The Phillies announced today that five more players were optioned to minor league camp. The list includes pitchers BJ Rosenberg, Tyler Coyd, Mauricio Robles; Outfielder Tyson Gillies along with Catcher Sebastian Valle.
No real surprises here as the Phils now stand at 41 in major league camp.
What NRI’s are still in camp? Fields, Lerud, Quintero, and Betancourt?
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miner,cook,orr,jimenez
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http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130312&content_id=42645244&vkey=news_tex&c_id=tex
Trading Bonilla is going to Hurt. He Might Make The Rangers Club
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Lamenting Bonilla. Oh the humanity!
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That story was weird. It mentioned Bonilla working the club, but then didn’t really explain why. It just said Lindblom was sucking. Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see anything substantial about Bonilla’s performance, though no doubt it’s been good.
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He got invited to ML camp because the rest of their bullpen options are stinking it up. Not sure that’s a sign that Bonilla’s opening eyes but rather he’s another body to throw at the competition…
Still not seeing the pain..
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Didn’t Texas say they were going to convert him to a starter after the trade? Or am I wrong?
Whatever. I’ll take an everyday 3B who can provide a little offense this season over a relief prospect who had basically no shot of making the big league club in 2013.
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Hope some people here saw Valdes, LHRP, come into the game and completely confused hitters w a super late break curve/slider that crawled over the plate at the last 5-10 feet. Diekman better improve his command and learn a change-up since the hitters just waited on the FB and smacked away.
And Bastardo hasn’t yet resolved his mound waiting game yet, inducing sleep for his fielders.
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I really like Jermaine Mitchell. I think the Phillies should give him a better look.
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Just watched video of Ruf’s homerun last night, the pitched looked like it would have hit him. Hope this gets him going, by the way he looks in great shape.
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Ruf worked out hard this off-season, best shape in years. Shame he has off to a slow start.
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Spent an hour or so down at the minor league complex this afternoon before heading over to watch the later innings of the major league game. A couple of random observations. (With the caveat that I’m a total amateur, please don’t ask me how hard guys and take this all with a grain of salt.)
The main event was the intrasquad game between the Cloyd Phillies and the Kendrick Phillies. Cloyd looked like Cloyd–which is to say, a pitcher who is going to struggle to keep the ball in the ballpark against top quality talent. (I saw him pitch at Citi Field last season too.) In the time I watched, both Valle and Franco (!!!) hit long home runs off him. Nothing I saw diminished the enthusiastic reports we’ve been hearing about Franco. He is definitely a bit stocky, but he made a sac bunt play cleanly and otherwise looked good. The second at bat I saw, he fouled a ball hard off his foot and then grounded out on the next pitch, so I wasn’t really able to draw many conclusions about his speed. But he just seems like he knows what’s he’s doing out there.
Kyrell Hudson also had a nice triple to center. Kendrick looked pretty good. Gave up one home run (which I didn’t catch because I was watching the other field) and otherwise looked pretty good up there, sawed off a couple bats.
Last year’s GCL/WPT guys were on the other field. I caught a little big of Vargas, not enough to form an impression, and then Tim Kennelly pitched. I was interested to watch that because of the conversion experiment. He was pretty wild, and it was hard to tell how what his velocity was like. He actually hit Jesse Biddle when he was up there to sac bunt, and they made Biddle go back into the box and try again, and I was wondering about the wisdom of handling your top prospect that way, but the most notable thing about Biddle is: he has some serious eyebrows going. Kennelly struck out Cozens on (if I recall correctly) 3 pitches, and to my untrained eye, it looked like Cozens has a long looping swing. My only other observation was: man, Larry Greene Jr. looks like he’s a first baseman. I don’t know if this is how his body always looks or not, but he does not have the physique you’d expect of a 20-year-old outfield prospect–not fat, per se, but definitely thick. Darin Ruf, not Domonic Brown. There’s been talk in the past that he came to camp last year out of shape, and then some speculation about the reasons why he was dropped down a workout group. So take that observation as a data point for a conversation I hope we won’t end up having in the future.
The only other thing I’d mention is, if you make it to Clearwater, I would definitely recommend checking out the minor league complex. I’d never really done it before, and I don’t know whether it was because Kendrick was pitching there or what, but literally every single guy we write about seemed to be there, milling around the backstop, so it was useful to just put faces with names and to make observations like, Holy Cow, that Czech guy is tall, and Kenny Giles is not–more of a Billy Wagner type, I guess. Also, he seemed to be a bit of a goofball.
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Sorry, I should have said about the second field: it obviously wasn’t all just last year’s rookie ball guys, Biddle and Kennelly were hanging around, but the position players mostly seemed to be from that group with the exception of LGJr.
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Good stuff. Like Toccis set up, but he’s still scary skinny.
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Thanks for sharing your observations.
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Great information. I would agree that checking out the minor league complex is a great experience.
Much better to hear this sort of stuff in the comments than a poster wishing harm on a player.
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I HOPE YOU BREAK YOUR FIRST AND SECOND METATARSALS ON YOUR RIGHT HAND AND END YOUR CAREER ‘MOUSE-DRAGGING INTERNET POSTING’ DAYS…(TIC)
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I liked the comment too. But let’s be honest here – I’ve bent over backwards to be fair to D. Young, a horrible human being, terrible baseball player, and a clubhouse cancer. It mystifies me how anyone can defend him on any level. I think I’d rather have a modern day Hal Chase on the team; at least he could play a little baseball.
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Nice strawman. You’re good at that. Are you implying that I am defending Delmon Young and his signing? If you are, I challenge you to find one instance where I did.
