Spring Training: What to watch for?

Spring Training 2013

Let me start off this post by saying that we have a month of spring training left so there is a lot of change to come and all spring training events are small sample size due to the variability of each encounter because the primary objective is to ready oneself for the season.

Spring Training is the time for snap judgments and irrationality, but here are some tips to think about as we go through another month of Spring Training

Context Matters:

Looking at pure stat lines tells you very little.  For example Joseph and Brown hit home runs off a pitcher who has never pitched above hi-A and Asche’s opposite field double should have been caught.  That being said, don’t discount any event, everything is information, the context is an important part of that, don’t leave it out.  To gather the most context, watch/listen to the game (if possible), read play-by-play, read the recaps, and when in doubt just ask, someone probably caught it.

The Process is More Important than the Results:

When it comes to hitters pay attention to how they are hitting the ball not what is happening after they do.  Is a hitter making solid contact or does he flail at everything?  Then, is he getting better over time?  For a pitcher look at things like, whether he is repeating his delivery or hitting the catcher’s target.  The fielding is poor this time of year and everything is small sample so don’t worry about what happens after it leaves his hand. On defense if there are mistakes being made, it is important to see why, being rusty is normal, being physically unable to make a play is something different.  Take note if a player tried to make a play regardless of the outcome (ex: charged a ball in the infield rather than let it be a hit)

If you have seen a player before, try to compare what they are doing now compared to last year.  Don’t panic if it is different, spring training is the time to tinker.

Watch Other Teams Prospects:

You will gain a better understanding of what makes a good player if you watch good players.  If a guy on a Top 100 list is having an at bat or pitching and inning, watch it.  There is a reason that they rank well and you can really get a good view on what prospects looks like.  That and if you like baseball in general it is always more fun to watch good talent play.

BONUS (If you have MLBTV): Go back and watch prospects on other teams.  This is similar to the previous advice except that it expands greatly who you can see.  This past week both Zach Wheeler (Mets) and Dylan Bundy (Orioles) pitched in televised games, and Bundy especially is well worth the 10 minutes to watch his two innings.  You get a real feel for what makes an impact player.

The biggest thing is to just get excited for the season and don’t panic (do that later when you have a Kratz, Howard, Frandsen, Betancourt,M Young, Ruf, Martinez, D Young defensive line up later in Spring Training).  If anyone has other tips to how to get the most out of Spring Training add it here.

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About Matt Winkelman

Matt is originally from Mt. Holly, NJ, but after a 4 year side track to Cleveland for college he now resides in Madison, WI. His work has previously appeared on Phuture Phillies and The Good Phight. You can read his work at Phillies Minor Thoughts

95 thoughts on “Spring Training: What to watch for?”

  1. I agree with pretty much all of your assessment except for your wording about not worrying about what comes out of a pitcher’s hand. I get your drift (it’s not just about the outcome) but pitchers are working on stuff and paying a lot of attention to the movement of the ball and it’s location. In short, pitchers, pitching coaches and at some point managers are worrying about what comes out of a pitcher’s hand — at what location, with what velocity and with what movement.

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  2. Oh is this how I should watch spring training? Thanks Matt.

    Would never be able to judge a player without you telling me how to do it.

    And yeah, I know, everyone’s going to give me a hard time for saying this. Posts like this insult me thougj

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    2. Wow. Talk about an overreaction. Your wife must be nagging the crap out of you. It happens when spring training starts and the weather sucks in Philly.

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      1. Nope no nagging and I’m as happy as could be about spring training starting.

        Just a little constructive criticism for Matt As the new administrator of this site:

        There was a nice balance that James achieved where he gave us his opinion but didnt participate as much in the comments and didnt have an attitude that he knew more than you so his opinion mattered more.

        Call me sensitive or cranky or whatever you want (since this is the Internet and we should all take everything with a grain of salt anyway) but Matt has not achieved this balance. I always get te sense that his way is the highway and we are fools not to trust him. That is all.

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        1. I disagree with your sentiments entirely.

          Not to mention that some people are indeed fools.

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        2. Constructive? I don’t see anything constructive in your original post just plain mean sarcasm.

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        4. Understand where you are coming from.
          IMO, Matt does listen and does take critique well and adapts when its warranted.

