Box Score Recap – 9/4/2013

Box Score Recap

Malquin Canelo wins “Worst Season Ending Game” this year. His prize? A fancy metallic Mexican hat. Nice night from Shane Martin. He had a passable season, though you’d like to see him miss more bats – he struck out just 44 in 70.2 IP, or 5.6/9IP, though he only walked 16, which is just a shade over 2/9IP. That’s quite good. His assignment in the spring will tell us plenty about what the team thinks of him, as a double jump would be a big sign of confidence.

It’s been a fun year for me, and I hope you all have enjoyed yourselves. I don’t have immediate plans to not return in 2014, so I guess we’ll start this up again in April. I will be around this fall and winter posting AFL stat updates a couple times a week starting in October, other random thoughts, probably the head-to-head prospect ranking discussions like I did last year, and weekly general discussions (when I remember – feel free to tweet at me if I forget – @bxe1234).

Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB.

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20130904

9-4-13 boxscores

65 thoughts on “Box Score Recap – 9/4/2013”

    1. Ditto. Anyone who comes to this site has to be amazed at the daily coverage you provide. One stop shopping, if you want it. All the games are one click away. A heartfelt thank you to you and Matt and Gregg and the other guys who keep this site going.

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      2. +1

        You all make my morning…or in this case, evening.

        I’m going to miss the thrill of my daily box scores. The only decent salve for that wound is Football, and I suppose AFL coverage 😉

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  2. Brad — Thank you (and all other contributors) for all of your insight, entertaining comments, and hard work throughout the year.

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  6. Thanks to all for the great job, I really enjoyed all the insight without all the banter and trolling like other sites do-Looking forward to next year

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  7. Brad……thanks for a wonderful job and an always enlightening stop. Kudos to you for staying with this and doing such a thorough wrap up….over and over !

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  8. Thanks to you Brad and all the other contributors this year. I wish the Phillies were as good at developing prospects as you guys are at covering them. 12 Ks and 1 BB in the last game of the year is a very Phillies-ish way to close it out.

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  9. Brad,
    Thanks for the good job you did .
    Can I make one suggestion if I may for next year?
    The GeneralDiscussion thread you begin each Monday. Anyway having two per week during the April-Sept timeframe/season?
    Say a Monday and a Thursday edition.
    There are so many different features from Box Recaps, to Special Player Profiles to Hot/Not etc, that the GenDisc thread gets inundated by mid-week and hard to navigate.
    Just a suggestion.

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    1. Something I will consider next year, maybe starting with Top 30 voting weeks. You’re right that it makes sense during the season, and probably not as much in the off-season.

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  12. OK, been said before, but can’t be said too much…. thank you Gregg, Brad, Matt and everyone else – a question: for you to ponder if you have already decided important things like what’s for dinner – is there anything I could do , as an enjoyer of the site, to make the efforts of those who put it together easier?

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      2. Realizing this is mostly a fun joke I would encourage people to read the stuff on prospects that Eric Longhagen puts up on Crashburn Alley and the stuff that goes up on The Good Phight, and provide good feedback and comments. The better the community as a whole, the better it is for everyone.

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    2. If you are a lurker, then throw your opinion in every so often. If you post more often, then be insightful in your posts and add to the discussion. On a personal level I feel I can provide a higher level of analysis when there is going to be high level feedback because I learn as much when you guys respond with good comments to things I do. Additionally, I take ideas half formed from the comment section to inspire larger trains of thought on analysis.

      By making the comments a place of better discussion you raise the level of the site on a whole. A lot of what we bring you is the base platform on which to build thoughts.

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  13. Love the intro’s to the daily recaps as well.
    Just another good taste of the pulse of the Phils minor leaguers.

    This offseason, much like last season, could be a significant crossroads to the next wave of Phillies. Really hoping for the ceiling projections for Ruf, Asche, Hernandez, Galvis, Rupp, Gillies, and Franco.

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    2. I think this comment pretty much illustrates a significant divide on this site. IMO, even setting aside the fact that you never have ALL of your prospects meet their ceiling projections, that’s just not an imposing core. Two of those guys could be part of the next core (though probably not both of them, because of positional duplication), a few others maybe minor pieces of a contender, and one of them will never play a game for the Phillies. If that’s your core moving forward, you’re the Astros. Well, that’s not really fair to the Astros, who could be pretty good in a couple of years.

      Which may sound negative, but there’s hope further down in the system, and, when the team is ready to contend, there’s the FA market, not what it used to be but still a way to add talent. And we can always hope for one or two scrap heap type pick ups, the next Victorino or Werth.

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  15. Thanks! I only found this site about two or three weeks ago, but it’s amazingly thorough. It’s nice to get my minor league fix without having to navigate a half dozen sites.