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Look, many people have defended him and the signing. But fine, you’re not one of them. Why then the need to take a gratuitous shot at me in response to this unrelated comment? You made your feelings clear in response to the comment at issue. Why continue to harp on it?
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Because Larry your comment was undefendable under any circumstance. Just admit you messed up, accept the consequences and apologize. Until you do this people won’t forget your comment and maybe you should stay away from Delmon Young conversations.
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Awesome report and its a great scene, I’ll be there all next weekend, I can’t wait.
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I may drop by again to see if I can see anything around 11-noonish before heading over to the game in Tampa. Say hi if you see me–I’ll be the lithe, athletic, incredibly handsome guy with a beard and a 1980s maroon cap on. (Factcheck: only the beard and hat part are true. My name is Andrew, though!)
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Thanks andrew.
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Friend and Cesar were sent down since most of the WBC guys (Orr and Aumont) are back.
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Claypool and Cisto were released
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Do you mean Michael Cisco?
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If it is Sisto, he would be the first of last year’s rookie players to leave the team. If it is Cisco, I’d be surprised because he has not pitched badly over the years they have had him. I questioned whether Claypool would be around much longer. The Phillie had seemed to look past him.
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They released RHP Matt Sisto. Last years draft pick from Hawaii.
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Thanks for clarifying
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I was surprised today that Jay Johnson was still up with the big league, looked good until he gave up the homerun, less stuff than Diekman with similar control issues, but definitely a LOOGY type with what looked like a good slider and that side arm delivery.
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It was the 10th inning, the team routinely brings a few minor league pitchers over to sit in the pen in case the game goes to the 10th. Johnson was just called over for the day.
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At the minor league complex I saw 2 of Ethan Stewart 3 innings in which he went single,K,K Triple,GO. Next inning GO, FO, FO. He was getting a lot of swing and misses and looked sharp. Manaure Martinez followed with 2 innings of FO,K,K and Double,GO,Line out, W, and K. His best pitch was his FB getting a few swing and misses but needs to work on his offspeed stuff. Offensively Serritella Tripled along with 2 GO’s.Tocci FO and a GO. T. Greene K’d in his only AB. On the other field saw Zach Green single and FO and Cozens K looking on a 3-2 count. I have some video of most of these guys mentioned at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGkita
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thanks. Finally get to see Cousin. His swing (on foul tip) was quicker than I was expected as others have been reporting he has this big looping swing that sounded slow.
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thanks Gkita.
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At the minor league complex I saw 2 of Ethan Stewart 3 innings in which he went single,K,K Triple,GO. Next inning GO, FO, FO. He was getting a lot of swing and misses and looked sharp. Manaure Martinez followed with 2 innings of FO,K,K and Double,GO,Line out, W, and K. His best pitch was his FB getting a few swing and misses but needs to work on his offspeed stuff. Offensively Serritella Tripled along with 2 GO’s.Tocci FO and a GO. T. Greene K’d in his only AB. On the other field saw Zach Green single and FO and Cozens K looking on a 3-2 count. I have some video of most of these guys mentioned at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGkita
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Thanks for the videos. Watching the Cozens and Tocci videos back to back and realizing that Cozens is only a year older is quite amazing.
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Thanks for the nice video of Tocci. Beautiful swing. Also been playing in the Clearwater games and getting hits everyday.
It’s looking more and more like he will get a chance to play at Lakewood. I wonder how the Phillies will set up his living arrangements. They do host families at Williamsport, but I don’t know what they do for 17 year olds at Lakewood.
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I believe Franco had a host family in Lakewood. I would assume that they would do it as much as it permits up the chain. It would be fun to have this more like hockey where they live with one of the guys on the team their first year, but the minors is that growing period (could you imagine one of these guys living with Ryan Howard or Jimmy Rollins)
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My ex-brother-in-law and his wife host guys playing for the Salisbury Shorebirds in the Orioles system The team works out these paid ‘billets’ (hockey term) for interested players. Some guys have lived on their own and prefer that while some prefer a family atmosphere where they can count on meals they don’t have to fix for themselves.
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It’s typical for Lakewood- but I don’t think I’ve heard of it for Clearwater or above.
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Great job with the video, great to get first hand views of these guys in the minors at this time of year.
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I searched your channel and found the other longer video clip of Tocci and the one you posted from RH batter, Zach Green. Even though Tocci is the younger player, he seems much more advanced than Green, in his set-up and swing.
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I can see Green having a lot of contact issues
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Green looks like a power hitter. Tocci is a contact hitter at this point.
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Green looks the part phyically- but at least by just that video his swing looked a bit ‘iffy’. Serritella’s swing also doesn’t look like it will play at high levels. Only elite guys can set up that high in the bigs and still be successful.
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Great video … very excited about Tocci. (Although, from that video, I can’t imagine where the 10 pounds he supposedly added in the offseason went.)
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I saw him last year and he really looks much more “fiiled out” than last season, which goes to show you how “ungodly” thin he was last season. He’s still very thin in the hips so I don’t see him ever being confused with Dylan Cozens.
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Cozens standing next to the opponents catcher was ike an NBA small forward standing next to a 3rd grader. He looked more like a small forward than a defensive tackle. From discussions after the draft, it sounded like he’d get too big for the OF. From that video, I could see him being a goo athletic Of’er. Maybe he fields like Ruf and then I’ll have to eat my words.
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with the amount of technology out there about adding weight you would expect Tocci to be little further along in body development. Maybe they are afraid of him losing speed by adding weight too quick. Tough call – If you get him doing alot of heavy core exercises he stimulates bone growth but will lose some of that quickness. He might just end up with Doug Glanville body type which is fine as long as he is productive and good in field like Doug.
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He did add 15 pounds over the winter
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10
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