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        5. As someone who used to post here pretty heavily (probably more than almost anyone else) back when James ran things, I thought this was a pretty good article and a step in the right direction. I dont get the overreaction on your part. Lots of people watch ST and go nuts when someone is hitting .400 a couple weeks in or hitting .100 causing them to freak out.

          Seems like a harmless article to me but one that was likely informative to a good chunk of the readership.

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    3. It seems a bit narcissistic to believe that every post on this site is directed toward you. Not everyone has been to or watched spring training before.

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    1. Lots of catchers down there. I’m thinking Ludy to Clearwater; Lino and Moore in Lakewood; Numata and Astudillo in Williamsport.

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    2. Lakewood it appears will have a multitude of interesting prospects to watch. Wondering if Tyler Greene or Andrew Pullin man 2nd to start.

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      1. Although I am hoping that Lakewood starts Pullin at 2nd base, I am not sure that will happen. Defensively, Lakewood would have two outfielders learning to play SS and 2nd, at the same time. That is a lot of growing pains for them and the pitchers. They may start Tyler Greene or Mora early on.

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        1. Well if that is the case, then I am pulling for Greene to be more productive at the plate this year. I really don’t want to see the kid go through what he did last year.

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  6. I think you are wrong to discount Joseph’s HR against an A-ball pitcher. Joseph is a AA hitter, so the gap isn’t that big and pitchers start ST with an advantage. You are correct that it is not the same as hitting a HR against a season-ready established major league pitcher, but really no pitcher has his best stuff/control now, so you could make the same comment about any HR at this stage in ST.

    I am surprised to see you make this comment, since you are enamored with Larry Greene’s batting practice power and to a lesser extent Joseph’s BP power. Hey, this guy may be an A+-level pitcher, but unlike a BP pitcher, he was at least trying to fool the hitter and get him out. I’ll take this HR as more evidence of real power than I will credit a barrage of long-distance BP dingers.

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    1. He’s not saying it should be discounted … in fact, the very next line says, “don’t discount any event” in spring training. He’s saying to put the HR in its proper context (against a High A pitcher seeing his first action of spring training), rather than a sign that Joseph/Brown is the second coming of McGwire/Canseco.

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      1. Well, I think Matt said ‘discount’ in the sense of ignore, while I used ‘discount’ in the sense of seriously diminish the value of by putting it in the context of facing an A+ pitcher, as Matt suggests. I don’t think we should seriously diminish the achievement, because it displays a level of power that I did not see Joseph display during a game at Reading last year, although I admit to seeing only a minority of his games. Still, a AA player hitting a tape measure HR off of an A+ pitcher judged good enough to merit a ST invite by the big club far outshines tape measure BP HRs — at least in my mind.

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  8. I bought tickets to a game at the Disney complex when the Phillies play the Braves on March 18th(?) I think. Sadly this will probably be after most of the prospects go away. But I’ll try to take a good look at some of younger guys like Brown and Ruf and some of the relievers who will most likely still be playing.

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  9. Even though Asche’s double should’ve been caught, he did hit three or four sharp lineouts so far this spring, so atleast he’s hitting the ball hard.

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  10. uh wait , i love this almost everything written on phuturephillies, but wait , so roman quinn made it onto the top 100 , because its a total who can find the newest guy and then say i was the first to spot him and look how talented i am at finding talent , dont get me wrong i love roman quinn think he is gonna be great , but is he better right now than , ruf , who nearly every list thinks is a bumb many top prospect dont amount to squat take for example braves prospect , like franceour , schafer and the guy who they traded delgado , bums, teherehan is the next middle reliever who was a cant miss prospect. dont forget nobody wanted albert pujols either so , use your own eyes not somebody else, and dont be a oh look at me ,and how good of a keith law follower i am , bs , atleast half of the time they are wrong , so watch what you wanna watch and notice and take a look how an individual does against another individual and dont forget lines drives are doubles that got caught

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  12. Right or Wrong Spring Training matters for fringe players. There need to be some data to make a decision upon, though I agree that ‘stats’ is not necessary to only data to be used.
    For players recovering from injury or on supposed decline the actual results are less important than approach.
    Since the overall quality of pitching is reduced for Spring Training AAAA guys may be great and give false sense of hope

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    1. I guess that depends partly upon how you define a fringe player. I do think that even a good team often has one or two bench or relief spots up for grabs. But a team who has real competition for a key job (starting pitcher, relief ace, position regular) in spring training has a problem.

