Reader Top 30 #3 – JP Crawford

2014 Reader Top 30

Jesse Biddle takes the #2 spot on the poll and Adam Morgan joins the poll as we continue on.

  1. Maikel Franco
  2. Jesse Biddle
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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

51 thoughts on “Reader Top 30 #3 – JP Crawford”

  1. I went with Crawford here. I think next vote should be interesting though. Do you go with MAG or Morgan? Doesn’t MAG have some injury question marks and his ceiling sounded lower than what Morgan’s was at the start of last season. I think because I like Morgan I would make him #4 over MAG

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    1. Morgan’s injury concerns are way too great to consider him this high in the list, IMO.

      I took Crawford here. I am really looking forward to seeing how he progresses this year. If he’s hitting, he could easily make his way to A+ by mid-year. I’ll continue to be optimistic for a moment and state that Crawford will start 2015 in Reading and then-incumbent SS Freddy Galvis will be traded in mid 2016 to make room for Crawford’s big league debut and eventual run of 12-14 straight all-star appearances.

      That was fun.

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      2. Are Morgan’s injury concern’s really worse than MAG’s? Isn’t it just as possible MAG needs some kind of surgery and doesn’t pitch at all this year? We’re talking about a guy whose contract dropped 20-30 million dollars once the Phils were able to look at his medical records. And it doesn’t sound like he’s got much upside. He’s an unhealthy Pettibone and Morgan was a better prospect than that before last season.

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        1. If I recall, MAG’s question marks were on his Pitching elbow, Morgan’s are on his Shoulder. I would far, far, far prefer virtually any elbow problem to shoulder issues. Guys come back from elbow surgery fairly commonly, guys almost never come back from shoulder surgery (I’m meaning significant surgery in both cases, not clean up).

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  2. you need to find a way to report the vote totals from the past polls; I think the “blind” voting is worth a try, but its no fun if you cant see the fial results

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      1. I kind of like the idea of not seeing the previous day’s results for a full day. I have always seen the results as potentially leading the next day’s vote. Maybe that’s just me.

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        1. I agree. I believe that seeing the vote totals had a strong effect on that days voting and the next days voting.

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      2. I don’t believe they should be shown because it can sway voter opinion as to “Oh, so this guy was the 2nd highest vote getter? Guess I should vote for him tomorrow”

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  3. I don’t see how I’ll be able to vote at all for MAGs. He hasn’t pitched competitively in what, two years? He may be a great talent, but he needs to pitch.

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      1. Yeah, but he’s just saying he’s not sure how he can vote for him even if given the option, based on all the unknowns, which is a totally defensible position. I was originally thinking I’d put MAG at #4, but after thinking about it based on the discussion here, I really think I may have to put him after Tocci and maybe others. Just too many unknowns. In some ways it’s a comparable situation to 2010, when we put Aumont #3, Gillies #4 and Ramirez #8, based mainly on the fact that they were these new toys that we got for Cliff Lee.

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  5. Went Crawford at 2, so Crawford at 3. Actually think Crawford may be the number 1 prospect in our system, even over Maikel.

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  6. Crawford since I have him 2 on my board. MAG on my board I don’t consider because he has played professionally same goes for Martin and Hernandez but since the rules are what they are here I will consider him some where between 11-20.

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    1. Not to split hairs, but all these guys have played professionally, they get paid in the minor leagues. If you consider the Mexican League to be the rough equivalent of, say, AA or the Atlantic League, I don’t see why that alone should remove him from consideration.

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  8. $12M for MAG. I don’t know much about him, but that’s more money than teams pay for even the best prospects. Hard to see how a player with 60 PAs above rookie ball edges him out,

    I’m high on Crawford. I think I would rank him above Biddle (though I’m lower on Biddle than most around here it seems). But it’s WAY too early in his career to say he’s a MLB starter, let alone a star.

    MAG may never take the field in Philadelphia, but Crawford may not either.

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    1. I’ll take a stab at convincing you. For starters MAG’s contract went from I believe $48M to $12M for starters. That by itself gives me pause to consider him for my top 10.

      Crawford on the other hand has pedigree and is the highest draft we’ve had since Hamels I believe. SSS is what it is and its a good thing he got off to a fast start as opposed to struggling but that would not be the sole reason to place him in the top 3.

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          1. So we’re talking about a 25% shot at an 8-WAR player then? That doesn’t sound too different than a high draft pick.

            Point is, they paid him 2-win money, and #15 picks produce more than that on average.

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    2. MAG is signed for about 4 million a year at age 27, before the international spending caps the top bonuses were in that range for 16 year old kids. With MAG a lot of that salary is “safety”, yes he has injury concerns, but you don’t have many developmental concerns.

      Personally I think someone like Ethan Martin would fetch a similar deal on the open market and his stuff actually stacks up rather favorably with MAG (though the starter questions are as great as MAG’s injury concerns)

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      1. We DO know that the “only” thing holding Martin back is his lack of control and command. He’d probably be vying for a very top spot if he had those. Can he learn to find the plate..?…or is the dye set?

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  9. Didn’t get a chance to vote yesterday, but I had, it would have been for Crawford. In this farm system, a player who was the #1 SS and top 15 ameteur player in the country, is at least the #2 prospect in the system. He’s the only “blue chip” player they have.

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    2. I was blown away by the year Maikel Franco had and yet I STILL have Crawford number one.

