Before really ramping into 2013 draft coverage I am going to look back on some prototypical Phillies draft types. The goal is to find a pattern of success or failure and see if there is a trend in the developmental process. I am going to look at the tools that caused them to be drafted and how amateur scouts saw them, how they looked a year later when professional scouts had a chance to look them over, and then how it all ended up.
One of the most common complaints of Phillies drafts have been their drafting of “toolsy” outfielders, that just don’t know how to play baseball. There have been some disastrous picks such as Greg Golson, which is where this series will begin, with the 2004 draft. Not all of these players were “toolsy” but it should get a larger picture of the type of players drafted and how it turned out.
Greg Golson – 1st round 2004
What Got him Drafted: 70+ speed, 60 hit / 60 power projection, 60 arm, 60 defense
A Year Later: While the other tools remained the hit tool projection took a big step back when his pitch recognition was not where scouts thought it was. He struck out 106 times in 401 PAs.
How’d it end up: The Phillies traded him in 2008 for John Mayberry Jr. He has bounced around organizations since as a AAAA player who can play CF and steal bases. The hit tool never materialized.
Andy MacFarlane & Sean Gamble: 6th and 9th round 2004
What Got him Drafted: A pair of college OFs (barely found Baseball Reference pages)
A Year Later: Andy was failing the NYPL as a 21 year old and Gamble was struggling in the SAL at 22. Neither showed any carrying tools.
How’d it end up: Andy was out of baseball after 2005, Gamble stuck around until 2006 before going to Indy Ball for two years.
Jermaine Williams: 7th round 2005
What Got him Drafted: Big time power, Martin Wolever used Andre Dawson as a comparison. Perfect Game mentioned his simple approach and strong aggressive swing with good bat speed, also was a 50 runner with a 60 arm.
A Year Later: After hitting poorly but respectably in the GCL in his draft year, Williams hit .079/.114/.092 in the GCL.
How’d it end up: After a slightly better 2007 in the NYPL (.088/.139/.132), Willaims was out of baseball.
Jeremy Slayden – 8th round 2005
What Got him Drafted: College Senior, once a big time prospect he still had plus power and a good approach, but arm injuries would limit him to LF.
A Year Later: Slayden dominated younger competition in Lakewood, he didn’t do enough to really show a great major league future.
How’d it end up: Slayden ended up having a decent minor league career before leaving in 2010. Played indie ball in 2011 before retiring.
D’Arby Myers – 4th round 2006
What got him Drafted: Despite a questionable hit tool, Myers was a great athlete and excellent defender in center field. He shows good power potential as well.
A Year Later: Pitch recognition was a liability but had huge ceiling. Good defensive center fielder.
How’d it end up: Never developed the secondary skills to make the majors. Now in the Oakland organization trying to get a cup of coffee in the majors.
Quintin Berry – 5th round 2006
What got him Drafted: Speed and center field defense.
A Year Later: Berry ripped up the SAL with a good walk to strikeout rate and 55 stolen bases. Lacked instincts on the bases and the power is very limited.
How’d it end up: Berry flamed out in 2010 and was removed from the 40 man roster. He caught on with the Tigers in 2012 and made the majors where he had some success, started 2013 in AAA.
TJ Warren – 8th round 2006
What got him Drafted: Major league body and 5 potential tools, arm and speed are the best
A Year Later: Struggled in the GCL with 42 strikeouts in 118 PAs. Didn’t show any power.
How’d it end up: Didn’t make it past Lakewood and was out of the organization following the 2009 season. Huge strikeout rates at all levels.
Domonic Brown – 20th round 2006 draft
What got him Drafted: Big strong athlete who had a football commitment to play WR. He has plus to plus plus speed and big raw power.
A Year Later: Showed good power and advanced plate discipline for his age. Has good defensive tools but needs better route running and accuracy on his throws.
How’d it go: Brown has had his ups and downs but seems to have earned himself a major league job in LF for the Phillies. All of the tools are there for him to be good but it hasn’t all come together yet.