      And … arguably the Phillies do have such a problem. While Brown IMO shouldn’t need to win a spot, and they are set otherwise for the most part, the other corner OF slot is up for grabs (since, thankfully, D. Young’s injury situation looks “worse” than we thought it was). And Ruf does need to show that he can provide adequate defense there. The alternative I guess, is a Mayberry/Nix platoon, sub optimal for sure, but infinitely preferable to D. Young.

      I criticize management a lot, but in fairness I don’t think they necessarily rely too much on spring training stats per se. I have other doubts about talent judgment, and I have been very vocal on their almost bizarre mismanagement of Brown, but I expect that judgments will be made (not necessarily correctly) on the whole spring training picture, not just a small statistical sample.

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  13. I think you can also examine some players approach at the plate. Much has been said about how the Phillies ignore the walk, but Dom Brown’s OBP is .563. While average isn’t necessarily a good barometer, the team lacks players who take pitches and work a count.

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    1. Dom has a really good eye. Reminds me of Jayson Werth. Hopefully he can become that kind of player for us.

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        1. From everything I can see, it looks like Dom Brown is in the process of obliterating the competition and Ben Revere also looks good. The other guys can compete for the last outfield spot – that’s fine by me. In the long run, Brown’s struggles may end up being a blessing in disguise as it appears that, this year, he has done everything within his power to prepare, bulid his body and become an outstanding player.

          It’s also nice that Asche and Galvis are both hitting. If Galvis can have a line like .275/.325/.400 – his glove will prove so valuable that it will be impossible to keep him off the field. Galvis with that line is close to a 4 WAR player.

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          1. I have to scale back Galvis’ line – even Rollins generally doesn’t have an OPS that high. Still, Galvis does not need to do that much with the bat to justify a lot of playing time.

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            1. His last year in the minors between Reading and LHV was .278/.324/.392 as a 21 year old. I think he could put up something like that line during his peak years in the majors, which makes him good enough to start given his defense.

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            2. Well if Freddy puts up a line close to that he would certainly be a valuable asset with his outstanding defensive skills.

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            3. In fact, defensively, I will go out on a limb, and say he is a top five defensive MLB player at both 2nd or ss

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            1. He’s not going to OBP much above his BA because he doesn’t take walks and no one’s pitching around him. His value is totally based on defensive ability.

              I just don’t see a ML starter.

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            2. Here’s my view. He’s 2-3 WAR player on defense only. If he becomes replacement value at short or second (basically not a negative WAR player), then he’s a starter. If he gets to one WAR on offense, he’s a really good regular for a championship quality team. With a 2 WAR on offense and he’s in all-star territory. The amount of progress he’s made with the bat is amazing, but it’s really not that surprising. I have gone back and looked, historically, at shortstops who were great with the glove (and, thus, had fabulous hand-eye coordination) and started out as especially light hitting infielders. Almost to a man, they all improve significantly with the bat over time, usually peaking in their late 20s. The type of guys I am talking about are Belanger, Vizquel, Smith, and Maranville – I am looking for other comps, but those were the guys who came to mind. Freddy is from this school of infielder and while I’m not sure he’s quite as good a fielder as many of these guys (Belanger and Smith were in a league of their own), he actually seems to have more power than most of them (which has been a pretty shocking development) although, so far, his plate discipline has been below average. In short, I expect Freddy to be an enormously valuable fielder and more than a good enough hitter to start and probably a good enough hitter to become, over time, a borderline star. He’s clearly the proper successor to Rollins or Utley (if Quinn takes off) – in the meantime, he can play all over the infield and, if anyone goes down with an injury, he can fill right in without skipping a beat. I’ve grown to really love Freddy as a player and I was not really one of his bigger supporters early on.

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            5. I’m somewhere between 3up and catch on this. But to answer the question asked: as a SS, that would IMO be enough to make him at least an average regular.

              Can he do that? I think he might – and if anything, you may be selling his power a little short, though the .260 BA and .305 OBP is, OTOH, probably a little rosy. He was really over matched as a major league hitter in 2012. But he is only 23 years old.

