I didn’t expect much today. It was a scheduled camp day where Groups 1 and 2; and Groups 3 and 4 would play intra-squad games while Group 5 would play a team from the Blue Jays. I could see Jesse Biddle warming up, so I ended up at Roberts Field to watch him this afternoon. While waiting for the game to start, I noticed that Scott Palmer was sitting in the bleachers. Soon after, Pat Gillick walked past. Then Charley Kerfeld. Dickie Noles came out to the back of the cage. So did Dallas Green. Gary Matthews came out to sit with Palmer. Ruben Amaro came out and sat at the table in the balcony behind home plate. Why were so many guys here and not in Dunedin where the Phillies were playing the Toronto Blue Jays in a Grapefruit League game?
Mike Adams.
Pitcher Mike Adams was going to pitch to live hitters in the game between Groups 1 and 2. Carlos Alonso was the leadoff hitter. He took 4 pitches before grounding out. Pete Lavin was next. He took a couple pitches before he also grounded out. Anthony Hewitt followed and struck out looking. As the team began to leave the field, one of the coaches called out for them to stay. Adams needed some additional work so he would face two more batters. The first, Tommy Joseph, singled on a line drive over Adams head into center field. The second, Harold Martinez hit a hard singled into right center that was cut off and held Joseph at second. End of workout.
Overall, Adams looked good against 5 guys who I watched at Clearwater last year. His fast ball was down for the most part and he had good movement on his pitches. Joseph’s single came on a pitch just below waist high. Martinez hit a pitch that was moving down and away.
As soon as Adams walked off the mound after Martinez’ single, all the people mentioned above scattered. Noles and Sarge hung around briefly to discuss Adams outing. I overheard Sarge remark on how good the curve ball looked.
I drifted back and forth between the fields. I positioned myself next to the radar gun for 1 of Biddle’s innings and 2 of Gonzalez’ innings. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but when I could see the gun, Biddle never cracked 90. His 12-6 curve looked good. But when he went to it too often, the hitter was able to time it. Gonzalez topped out at 88-89. I was able to see the gun on 25-30 of his pitches. Later Nefi Ogando was on the mound and I overheard the charters discussing that he hit 95-96.
Tonight, I’m attending a benefit for FACTR Baseball, one of the groups the Halladay’s support. I am going to the Phillies-Jays game tomorrow.
Phuture Phillies 
Biddle not breaking 90 , that is not good , possibly he could still be building up strength but below 90 ouch
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Hopefully, Biddle was just holding back. I haven’t heard of any issues and he looked fine in the Spring games I saw him in
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Maybe he was working on spotting his pitches and control and not so much on the velo.
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It sounds like Nefi Ogando has a live arm. I wish I could have been there to watch Adams and Biddle work.
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lack of power arms in organization is major concern
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Right now, healthy shoulders would help to solve that problem.
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Very true, but I don’t think all that high a fraction of bad shoulders return to health. I may be behind the times on what sports medicine and physical therapy can do today. Certainly Schilling recovered from a bad shoulder, but it still seems not all that common.
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There have been a few…usually the younger guys, like Clemens, and Schilling as you mentioned, in their early years.
But guys like Roy Halladay, Johann Sanatna and the like, already have large numbers of innings pitched under their belt and the odds are against them returning at their previous skill level.
That is why I am hopeful for surgically repaired Watson and Morgan, since they are young.
Martin and Pettibone did the rehab and possibly they will avoid the need for surgery down the road.
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We actually do have power arms, but not in the starting rotation. Agreed that this team needs to ramp up the starting pitching prospects but you can’t have everything (unless you’re the Cardinals), a few years ago we complained about the lack of middle infielders, third basemen and outfield power hitting prospects – well at least we have those now.
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Look to the coming draft. Think 6 or 7 out of the first 10 SHOULD be pitchers!
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You would think that if Biddle was really consistently throwing below 90 we would have heard about it when he was up in the major league camp.
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Yeah, I wrestled with reporting this. I only saw the gun for an inning. Most of the pitches were off speed. The 2 or three that I thought were fastballs AND could see the gun were at 90. I was probably not clear with the “crack 90” comment.
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No, please report! More information is better than less information! And actually it’s something to watch with Biddle. For whatever reason, he has had fluctuations with his fastball velocity throughout his career. It might not be an indication of an injury so much as an indication that his mechanics have gone out of wack again. Or it could be an indication of nothing. But I very much appreciate hearing what you saw.
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Biddle’s big issue is command, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if his focus that day was to take it easy and try to hit his spots. When a team is training, you never really know what the player is working on or whether he is intentionally doing something with less than max effort.
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