    Keep up the great work!

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  16. I echo the sentiments of everyone’s comments above, I’ve really enjoyed reading the boxscores, the comments from readers, especially larrym, and brad’s humor each day. I’ll be spending a good amount of time in arizona over the next two-three months so if anyone is in the area, let me know if you’re going to be at a fall league game. I’m looking forward to seeing the Phils prospects in action against some good competition.

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  17. thanks to brad, greg and matt. I have always felt this is best message board I belong to. Take load off for few months.

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  18. Okay, sorry for the delay, but here are some of my impressions of the Lakewood team I saw last week. Just some quick thoughts.

    J.P. Crawford got no hits, but looked amazing at shortstop. He glides to balls and makes throws from ridiculous positions. Appears to have tremendous range and, yes, he is so smooth. Bat is very quick. Has a good strong frame. I could easily see him putting on 15-25 pounds of muscle. If he does, he could be an absolute beast.

    Tocci is exactly as described in the outfield. Made many tremendous plays – plus outfielder at the very least. But he’s insanely skinny and it is questionable whether he can fill out. If he can’t fill out even modestly, his projection is limited, I don’t care how good of a fielder he is. The delta between his floor and ceiling is significant. Personally, as much talent as he has, I wouldn’t put him in my top 10 until I saw that he had gotten bigger. At the very least, he is tall, which is good. Was disappointed in something else he did. During warm ups, he sailed a practice throw right into the stands directly in front of me. He really hurt an unsuspecting lady. She was taken away for first aid and came back later but was really hurting. I realize there are significant language barriers and the ushers were helpful, but I thought it was unfortunate that nobody on the team came up to her and asked how she was doing or showed some level of concern – she was right in the first row. Tocci and the player who should have caught the ball pretended it never happened, although they did modify their throwing routine the next inning so it wouldn’t happen again (which showed they clearly knew what happened). It just left me with a bad taste in my mouth – I’m not sure who I am most disappointed in, but it was not handled well by anyone other than the very nice usher since the incident was clearly the result of negligence and should never have happened.

    Brian Pointer made several fine plays in the outfield and hit fairly well at the plate. Pointer is incredibly strong and athletic, but may just be a classic “toolshed” player like Hewitt or Derek Mitchell. It’s enitrely unclear whether he will hit enough, but is already a very, very good fielder.

    Gabriel Lino – did not play especially well, but he’s quite the physical specimen. You can see why they are so excited about him.

    Larry Greene – absolutely nothing to get excited about here. Botched some plays in the outfield, where he is below average it appears. At the plate, he has a good eye, but that seems to be about it. I don’t think he can hit a good fastball, at least that’s how it appeared the night that I went. He also can’t hit a good breaking ball. If doesn’t really start hitting next year, I think he’s done. I believe, based on what I saw here and in ST, that the odds are against his ever making AAA with the Phillies. I hope he works his butt off this off season and proves me wrong, but I’m not holding out too much hope.

    Willie Carmona is interesting. He played third where he has quite a good arm. Is incredibly strong. Is old for Lakewood and I’m not sure how much more projection he has as a hitter. But he’s a guy I’ll keep tabs on.

    On the whole, however, the team’s hitting was quite bad. It was just like watching the big league Phillies – nothing happened until the very end and then it was too little, too late.

    Pitching was okay. Miguel Nunez had a nice game. Throws in thw low 90s. Might end up being an interesting bullpen piece – not sure if he has the secondary pitches to progress as a starter.

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    1. By the way, in anticipation of comments about how the lady in the first row should have been watching and it wasn’t the players’ fault, I don’t agree with that. I’ve never seen two guys who are playing pre-inning catch set up in such a weird way. Tocci was long tossing directly toward the crowd, not at an angle as is typically done. In fact, before the lady got hurt I thought to myself – why the heck is he long-tossing directly toward the stands – what if he sails a throw? And that’s just what happened. The incident could have easily been prevented if the players had angled themselves away from the crowd even a little. the point is that this was really the players’ fault and somebody should have showed some concern – even a little.

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      1. catch……now I suspect he also has an errant arm, after all he may have been aiming for you in the row above the lady!
        He knew you were scouting him out.

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    2. Larry Greene and Willie Carmona are going in opposite direction IMO.
      I see Willie Carmona as a player next year…to start in CLW and finishing up in Reading.

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      1. Don’t see it for Carmona. Lousy peripherals. Repeating Lakewood at 22. Only reason his line looks decent is a .360 BABIP.

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        1. There’s not a whole lot abnormal about a .360 BABIP for a player who hit .300+. How else could he achieve the high average? If you want to learn something about sustainability, dig deeper into the types of batted balls (e.g. GB rate, LD rate, etc) that led to a .360 BABIP.