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            6. IMO, his plate discipline and batting eye will improve as catch alluded, but I believe it will not take until his late 20s, I say two years. I like the fact that he turns so well from his weak side and can pull into right with some regularity.

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  14. Aumont 4 pitches 2 outs. 3 pitch strike out to Neal then a 1 pitch ground out on the next batter. Give me Aumont Adams and Papelbon and I’m not sure I care what the rest of the BP looks like.

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        1. Exactly where I have/had them, albeit I added the caveat “if healthy.”

          This early in spring training there’s no reason to revise that, except to somewhat increase the likelihood that the team enjoys good health. I want to believe that Brown is going to have a true break out year, but it is certainly too soon to predict that. The fact that D. Young’s injury situation is worse than expected probably by itself adds a win or two to the team’s expectations.

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  15. Not sure if today’s game was televised back north but I was at the game and have a few free minutes to type up some quick observations:

    1. Dom Brown and Darin Ruf give some really good at bats. There’s a lot of Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell in these two when it comes to patience at the plate and working counts. Very impressed by both of their approaches at the plate.

    2. Dom Brown last year looked slow, lazy, weak, and not all that interested, at times. I think now that his knee is better he is running much better. Now that his swing is improved and his wrist is recovered he looks strong. Most impressive though is he looks interested and motivated and is running balls out. He also is looking very solid defensively.

    3. Halladay’s stuff looked nasty. Very late movement and very significant movement. Gave up some infield hits so the numbers don’t look so great, but his outing today was better than anything he did last spring that I saw.

    4. Ryan Howard might be hitting but his speed has really deteriorated since the injury. I suppose this can be expected but he will be a real liability on the bases if his speed doesn’t improve.

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    2. I’m not buying the Halladay is back story line quite yet. He looked like the same stiff pitcher who put up a 4.50 ERA last year. His velocity was sitting mostly at 88 mph. Not saying he can’t get better, but nothing I’ve seen suggests he is rejuvanated.

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      1. Sadly, I too, remain cautiously guarded (neither optimistic nor pessimistic) regarding Halladay’s status this year. I think we are not going to get a particularly good sense of where he is headed until about mid-April, after 2 or 3 starts during the season. On the down side, we have not yet seen the Halladay of old, who threw between 91-94 on a consistent basis. On the plus side: (a) it’s early in spring training and, at this point last year, he was sitting in the mid-80s – he’s much farther along this year with his velocity; (b) he said he feels good, which is encouraging; (c) the movement on his pitches is said to be much better than last year; and (d) I expect Halladay to begin developing his late career arsenal – modifying the way he pitches based on his declining velocity – hopefully, he is further along in this process having been through hell last year.

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    4. Yeah they showed the replay on MLB network at 4 pm. some comments off of your observations.

      1. Yes outside of Ruf’s first PA where he looked lost there rest of his ABs he looked good with pitch recognition. I wonder how much the bicep is bothering him as his swing looks slower than it did earlier in the spring/last year. Brown has been having ABs like this anytime i have watched him play every year.

      2. I will only take umbrance with the character refernces as none of us know anything about him being lazy, weak and uninterested. :Let’s be careful to not mischaraterize a lack of a sense of urgency for the 3 qualities you state. Guys with those qualities don’t search out Gary Sheffield 2 years ago and rework their swing to eliminate holes or add 10 – 15 lbs of muscle over the off season.What i am seeing is the result of the adjustment Wally Joyner did with how Brown was aligning his fingers prior to the swing (see article http://articles.philly.com/2013-02-28/sports/37354808_1_joyner-domonic-brown-big-boy ). This is a very good explination for the increased bat speed he has shown and i am wondering if this bad habit developed after the hammate bone issue. Anyway all of us but Roccom will benefit from a successful year from Browm 🙂 . Glad to hear that live Brown is looking good in the field as TV makes it had to judge.

      3. I know that it is easier to see the movement of pitches on TV than live and Doc had good movement but his location was horrible, for Doc that is, but in Doc fasion he rebounded in the 2nd and battle through his issues to still be good. This outing worried me after i felt good about his first outing. When he appeares to have issues with his delivery as he did yesterday (My assumption based on such poor location and what happened last year) i worry that he may be compensating for somthing not feeling right. Way to early to worry but it did bring back some of my optimism for a big bounce back
      year.