Matt Spencer – 3rd round 2007 draft
What got him Drafted: A former top prospect out of high school Spencer has big power and big questions about the hit tool.
A Year Later: Same thing as his predraft report, good power and poor hit tool.
How’d it go: Traded to Oakland for Joe Blanton and eventually ended up with the Cubs who put him on the mound where it hasn’t gone great so far.
Michael Taylor – 5th round 2007 draft
What got him Drafted: Big power but has Stanford swing. He is a right fielder defensively.
A Year Later: Showed big power and a good approach at the plate. Arm played more as plus and he looks like a starting RF.
How’d it end up: Traded for Roy Halladay and then on to Oakland immediately. Has struggled to establish himself in the majors and has been stuck in the AAAA player purgatory.
Jiwan James – 22nd round 2007 draft
What got him Drafted: Toolsy athlete who wants to pitch rather than play the field.
A Year Later: James blew out his arm on the mound and began his transition to field player.
How’d it end up: The hit tool has been a question but he is a great defensive centerfield with with a good arm. He look more like a 4th OF if it comes together.
Anthony Hewitt – 1st round 2008 draft
What got him Drafted: Big tools across the board (7+ speed, arm, and power), SS in HS probably a 3B or RF. Gigantic questions about the hit tool and pitch recognition.
A Year Later: Still giant tools and no clue how to use them.
How’d it end up: Made it to AA with all of the same questions, currently doing enough to look like he might be a reserve OF on the major league level.
Zach Collier – 1st supplemental round in 2008 draft
What got him Drafted: Profiles as a good centerfielder with a good hit tool and some power.
A Year Later: Lost confidence and the swing fell apart. Did not make good contact or hit for power.
How’d it end up: Coller has been an enigma as injuries and a suspension have limited his playing time. A good AFL put him back on the prospect map but he has struggled in AA, still could be a starting CF.
Anthony Gose – 2nd round 2008 draft
What got him Drafted: A good LHP and CF high school. Good defensive CF but questions about whether he can hit major league pitching.
A Year Later: Scouts give him a 70 on speed, defense, and arm. Needs to rework his approach at the plate.
How’d it Go: Traded for Roy Oswalt, making his way to Toronto in the deal. Still working on getting a full time job but he is a great defensive CF with some questions about his abilities at the plate. A very dangerous base runner.
Kelly Dugan – 2nd Round 2009 draft
What got him Drafted: Switch hitting first baseman with power, has the athleticism and arm to play corner OF in professional ball.
A Year Later: Better from his natural left side but showed good power from both sides of the plate. Injuries have delayed his career.
How’d It End Up: Injuries have derailed Dugan but he has hit well when he has played. He walks and strikes out quite a bit, but shows good contact and power. Will need to continue to mash to make it to the majors.
Kyrell Hudson – 3rd round 2009 draft
What Got Him Drafted: One of the fastest runners in the draft and a good centerfielder with a plus arm. Scouts are concerned he may not hit.
A Year Later: Hudson failed to hit in Williamsport and dropped off of prospect radars.
How’d it Go: Hudson is probably the best defensive CF in the organization but the hit tool is still non-existent.
Aaron Altherr – 9th round 2009 draft
What Got Him Drafted: A pure lanky athlete who hasn’t played much baseball. Huge athleticism.
A Year Later: Showed good baseball skills and all of the tools. As more upside than anyone other than Domonic Brown. Profiles best in a corner outfield position.
How’d it End Up: Altherr has struggled at times but shows plus power potential and plus speed and a developing approach at the plate. Altherr is a huge breakout potential guy.
Gauntlett Eldemire – 6th round 2010 draft
Why He Got Drafted: Eldemire offers big time athleticism seldom seem on the college level. His approach and swing may not translate to the pros.
A Year Later: Still hadn’t played a game due to injury.
Hod’d it End Up: After a disappointing year in Lakewood at age 23 in 2012, Eldemire didn’t make it out of camp in 2013.
Larry Greene – 1st supplemental 2011
What Got him Drafted: Best raw power in the draft with surprising athleticism for his body type. Struggled in show-cases against premium stuff.