      The more people see J.P. and get to know him, the more they will like him. He’s a glue guy. I think he’ll be loved and respected on the field and in the clubhouse for a long time. I just love everything about him, especially his character. I think he’s mature beyond his years and will continue to take nothing for granted. I just think he gets it. Sky is the limit for J.P.

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  10. I get why the vote totals have been hidden this year, but it has taken away some of the fun of the exercise. Trying to the understand the community logic and the debates were the best part of the fan poll.

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  11. I voted for Crawford. It seems we have a top three with the other prospects falling below that tier, with the possible exception of MAG, who is a promising unknown right now.

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    1. Why, other than ultimate optimism? I get that he’s a young guy playing with older guys but its not like he’s exceling. In fact, I’m sure he’ll repeat LWood. We all hope he puts on muscle and doesn’t lose any athletic ability as he grows into his body but to me counting on Tocci is the definition of optimistic thinking. I hope you’re right though….

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      1. I am with you on this. I understand that those that are in the know are very optimistic on him. But, for me, I would like to see some professional success before I put him into my top 5. I hope he proves me wrong and shows that Mr. Biancalana was right.

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        1. I have Tocci a few spots lower than Buddy B, but I understand the optimism. The single most important statistic in evaluating prospects is age/level, and Tocci leads the system in that category.

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          1. And Tocci was actually doing a solid job in Lakewood until the latter part of the season, when it seems like he understandably wore down. For awhile, he was bettering his GCL performance in some key peripherals. I don’t have him on my list quite yet, but soon.

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      2. adding fast twitch muscle will only help tocci’s cause, when was the last time a skinny fellow won the 100m. gaining size shouldnt slow you down it should speed you up.

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  16. Yep, Crawford again for me. I could see him being our no-brainer #1 prospect next year even if Franco and Biddle are still eligible.

    I know who I’m voting for next round but I imagine we’ll see the votes split between a bunch of guys.

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  17. I voted for Crawford here because in my opinion he has the best mix of potential ability, (top-middle of the lineup) somewhat established (“somewhat” due to definite SSS and extremely low minors) production, and a so far injury free career of the remaining prospects. Obviously I’m predicating this opinion on his pre-draft and post short season positive scouting reports while also remaining optimistic that his production shown last year will continue and improve as prospects with his (admittedly short but encouraging) resume have been known to do. I can see him as a playoff team starting SS with an above average mix of offensive and defensive tools which is very tough to find in the current MLB environment.

    My conundrum with MAG is that if his 2 year hiatus from pitching will be more detrimental to him, in that he may need more time to get re-acclimated into his growth projection curve. Or will it be kind of beneficial, in that his arm doesn’t have as many innings on it which may mean he will be able to overcome his injury concerns a little easier and show the lofty potential he initially revealed to some scouts before he was signed. It’s really tough to place his potential ability due to the fact that there is so little track record of him out there actually pitching.

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  18. I know Tocci’s a great fielder and has a decent hit tool, but until I see him fill out some more (last summer he was painfully skinny – to the point of it being almost embarassing), I’m just not there with him even though I know he has quite a bit of potential. He’s just way too far away as a prospect and a physical specimen for me to rank any higher than around 9 or 10.

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    1. I agree with you, up to the 9 or 10 part. After this slot, basically every other player on the list has a major risk factor attached, whether it’s lack of velocity (Severino), or mystery (MAG), or injuries (Morgan, Joseph, Quinn), or positional limitations/mediocre ceiling (Hernandez, Dugan), or I love him but I’m not completely sold on his having learned to be a baseball player (Altherr, Cozens). I feel like I can’t vote for MAG this high, having literally never seen anything from the guy other than some very uncertain and conflicting scouting reports. So by process of elimination, I’m left with Tocci and Martin. A classic proximity vs. potential choice. Not sure which way I’m going to go yet. But I’m leaning toward Martin–he’s at the very least a very good late inning reliever, which has value, but it looks like he’ll be given every opportunity to compete with MAG and Pettibone for the 5th starter’s slot. Who knows–in what figures to be a long season, he should be given every opportunity to try and fail as a starter, and the stuff is potentially dominant.

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      1. Yeah, it’s gonna start to get tough for some of us in the voting decisions. I’m a Morgan fan, but I’m as concerned as anyone about the shoulder. I get that it’s “only” an elbow with MAG, but if his price went from $48M to $12M without any public drama–golly, that’s gotta raise the same kind of questions. Heck, I might need to go to OF next: Tocci, Altherr, Dugan? Then again, I’m a Martin fan, as well. I’m gonna do some OF research as I haven’t seen them play.

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  19. Having seen Martin do several MLB games, early innings and late ones, it seems that he would be high on our list IF he could satisfactorily resolve his command/control problems. If he is going to compete for a starters role, only fixing that big problem would allow him to get past the 5th inning. As a reliever, his high number of pitches per at bat would have less of an effect.

    Given the (lousy) state of of the projected staff for ’14, IMO he should be given every opportunity to start which would likely require great patience from Sandberg and we fans. But is he worth NOW valuing any higher than 8/9/10?

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    1. Martin has control/command issues to be sure, but the biggest problem is that his velocity dips precipitously after about 35 or 40 pitches, which means that he may profile as a reliever which would reduce his value dramatically.

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  20. Martin has control/command issues to be sure, but the biggest problem is that his velocity dips precipitously after about 35 or 40 pitches, which means that he may profile as a reliever which would reduce his value dramatically

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