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          1. Okay ..let’s start with this question: even assuming Carmona is a guy who sprays line drives all over the field, is a .367 (or even .360 BABIP) sustainable over a major league career.? The answer is almost certainly no. The one player who could pose as a counter example in recent history would be Joey Votto, who is a freak of nature. Look over the list of players who have sustained a .330 plus BABIP over a career, and it is mostly speedsters (who also happen to be line drive machines). Votto is by far the biggest exception. There are a couple others, but, for the most part, .330 seems to be about the limit for a a guy without much speed.

            At a .330 BABIP, with his peripherals, Carmona would be a .273 hitter. With his mediocre BB rate and low HR rate, that would certainly not play at 1B (heck, I’m not sure a .300 BA would play at first base with his BB rate and HR rate).

            Now, all of that said, one WOULD like to see some batted ball data to get a sense of just how inflated the BABIP is.But, when you consider that LOTS of players have those kind of BABIPs in the minors, and essentially no one does in major league baseball (that is, over .360, and very few over .330), I would say our starting point should be one of skepticism.

            (I’d note that a huge factor in attaining a high BA, more important than BABIP, is maintaining a low K rate. A lesser factor is maintaining a high HR rate – the BA on HR is 1.000. Carmona is average on the former, below average in the latter.)

            I’d like to end on an optimistic note, something along the lines of “well, maybe his power develops and he he makes marginal improvements in other areas” … but really, given age/level and the overall profile … he’s an interesting guy, but IMO not really a prospect.

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            1. “is a .367 (or even .360 BABIP) sustainable over a major league career.? The answer is almost certainly no.”

              Of course, particularly considering the player in question who is certainly not a prospect in any sense of the word and for a multitude of reasons, not to mention the limited sample size. But to point out that a .300 average is unsustainable only because of an abnormal BABIP is a short-sighted statement to say the least. If you hit .300, and .300 being static given that the season has ended, is it really surprising that his BABIP was .360ish? As you mention, K-rate for one is a stat that must also be considered. The types of batted balls is also critical. BABIP alone tells us very little and is one of the most misused and abused stats – dig deeper I say

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            2. Briefly, because I am heading out the door – We’re disagreeing over semantics mostly, maybe entirely. Part of the problem is that the data to dig deeper is not always available (and even when it is, batted ball data tends to take a large sample to normalize). I prefer myself to talk about the issue more long the lines of “his peripherals, chiefly K%, won’t support a BA that high,” rather than invoking BABIP.

              But that said, when the BABIP is that high, I think it’s a legitimate to include it in the conversation.

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            3. Larry – I actually don’t think we’re disagreeing at all. Just adding more substance to the original post

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    3. This is great. Thanks for the report.

      Tocci is a really hard guy to rank–you love a kid that can survive full season ball at his age, but what can you really project him as? Ben Revere? There’s value to a glove-first center fielder with great baseball instincts, but it’s not the kind of value that gets you in the top five of a system based on an okay-ish season in A-ball.

      Will one of the Tocci boosters make the case for his absolute ceiling?

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      1. I agree that he is hard to rank. There seems to be two camps with Tocci on here, both with very reasonable arguments IMO and both in agreement on the impressive tolls that he alrready does possess: 1) those that rank him based on the assumption that he will get bigger and stronger as he matures, and therefore develop “some power”, and 2) those want to see him actually fill out first and perform as a stronger player. But in both cases he should be ranked fairly high considering his floor is already high, especially for a 17 year old. I would imagine the rankings on him will be anywhere between #4 and #10 depending on what camp you are in. ( I am in the latter FWIW)

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        1. Hmm, I guess I would take issue with the idea that he’s high-floor. Baseball instincts or not, his body is still extreme risk to me–if he doesn’t get stronger, he’ll continue to get the bat knocked out of his hands. At that point, he’s Kyrell Hudson and doesn’t reach AA.

          As has been discussed here previously, Eric Longenhagen wrote an insanely good piece over at Crashburn on J.P. Crawford’s power potential based in part on his father’s body type; I imagine the Phillies know something about Tocci’s parents, but unfortunately we don’t. That’s part of what makes him a frustrating guy to even dream on.

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          1. Like I said it’s tough. I’m not sure I really feel about his floor. But you have to, at least in my opinion, project “some” physical growth in a 17-year old, particulalry a rail thin one whose development the organization has clearly identitifed as a priority. So I am willing to put his floor as a hitter above “getting the bat knocked out of his hands” (in other words, Revere) though I’m not prepared to go any further on power projections until we see him fill out.

