Justin De Fratus, Philadelphia Phillies: De Fratus absolutely looks like a big league bullpen arm, with a 92-95 mph fastball that touched 96 mph once when I saw him, and good tilt on an 83-85 mph slider that can get strikeouts. A strong pitcher with a good frame who uses his lower half well, De Fratus does a good job finishing his pitches. De Fratus isn’t far from a call-up and looks like he could fill a seventh- or eighth-inning role at the big league level, and from there anything can happen. Then again, he’s also in an organization that left Scott Mathieson behind to dominate Triple-A hitters all year.
B.J. Rosenberg, Phillies: Rosenberg appeared in only 20 games this season due to a lat strain, so we can give him a bit of a pass if he’s still getting up to speed. In one of his outings I saw, he gave up three homers in four batters, all on poorly located fastballs. He has been working in the 91-92 mph range and occasionally touching 93 mph, but with not a lot of movement on it. His low-80s slider projects to “solid average,” and his 80-81 mph changeup has been below average. I’m just not seeing good stuff or command right now.
I love that De Fratus is getting his deserved props now. He’s done what every prospect needs to do, continue to prove himself while he climbs the ladder. 2011 could be a big year for him. Rosenberg, well, not as optimistic.
Phuture Phillies 
Lehigh Valley will actually be interesting to watch this year to see exactly what De Fratus, Matt Rizzotti, and Harold Garcia are capable of.
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this is great to see. something that would really help the big league club next year is if we can fill in the middle relief from the farm.
but i do have to take exception to his comment on Mathieson. the problem with scott is when he came up, he didn’t throw strikes or get people out. he had a few chances, but didn’t take advantage. on a championship caliber club you don’t get a long chance. you have to take advantage of your chances. i hope scott worked hard in the off season and comes in and teams with defratus to give us a strong middle relief…we need it.
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Mathieson’s fastball is hard…but flat and hittable. And his slider was iffy at best at the MLB level.
98mph doesnt mean crap if there’s no movement.
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Flat can work but it must be located well as Wilson proved for the Giants.
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Nah, that’s wrong, 98 MPH does mean something, even if the ball doesn’t move. If you combine a really good breaking ball with the fastball even good hitters will have trouble with the FB and, likewise, if you can locate the pitch and change the batter’s eye level, you can be very successful. Only a handful of hitters can drive a 98 MPH FB located up in the zone, even if they know it’s coming; the key is setting the batter up so that he has to swing at that pitch rather than letting it go for a ball (this is something that Madson has become very good at in the last year or so).
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****Nah, that’s wrong, 98 MPH does mean something, even if the ball doesn’t move.****
Kyle Farnsworth begs to differ.
Though I will agree that its far more about location/command than overall velocity. Mathieson also had average command at best. If he could paint the black with that pitch, he’d be fine. Since he cant do that and he also doesnt have a ton of movement, its not a great pitch, despite the velocity.
Hell, Ibanez and Ruiz both turned on 103 mph fastballs thrown by Chapman…MLB hitters can hit hard fastballs.
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Yeah, I’m pretty sure Scott Mathieson would love to have Kyle Farnsworth’s career. 12 seasons, 713 games, with a 4.39 ERA . Mathieson is almost 27 and has appeared in 11 major league games.
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Nice to see DeFratus getting more props, but I too have to disagree with the “Mathieson being left behind” comment being a bit unwarranted. Yeah, Mathieson probably deserved some more attention from the big club, but I don’t think he was forgotten by the Phillies, especially since it sounds like Sutter was brought in to work with him (amongst others).
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Kyle Farnsworth proves that if ALL you do is throw hard and pitch as though you have a brain the size of walnut, you’ve got no shot to be a good major league reliever. That’s not what I am talking about.
The point is that when you have a 98 MPH fastball, even a straight one, it is a lot easier to be successful. Standing alone it is not enough, but it gets you pretty far along the road to success.