A Year Later: The body has gotten worse, the power is not showing up in games, and he seems destined for firstbase where he will have to mash.
Roman Quinn – 2nd round 2011
What Got him Drafted: Fastest player in the draft. There are questions about the hit and power tool. Some teams may try him in the infield because of his plus arm.
A Year Later: Quinn is one of the fastest players in the game and is trying to stick at shortstop. He is beginning to show power and a good idea of what is going on at the plate.
Dylan Cozens – 2nd round 2012
What Got him Drafted: Monstrous power and a plus arm, and currently still at least an average runner. The body poses huge questions for the hit tool and long term defensive position.
Stephen Golden – 13th round 2012
What Got him Drafted: Young centerfielder with a solid hit tool, good runner and defender. Power is all projection right now.
Summary:
The Phillies have really missed on first round picks with big tools and hit tool questions. They didn’t reach on those picks but it is becoming more obvious it is really difficult to teach a player pitch recognition or hit tool. Even now you can see all the tools present that makes you dream on them. All that being said the Phillies have taken some gambles in later rounds that have been good gambles. The jury is still out on Brown but Gose and Taylor were major trade pieces and there is still hope for the guys from the 2008 draft on. The MLB draft has many misses overall and the Phillies have not been good at getting talent to the majors from any position. The biggest thing to remember is that this represents 3 GM regimes and each values different things in the players they bring into the system.
Phuture Phillies 
I very interested to see what they have in Steven Golden. He was rated just outside of the top 100 HS prospects by ESPN before last years’ draft. His profile didn’t seem like a ‘raw, toolsy’ player. Pre-draft Profile below:
Steven Golden, OF, 6-3 180 lb. San Leandro, CA.
“Lean, loose and athletic build, plus projection, looks like a young Mike Cameron. Strong and accurate arm, 6.51 runner, athletic actions defensively, will have to improve routes and jumps. Quiet, fundamentally sound hitting approach, quick hands, confident calm approach, stays inside the ball, squares up everything, line drives to all fields, handles velocity with no effort, high average approach, power to come in the future. Has present tools and outstanding projection”.
“Confident calm approach… squares up everything”. Caught my attention, because those aren’t terms used for “toolsy” players.
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Thanks, hadn’t seen that, can’t remember where I found the part on Golden I wrote, that section was written in an airport with shoddy internet. That is actually Perfect Game’s 2011 writeup on him as a junior, that being said if it really matches up it will interesting. I am updating the writeup
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You’re very welcome, sir.
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Thanks for the info on Golden. I’ve been curious about him but had no info.
He played little in ’12. Sounds like a guy to watch this season, but he could start at Clwtr GCL or Wmsprt. Since he did get in some games last year, I’d suspect he’d go to Wmsprt considering that he also will have had a full (and extended) spring training.
With that write-up, let’s hope he can (quickly) verify it all with his play. With that garden of tools mentioned, he could flower early. Just add water.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if they start him in GCL again, (similar to what they did with Altherr). Golden is only 18, so he would still be age appropriate. He also has Jiandido Tromp and Jonathan Knight, older and ahead of him, for CF at Williamsport.
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From the Phillies’ experience, potential usually stays as potential except for exceptional cases like Piazza and Brown. Their in-season success has forced the Phillies to draft inexperienced, but athletic players. In the main, there has been little success with this. It makes one wonder why they were not more aggressive (spending more) with Latin American signings. Maybe their experience will change their habits.
Thanks for the article. It is good to have some perspective on the failed strategy.
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It should be no surprise about the failed strategy. Hitting a baseball thrown by a decent pitcher is one of the most difficult skills in any sport. For hitting, athletic ability, speed, and power don’t matter much without plate discipline, pitch recognition, and a good approach at the plate.
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Peronally, I would characterize a ‘toolsy’ player as a positional player drafted in the FIRST round who is physically statueques but with concerns in regards to baseball experience.