            But as you said in your above post, it isn’t just “instincts” with Tocci- its elite defense at a premium position with plus speed with an excellant approach at the plate. So even with Revere-power that’s an average-above average player.

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          2. It’s hard to imagine a 6’2 guy who weighs ~160 at 17 isn’t going to gain at least 20-30 pounds over the next 5 years.

            I don’t know where that takes him power wise, but he’s going to get stronger.

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            1. He’s as skinny as they come – it’s a legitimate concern. I haven’t done my rankings, but he’s probably be somewhere between 10-15. I know he’s young, but even 20 pounds might not make him strong enough to be an adequate hitter. Hopefully, I’m entirely off the mark, but I’m in wait and see mode with this guy.

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          3. Rich – personally, I’m going to resist the urge to lower Tocci in my rankings (currently in the 5-7 range). If he played with the GCL Phils this season I suspect we would have seen a much higher slash and we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. Next season will be quite telling as he repeats Lakewood.

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          4. I didnt read the piece,but sounds like when the phillies took mike liberthal, he was small , but though he would get bigger,based on his dad height and weight.

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      2. Maybe not top 5 in a system with 5 good prospects, but who do we have after Franco, Biddle, and Crawford? I think he’s in the next tier.

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        1. Yeah, I think this is the best counter-argument. Before this season I’d have put Morgan, Joseph, and Martin in the next tier, but Martin has graduated and who knows about the other two. Nobody has really jumped up to take their place.

          It’s certainly troubling that a lottery ticket–even one with good odds, as far as those things go–will rank so highly this off-season.

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        2. I’m still high on Quinn, have greatly increased my opinion of Dugan as a top-10 guy, am impressed by what Tromp has done at a tender age, and see the promise in Pujols

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      3. Before I get to his ceiling I will start with his floor.
        I could see his floor as a nearly average MLB CF. I assume more familiarity with advanced pitching getting his BA up while continuing to have plus plus speed becoming a lesser average hitter than Revere with slightly higher walk and strikeout rates. At age 18 he may already be a better defender than Revere due to his arm.

        As for his celing, if does seem to depend completely on his lacking tool, power. If his body and swing can generate average power while still maintaining a plus hit tool (currently projection as well) with plus defense he becomes an above average starter. Certainly not an MVP candidate but 15HR, 30SB, with .350 OBP and plus defense projection would ceratinly be a Top50 prospect. His age still allowing for all that projection.We will all wait to see if he can actually demonstrate some of that projection.

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        1. This is about where I am. The thing to remember is that this is not a ground ball slap and run swing, he is a guy who can drive the ball to all fields with a good swing.
          http://mlbfarm.com/player.php?player_id=624636
          As opposed to Ben Revere
          http://mlbfarm.com/player.php?player_id=519184&position=CF

          Look at the differences in batted balls, Tocci puts a lot more in the air to OF and a lot less on the ground looking to beat them out with speed.

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          1. I disagree, I think Tocci’s floor is probably a AAA player or a AAAA player. I think his defense will get him at least up to AAA over time, but, aside from that, who knows?

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    1. Good stuff brad and I hope this doesn’t sound condescending but your writing and delivery only improved as the season wore on – not that it was lacking in the first place.

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  20. Just joining with the others in saying Thank You Brad!! I seldom post here but, boy, do I check it out daily! From here will follow all that is posted and wait (impatiently) until next April for more stellar stuff from you guys.

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    1. One thing has always irked me: when I look at the pitchers coming up to the Braves, it seems that almost all of them have high mph in their FBs and are able to throw strikes.
      That seems to be mostly missing with regard to Phils’ oncoming pitchers.

      Maybe there’s “something wrong in Denmark”, i.e., perhaps bad choices in drafting or FA signings and/or poor coaching throughout the system.
      It is necessary to reconsider their policies because signing free agent pitchers is expensive and risky except when signing that last piece to go over the top.

      A new approach must be put in effect ASAP. Studying the Braves ways and means should be high on the agenda. To continue the same policies and expecting a different result ain’t gonna do it!! And, no matter who you sign, the development’s essentials are missing, it seems w this franchise.

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      1. If the phillies haven’t studied the braves by now they never will. But I agree, they should have be following what Atlanta does with pitchers. Heck they should have reverse engineered atlanta approach long time ago since Maddox, Smoltz, Avery era.

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      2. Do not get enamored by the Braves development of starting pitchers.
        Their best in the last twenty years were developed in other systems…Maddox-Cubs, Smoltz-Tigers. And perhaps their best, Tom Glavine was no shakes until after approx 100 starts or so in the majors.
        What do you think of Avery, Chen, Millwood, Hanson etc…all mediocre in my book.
        Now their relief pitching is a whole other story.

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