      4. I have seen a few examples of Howards speed in other games in ST that lead me to believe that he will be close to the speed he was prior to the injury, which was very little anyway. Yesterday seemed very obvious that he was not interested in busting it down the line for a ST game during the first week which none of us should worry about.

      I am interested to hear what you think about Asche and how he looks in the field, and if anyone else has stood out.

      Thanks for the update i enjoy the first hand accounts.

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      1. Cody Asche – I find him to be very, very average defensively. I don’t see him making bad throws and I see him catching what he gets to. I don’t see great range and I don’t see him making great plays, but he makes the ones he should. For a fan base used to Schmidt and Rolen, he will be very disappointing but I believe he will be a very viable 3B defensively.

        As for his hitting, he’s just a line drive machine, day after day, at bat after at bat. After watching him for two weeks, I don’t know how he can’t hit .300. Now its important to note in the games he has played its usually vs the minor league guys. I think he’s gonna be a good player.

        Probably the most enjoyable thing for me of the spring is just watching Freddy Galvis play defense, at any position. I really believe if he played SS, 3B, or 2B every day in the bigs, he would be considered in the top 2-3 for a gold glove at any of those positions. I should say best defender at that position since the gold glove awards are not really based on defensive merit. He is just a joy to watch, can’t say enough.

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        1. Defense-only guys almost never win Gold Gloves even if they are the best defender at a position. See Brendan Ryan in Seattle as a great example of this. Easily the best defensive SS in baseball and he’ll probably never win a Gold Glove as he is completely anemic as a hitter.

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  16. I’d be interested in your impression of Michael Young. One of the big factors in my estimation of whether the Phils are a wild card club or a division titlist is whether Young has a season like last year or a season like the one he had in 2011. Do you see Young being in a position to make a solid contribution, maybe even a near-All Star calibre player?

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    1. I’m not sure if that was meant for me but I’ll answer. Defensively, his range is a serious problem. He will not get to much of anything that’s not hit right at him. Early in camp, he was having trouble catching balls and throwing. I feel like maybe some of the rust has been worn off as he looks a bit better in that regard the last few days. My guess is he’ll be better than Wigginton but not nearly as good defensively as Feliz or Polanco. Offensively, he looks pretty good. I don’t see huge power there but at CBP I could easily see him hitting 20 homers this year and see a guy that could hit .300. I suspect the model will be Young starts every day and Galvis comes in the game in the 7th or 8th innings every game the team leads for defensive purposes.

      I’m back in LA for a few weeks so apologize I won’t have any reports for a while. Badly timed I know as minor leaguers report this weekend but need to pay the bills. Having been to many spring trainings over the years, after spending a few weeks in Clearwater this February, I will stand by my prediction last month that this team will play in the World Series this year. I really like what I see.

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      1. I haven’t seen him so I can’t comment on how he has looked defensively, but it seems a stretch to think he can be average. He wasn’t average when he last played third regularly, and he’s 3 years older. The question is just how bad he will be, and I don’t have a firm opinion about that. It does sound like the rust is wearing off, increasing the chance that he at least is not a complete disaster out there.

        As a hitter, I certainly see a likelihood of a rebound and your report is encouraging. The question is, just how much of one. Between his contact skills and line drive abilities, it would not shock me to see him hit .300. But it might be a fairly empty .300. His power has been on a fairly steady decline, and I’m skeptical about a rebound there. Both his fly ball percentage and his HR/FB rate have declined.fairly steadily. I’d peg his likely HR totals at closer to 10 than 20.

        One statistical projection system projects him at .288/.333/.421 with below average but not poor defense. FWIW, that would be a 2.1 WAR season. That’s significantly better than my “eyeball” prediction, mostly because of defense. If he did that, he would certainly shore up the position adequately for 2013. Ironically, that would not be a huge upgrade from 2012, but likely an upgrade from what we could have expected from a Frandsen/Galvis platoon.

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        1. To clarify a bit about last year: the team was not, on the whole, at all bad at third base. It is true that that is mainly a product of Frandsen playing over his head, but looking at it retrospectively he did what he did.