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What you list is how I would describe a ‘reach’ toolsy player. that same guy picked after the second round is a quite reasonable gamble, but still raw and ‘toolsy’.
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You left off the 2005 “Toolsy” OF from Paw Paw, Derrick Mitchell.
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A great summary of the Phillies “success” with toolsy OFs.
A couple of comments in regards to your writeups:
Hewitt: Made it to AA with all of the same questions, currently doing enough to look like he might be a reserve OF on the major league level.
No, this will not be happening. He’ll likely be released after another pathetic showing, this time in AA. Yeah, he had a nice couple of weeks till AA teams realized that all they had to do was throw him breaking stuff but he does that every year. He’s a total bust of a pick.
The Mayberry trade made the Golson pick a success at least.
On Brown, maybe he’s earned a full-time job in LF and maybe not…we’ll see. He just needs to figure out how to make solid contact…everything else is there (well, the fielding sucks too but that’s not gonna change)
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This is what happened under 3 GMs, but the scouting philosophy remained unchanged. We do well with pitchers, really need to figure out what to look for in hitters. I think much of baseball at the time considered Hewitt a first-round reach. Dugan was a reach, as I recall the pick amazed most observers. For a lot of these picks, the common denominator is plus CF defense and plus speed. So many are described a plus raw power. Raw power really is a fairly meaningless thing. It is often just imaginative projection upon guys who really cannot hit. I think more and more that it takes extraoridinary scouting talent to accurately grade the hit and power tools and that, by and large, our scouts lack that particular skill. Rollins was a real find for the team in the draft. Other than that, guys like Burrell, Utley, Howard were college guys who had hit against good pitching, although Howard had regressed his final year of college. Ruiz became a very good hitter, but that seemed to catch the Phillies management by surprise. He was relegated to backup catching duties until partway through his second (first was very partial) year at AA. We very rarely draft and develop a HS hitter. Singleton has a chance. D’Arnauld has a chance. As far as guys who have actually had better than average years in the majors, it’s pretty much down to just Rollins. We haven’t produced even the equivalent of a Kendrick on the offensive side since Rollins.
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Of course, Brown also has a chance, but also hasn’t risen to Kendrick level of major league success yet and his ceiling seems quite a bit lower than it did two years ago.
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Brown’s ceiling is the same. The odds of his reaching that ceiling, however, have diminished somewhat, but not as much as folks think.
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The actual common denominator: They were all willing to sign for slot or even less than slot. Its the same common denominator for all top Phillies picks.
They only busted slot in the later rounds and even then for limited amounts.
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This is also true and partially explains the gambling nature of these picks. There were usually sounder picks available, but it was less clear they would sign for slot. I don’t fault the team for picks like Kyrell Hudson. A total bust, back in XST in his 4th pro season, but most 3rd rounders are busts. He presented an interesting gamble. Gauntlett Eldemire is different than most of these guys. He wasn’t a primo pick. He was hurt when we drafted him. He was college and he had shown he could hit. This was a recovery from injury gamble and Eldemire really never recovered.
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A prior strikeout 1st rounder: Jeff Jackson! Another toolsy guy who arrived with a defective set…and became only a sad memory. Never even close.
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Followed by Reggie Taylor, who was at least later in the first round. I think Jeff Jackson was the 4th player taken in the draft that year and the definition of ‘reach’.
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Matt was only going back 10 years or so to 2004. If you want we can go back to the 60s and Alex Johnson, or Adolpo Phillips or Johnny Briggs etc etc.
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Tony Curry?
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I wouldn’t consider guys like Greene, Quinn and Cozens taken in recent drafts “toolsy.” What defines toolsy to me is a raw athlete who can be molded into a five-tool player. Instead, these guys have 1 standout tool — power for LGJ and Cozens, speed for Quinn. The former two are never going to lead the league in stolen bases or man centerfield; the latter isn’t going to back outfielders up to the warning track.
Personally, I have no problem with the philosophy, particularly since these guys are getting drafted in the later rounds. Who is going to be available in the ninth round that has more upside than Kyrell Hudson? Even if you look at the first rounders, you’re not going to be blown away by the players left on the board after Golson or Hewitt was selected. There’s no “Jeff Jackson over Frank Thomas” moment there.
