Monthly Archives: October 2011

Phillies post-mortem…get it out of your system

Hey everyone. I have a bunch of big plans for the site over the next few months. Today is a rough day, as we try to sort through the rubble and figure out what went wrong. I think I already figured it out, and I wrote about it before Game 5 even happened over at my other site. But it’s going to take some time to decompress. I’m just going to ask that you decompress here in this post and not everywhere else on the site. You can talk about which players should go, which should come in, etc etc. But I am going to do a few updates per week on the AFL, I’m working on some other pieces as well, and then we’ll start the Reader Top 30. I’d prefer to keep all of the hand ringing, wallowing, and bitching in one place. So this is the place. Bookmark it if you need to. But I’m going to eradicate unrelated comments in other posts that belong here. A disappointing season, but still a bright future ahead. So get it all out of your system now and let’s move on in a little while.

Thanks

BA Top 20: Phillies get hosed on the Eastern League list

Okay, “hosed” was used for effect, but I am a bit surprised the R-Phillies didn’t sneak at least one guy on to the list. Derrick Mitchell, Austin Hyatt, and Matt Rizzotti all put up statistically worthy campaigns, but all 3 are a tad advanced in terms of age. Hyatt’s 2nd half maybe should have warranted consideration, as he posted a 62/15 K to BB rate in 55 innings post-all star break and allowed just 4 home runs. He is 25 though and lacks projection, which is where BA focuses these lists. That said, I think there’s a decent chance he ends up with a more productive major league career than a number of guys who did make the list. The other options that might have made it were Justin De Fratus and Phillippe Aumont, but both guys were promoted to LHV and probably didn’t have enough innings to merit consideration, especially because both are relief prospects. Freddy Galvis, a long time favorite of BA, also did not make the list after putting up the best offensive numbers of his career (by a wide margin)

I’m working on a revamp of my “statistical toy” that I talked about a few months ago, blending it with what I used for the SONAR scores a few years ago to try and create something “better” and more valuable, and when I do this, I will run the numbers for each league and put together Top 20 lists of my own, which will be fun to compare with the lists put up by BA. Look for that later.

BA Top 20: FSL list includes 3 current Phillies and 2 former Phillies

BA continues their run of league top 20s with the Florida State League, where the Phillies dominated the list, with 3 current players and 2 former players. The current crop includes Trevor May at #4, Sebastian Valle at #12, and Brody Colvin at #19, with former Phillies property Jon Singleton coming in at #7 and Jarred Cosart coming in at #9. You can see the full list here. Do not copy/paste the blurbs. Here is a quick summation

May – Good low 90s fastball, toying with a 2 seamer (which is GREAT news), curve and changeup are solid but both still need work, and his command is still his biggest question mark
Valle – Good raw power, ability to barrel balls to RF and his defense continues to make impressive progress, as he has a strong arm and improving footwork
Colvin – 90-94 hitting 95, but struggling with his secondary offerings and his fastball command and has trouble repeating his delivery (the cause of the command issues, obviously)

Singleton – Nothing groundbreaking here, good bat, good approach, raw power, but struggles against LHP
Cosart – Messy delivery, but huge arm strength, changeup grades out above his curve right now, both are inconsistent, some scouts think he’s a reliever (which I agree with)

I expect we’ll have a name or two on the Eastern League list. The FSL has 12 teams, so to have 3 of the 20 and 5 if you count the traded prospects shows the depth of Clearwater’s roster this year. Also, Pettibone, Jiwan James and Rodriguez missed the list, and both probably got consideration.

Updated running list

GCL: (1) – Ethan Stewart, LHP (16th)
NYPL: (2) – Maikel Franco, 3B (4th), Aaron Altherr, OF (20th)
SAL: (1) – Jesse Biddle, LHP (6th)
FSL: (3) – Trevor May, RHP (4th), Sebastian Valle, C (12th), Brody Colvin, RHP (19th)