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    2. I am not optimistic. On defense I think he will clean up the actions on the routine play but the range is a real problem, I was mildly surprised at how good the arm is, but he is going to be a liability over at third. Offensively he reminds me of Jeter a few years ago, almost everything is into the ground, Jeter managed to get over it and you do see Young make good contact with some stuff. I think he makes enough contact that he is a ~1.5-2.5WAR player on offense and probably a -1.5 WAR defensive player, that puts him somewhere between replacement level and below average regular. There isn’t a ton better unless Asche accelerates his development so we will have to live with Young at third. I think that the struggles are physical and no amount of hardwork is going to really bring him back to being a plus player.

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      1. Matt have you seen many of the games? Just my own curiosity not that it has any bearing on the fact that we differ in aseessment. From what i have seen from Young he has improved every game so far as handling the balls that he could get to. From the get go he has shown his arm plays well over there and has lead me to believe that what he gets to he will be able to make more throws than most. Reactions look to be around avg. So that leaves range which is difficult to judge off of TV, But 3B is more about positioning than range to be at least an affective fielder. Overall what i see is the ability to play an avg defensive 3B who we probably will not see any great plays that are any more than just a quick twitch play. As for the bat he is going to give you a professional AB almost all of the time. He is a line drive hitter and he is starting to get the line drive swing down. The biggest question with him offensively is will he generate power, and we will not know that untill about a month or 2 into the regular season. It will take that long because we do not know how his body will react to playing 3B every day and we can give a guess even a slightly educated guess will be mostly speculation.

        And before every non stat guy jumps on Matt lets take a look at what he is saying. If you take away the words associated with WAR(what it claims to stand for) and use the numbers as a year to year comparison. He is basically saying that he will be a value of 2 better that last year and when looking at the scale applied to the measurement a 2 pt uptic is approxinmatly a player level better than last year.

        Ultimatly this will all come down to the better option debate so let’s just skip that please.

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        1. I have watched each of the games (and rewatched many parts), though I admit I haven’t had young high on my priority list. I do doubt the hands and actions more than you but I am willing to wait.

          Thank you for the WAR explanation it was more of a year to year comparison and an example of how the defense can really hurt his overall value.

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          1. Thanks and no problem with the WAR explanation just trying to avoid a WAR debate when that was not your intention. And I agree on the point that his D is the big question to his game, we just disagree to what extent. I would just like to remind people that his D is going to be a work in progress all year long since it has been so long since he played in the field regularly. And it is not out of the relm of possibility that contextually his deficiencies in the field will not have any signifigance to games this year where statistically they may prove worse. For example Frandsen had several error late in close games last year that gave the impression of him being a poor fielder at 3B as they seemed to occur often since his issue was with throwing. Range at 3B has a component of luck to it since so many are hit right at the 3B. Anyway seems to me like he is looking better than you initially expected.

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  17. I’m glad to see Aumont get out to a good start, before heading to the WBC. That will give him a fighting chance to capture one of the RH bullpen spots, at the end of spring. I was disappointed that they let Juan Cruz get away, but the Bullpen can still be pretty good.

    I see it as:
    Mopup: Tyler Cloyd
    6th RH: Chad Durbin
    6th LH: Jeremy Horst
    7th RH: Phil Aumont
    7th LH: Antonio Bastardo
    Set-up: Mike Adams
    Closer: Jon Papelbon

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    2. There will be opportunities for guys to win jobs – the last bullpen spot is wide open. Cloyd, Rosenberg, Diekman and DeFratus will compete and I don’t think that competition will necessarily be over once rosters are set – there could be shuffling throughout the year. I also think there is a real and significant opportunity for one of the minor league starters to take it up a notch and get some playing time as the 5th starter. Kendrick and Lannan are okay, but not much better. If someone lights the world on fire for two months at AAA, one of those spots (probably Lannan’s) could be available, much like a spot was made available for Worley once he hit the ground running in 2011.

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    3. In the world of baseball cycles…I see the 7th/8th inning being the bullpen strengths this year and Pap giving fans the heartaches and hold-your-breath ’09/’10 Lidge. Hope I am wrong.