The fact is that the Phillies haven’t had a sub-.500 record in more than a decade. The sure things are long gone by the time this team drafts each year. Taking that into consideration, and looking at the prospects in the system and those traded to other teams, they haven’t done that bad.
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Agree Mike – though I do have issue with the toolsy selections when occurring in the 1st or 2nd rounds. I want contributors here, not guys who develop into stars 1 out of 20 times and 15 of those times they never make it past AAA. Hitting a baseball is one of the toughest things to do consistently in all of sports – yet this franchise seems to favor guys who can run fast or hit 80mph fastballs a far way irrespective of whether they can truly hit or field a position. I don’t get it.
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I agree that Larry Greene, Cozens, Roman Quinn and to a certain extent, Guantlett Eldemire should not have been put on this list. They weren’t the ‘toolsy’ prospects in the way the term is ‘correctly’ used.
‘Toolsy’ is used to describe a player who shows all of athletic tools such as Power, Speed, and Arm, without yet showing skill. Roman Quinn was a “skilled” HS baseball player, and the term ‘toolsy’ is a lazy moniker put on him due to the way he looks (Many have used this term to describe him, and I believe MattW included him due to others describing him that way, not that he believes that). Larry Greene and Cozens weren’t ‘toolsy’, because it is established that they were drafted for just one tool, and are future 1st Baseman. Gauntlett Eldemire was an established, skilled hitter, coming out of college, and is a stretch to be called ‘toolsy’ in it’s usual use.
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Second paragraph I wrote:
“Not all of these players were “toolsy” but it should get a larger picture of the type of players drafted and how it turned out.”
I included every OF who I didn’t seem like an obvious org guy (with the exception of Mitchell who I missed and was never truly a prospect).
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Good write up. My conclusion, it is a good strategy outside of the first round. Especially with the new draft rules. You gotta nail the first round pick. And can take toolsy guys later.
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My problem with they havent done bad is this. Who is helping a team that they traded in the lee, halladay, pence deal?. They were on a roll in the 2007 season and the 2008,but never looked ahead to the time like now, refusing to go into the international market, for a chapman or darvis, profar and others, hurt this team,people say they were drafting low, well doesnt that make you want to go into the international market. profar cost 1.5 million.There is a instant replacement for rollins, Just to ignore a market and only try for cheap signs, to me is all luck if you hit on one,now they are paying for there mistakes, and how in the world can anyone not see this, blows my mind,but its only my stupid opinion,
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They sure blew it by NOT pounding the roads and fields where such as those (Profar, etc.) were to be found. Failure to prepare for the future sucks. And the coffers seemed to be full enough to find & sign better prospects…..but they ignored the future.
Having no or late first round draft choices should have brought a concentration of seek & find for the franchise in order to make up for lower draft choices.
No excuse here. Grade “F”.
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Ruben had opportunities last year with the signing of the Cuban prospects and no penalties to be incurred, but for some inexplicable reason he decided in not pursueing any of them, or if he did he did it half-heartedly. It gulls me that he did it repeatedly with the 4/5 of them.
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No more “toolsys.” Let’s draft players who have shown they can hit a baseball, although they may not be able to run like the wind or have the build of a free safety.
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I believe the comments about RAJs failures to sign any of the top international prospects to be accurate. RAJs failures to sign anyone of the group on Cespedes, Chapman, Solar and even Profar show either his poor insight to commit to the international player or the organizations failure to pay appropriately for talent. It has been clear for some time the farm system is now in the lower half of baseball. Yet by signing any of the avail top international talent RA could have bolster the organization by acquiring top tier talent. Chapman cost the Reds 5 million. The Phils were outbid. They were said to be interested in Cespedes and Solar also. Yet they were also outbid by the As and Cubs. Interested is one thing. Committed to excellence is another. RAJ fails way to often when it comes to Excellence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Please stay on topic DW.
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