext=.jsp&c_id=phi
Someone might want to remind the writer that Villar doesn’t play for Lakewood anymore.
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Listening to the BlueClaws and watching the Phils tonight and within a 15 minute span Alan Schoenberger hits a three run homer for Lakewood, followed by Ryan Howard hitting a three run homer for the Phils and Jonathan Singleton wraps it up by hitting a solo homer for Lakewood. Doesn’t get any better than that!
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Wow Trevor May is dealing
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May–6 2/3, 13 K, 1 BB, 4 H, 0 R. I keep juggling Cosart, Colvin, and May around in my head in thinking through post-season Top X Prospects.
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