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By the way, with the season now over and with Cliff Lee showing himself to be human, can we now all move on from that subject? Cliff Lee was NOT the reason the Phillies failed to win. They couldn’t score consistently and they allowed a rodeo clown and a bunch of other hot castoffs to beat them.
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And, oh yeah, if we kept Cliff Lee he’d be gone by now and Roy Oswalt will be here next year and perhaps the year after. Score a “kick save” for RAJ.
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we’ve got about 4 bullpen slots open – I hope DeFratus is given a fair shot at one.
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Not so fast on excusing the Cliff Lee debacle. Had we received a player the caliber of Justin Smoak back in the deal maybe. And yes you can make the statement that we wouldn’t have Lee but we still have Oswalt the case can be made the alternative would have been better.
Consider Happ would have been a better 4th starter than Blanton and while I don’t believe the out come would have been any different I’d Like to get 2 Type A Free Agent drafts in return instead of just 1 and have control of Happ well beyond next year.
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Bullish on DeFratus.
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Great news. It would be huge if we could re-fill the pen cheap using guys like Mathieson and DeFratus. That’s the only real chance we have of either retaining Werth (not happening), or at least bringing in another righty bat to balance our ridiculously lefty-leaning lineup.
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Matheison has been coming back from injury. He doesn’t have alot of movement (yet) on his fastball either. However he may still become that reliever the Phils could use. DeFratus its great to see that he is dominating. Knowing the Phils tendacies he will start the year in the minors. However he maybe given a shot with Matheison and probably 1-2 others to win a ML spot in the spring. Bastardo will also fall into the group to win the 1 or 2 lefty bullpen spots. But don’t look for the Phils to fill any more than 2 spots with Rookies.
Rosenberg still has time and if he rebounds then they have something.
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Just wanted to throw in this: today Phils claimed Carlos Rivero off waivers from Cleveland. He is a shortstop, hits Right, is 6’3″ 200 lbs (too round for that position?) w D/B 5-20-88.
No stats found…yet.
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Try Google.
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Rivero can’t hit a lick. Had a real good year in 2008 in high-A ball where he hit .282, but with few walks and average power, then has stunk at Akron for the last two years.
Doesn’t walk, topped at 24 doubles and 8 HRs, and has hit in the .235 range in AA.
Not agreat fielder. He’s the kind of organizational filler that makes your minor league teams lose while you wait (in vain) for him to develop. I’d rather take a chance on Bocock, and I really don’t like him, either.
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Maybe he’ll play at LV. No other SS prospect for there in ’11.
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what are the chances of Mathieson learning a cutter???
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James has been on the DeFratus bandwagon from Day One. Big ups to him for sure.
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Umm, Dmar, even assuming for the sake of argument that Happ -> Blanton, that really isn’t the relevant comparison, is it? Blanton next year will be the 4th starter; if they kept Lee (and didn’t get Oswalt), then next year Happ would have been the 3rd starter.
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Great stuff on Defratus. Phils need an injection of youth big time.
I didn’t like trading Lee, but not shopping him was ridiculous. They defeinately could’ve gotten moer than Gillies, Aumont and Ramirez.
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Though Lee certainly is at/near the top of the pitching class, he had only one year left on his contract. So any team considering to trade for him would have a one year rental with no knowledge of whether they could keep him in the face of his free agency.
If there was any reduction of value for him, that was it. If he had two or more years tying him to the team acquiring him, he’d have gotten us more back than we did get.
Of course, if he had two more years tying him to the Phils, they probably wouldn’t have traded him.
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Defratus was also mentioned in Kevin Goldstein’s weekly podcast this week as his 1 of 3 players to watch for in the AFL. Talked about him for about 10 minutes. Maybe a little less.
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That could read wrong. I didn’t mean that KG said he was his number 1 AFL player. Just 1 of 3 to watch.
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Good stuff on De Fratus on the Goldstein podcast. The other host seemed really high on him too. Nice shoutout to Phuturephillies as well.
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And a nice shoutout to ME! Haha.
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