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    4. Agree on all except Cloyd. He’s LV’s #1 IMO – Durbin will see a good deal of 6th inning appearances so I don’t think they really need Cloyd as a long man. I think De Fratus has the inside track – and at one point this off-season, I felt Bonilla would be in this conversation right now as well

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      1. They didn’t pay Chad Durbin over 1 million dollars to be their mop-up man. Rodrigo Lopez won’t be the mop-up guy because he gets over 1 million, if he makes the opening day roster. Every team keeps a throw-away, mop-up guy for blow-outs. The mop up arm will be either Cloyd or Rosenberg, not Durbin.
        DeFratus will have to beat out Aumont (or maybe Diekman) to get on the Major League 25 man, IMO. I think DeFratus, Diekman and Stutes get sent to LV, to begin the year.

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  18. Is this a minor league site? or about the current team ? This site has become about the main team too much, lets get back to the minor league phillies . That what this site was about,we can go to many other sites to get info on the main team.

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    2. It is a minor league site, but with Spring Training started and not yet to minor league spring training you have to expect people to be excited and talk about something.

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    3. Well, back in the day, it was almost purely a minor-league site. Then it started to get popular and it got play on other Phillies blogs and info sources. That drew a larger fanbase that wasn’t so focused on the minors. They started crapping on all the minor-league threads so James (back when he ran things) started doing the general discussion threads to keep the discussion to those threads and keep the minor league threads about the minors. Matt & Co have done much the same thing and it works to an extent. During ST, everyone is playing together so its only natural for the discussions to have a bunch of bleedover.

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    4. You can’t separate the two, especially in the off-season. The decisions about who makes the big team means promotions for some minor leaguers and, as a minor league site, we are very interested in that. That is, after all, the ultimate end result of following guys for years throughout their minor league careers. Also, the state of the major league team determines whether minor leaguers, generally the better ones, will be expended in trades to fill holes. If the big league team really stinks, it means we may be getting some top minor league talent as the big club trades vets at the trade deadline. Some suspect that the Phillies decide whom to draft in the early rounds, at least in part, based upon the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the big team, so as draftniks that is of interest to us. There have certainly been years when the Phillies reached in the draft to take a college 3B or OF, because that was where the big team was weak. Other years, they have clearly drafted multiple speed guys or mulitple power guys, because that’s where the system, from the big club down, was judged to be weak. Many years we have been hurt in the draft because our top (or even top two) picks were lost to sign a FA to plug a whole for a big club, which thought it could contend.

      For all these reasons, it is impossible to ignore the major league team, when you are a minor league site. To do so, would miss so much, which impacts the minor leagues in a really big way. This is especially true now, when many of the guys playing in the major league ST games will end up playing on a minor league club this season, many of them not at AAA. Besides, up until today, there really hasn’t been much of any minor league news to talk about. It’s not as if we didn’t beat to death the ranking and strengths/weaknesses of most of the guys in the minors. It is not like we have skipped over hot minor league topics.

      If you think we’ve missed something, please bring it to our attention.

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  19. Not sure if anyone has commented on this yet, but DBrown is noticeably bigger this season. His legs are thicker, his waist is bigger and his arms and shoulders are much bigger. I’m not saying that the guy is ‘huge’, but compared to the past two springs there’s a very noticeable difference in size this year.

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    1. He put on something like 30 lbs in the off-season…so yeah, he’s a beat right now. It could be that he finally was healthy enough to do a full off-season of working out and he’s filling out as he enters his mid-20s. It definitely shows. He’s pretty ripped compared to how he used to be…hopefully, it was naturally attained.

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      1. Truly not surprised by the 30lbs. I commented to my brother that it was at least 20, stressing ‘at least’.

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    1. Because the cutter moves just enough that you hope that he can be at least a shell of what he was at AAA. He has zero trade value because no one who has scouts is going to do anything but take a flyer on him (the Astros looked into it because they have to pay someone to pitch innnings for them). It isn’t good stuff but it fooled AAAA guys and it might just fool major league guys, but if it is off it is solid contact batter after batter.

      That was a long way of saying, you hope it is a long lasting mirage.

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      1. Unfortunately the early returns on Cloyd are disappointing. Hopefully he can still perform well in the minors to get another chance to see if he can be effective at the margins.

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  21. What is the significance of Rupp’s invitation to big league camp? I assume he is just a warm body to replace Valle, but they’ve known about Valle’s departure for the WBC[and Valle hadn’t played much anyway] so why the seeming last minute nature? Is something else going on?

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    1. They always bring nearly every catcher in the organization to big league camp. There are a lot of pitchers that are getting their work in.

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