Monthly Archives: April 2014

Box Score Recap – 4/10/2014

Box Score Recap

I could call last night’s performance by Phillippe Aumont a success, but he did give up a walk and three hits in 2.1 IP. He didn’t allow a run, but he allowed one of two inherited runners score. I’ll call it a push. Maikel Franco‘s hit in two straight and walked in three straight. I’ll call that a good sign and we’ll see how it plays out.

Hoby Milner left the Reading game in the fifth after taking a liner off his pitching hand/forearm. He threw a couple warm-ups and they pulled him, according to this Penn Live article. He was cruising along pretty nicely at that point, having given up just one hit and striking out three in 4.2IP. Kelly Dugan went deep and Cameron Perkins continued his hot start – he’s OPSing .927 on the young season.

Not much to report out of CLR except Kevin Walter had his second straight scoreless relief appearance to start the year. And LKW hitters managed just three doubles off of Hagerstown pitchers, including Nats’ top prospect Lucas Giolito, who struck out six, walked one and allowed just one hit in five innings. Tyler Viza got hit around some after a nice start – he did strike out five in five+ innings, versus just one walk, and he retired the first seven men in a row, and 15 out of the first 18. It all came apart in the sixth inning, however, as he didn’t record an out and allowed four runs.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 4/10/2014 →

Minor League Ball Phillies Top 20

Prospect Rankings

Yesterday John Sickels of Minor League Ball released his Phillies Top 20 prospects.  The list was created with the knowledge of preseason results so it does differ from other lists.  The full list can be found here.

  1. Maikel Franco
  2. J.P. Crawford
  3. Jesse Biddle
  4. Roman Quinn
  5. Carlos Tocci
  6. Aaron Altherr
  7. Kelly Dugan
  8. Dylan Cozens
  9. Cord Sandberg
  10. Ken Giles
  11. Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez
  12. Ethan Martin
  13. Cesar Hernandez
  14. Severino Gonzalez
  15. Zach Green
  16. Shane Watson
  17. Cameron Rupp
  18. Tommy Joseph
  19. Mario Hollands
  20. Luis Encarnacion

Continue reading Minor League Ball Phillies Top 20 →

Peter Lavin Deserves Some Love

Scouting Reports

I’ve been around the Phillies complex regularly for almost four years now and have a pretty solid grasp of their system, especially their rookie ball team in the Gulf Coast League. That’s where I first got eyes on Peter Lavin back in 2011.

Before you get too excited, Lavin is not a kid that is going to shoot up prospect lists and become a saving grace for this farm system. He is a kid who plays the game hard everyday, is easy to root for and deserves a little fanfare. Too often people get all caught up in what a player can’t do instead of looking at what he can do, so let’s take a look at what Lavin CAN do. Continue reading Peter Lavin Deserves Some Love →

Box Score Recap – 4/9/2014

Box Score Recap

Cesar Jimenez and Hector Neris threw a seven inning shutout to beat Blue Jays’ #2 and consensus Top 50-60 overall prospect Marcus Stroman, who struck out eight Pigs in six innings, but walked five. Cameron Rupp didn’t manage a home run. Not sure why he just wouldn’t go ahead and hit one. Maybe it’s some kind of strategy for the next time they face Buffalo. Lulling them into complacency. Smart.

Reading’s staff did a nice job, with Severino Gonzalez going 7 strong innings and Nefi Ogando and Ken Giles finishing up. Giles has now recorded 10 outs on the year, 9 by K. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Brian Pointer looking good in four games thus far. Not sure why he’s not playing every day at this point. Zach Green has two doubles, and Mark Leiter put up another nice line in a losing effort – 2R/4H/1HR/0BB/5K in 7 IP. Charting shows him throwing seven different pitches. Wonder if there’s some overlap there. From Fangraphs’ Nathaniel Stoltz:

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 4/9/2014 →

Hot or Not

Other Stuff

Our first look around the organization at who is “hot” and who is “not” over the past week. Look for this article on Thursday or Friday morning each week.  For hitters to qualify, they must have 12AB’s over the last week.

A few quick points: Gotta like the way Crawford and Cozens started in Lakewood…Is it too early to be concerned about Franco, Joseph and Tocci, I think so….Severino Gonzalez with the best results of any starter in the organization last week without the best “stuff”…Dominant is an understatement for the week Kenny Giles had…Kyle Simon was unexpectedly awful in each of his outings for Lehigh Valley…Interesting that Luis Garcia has been anointed the closer in Lehigh Valley for now, with a very good week for the former barber/mover.

Hot Hitters: Edgar Duran (.500); Brock Stassi (.429); Peter Lavin (.417); Brian Pointer (.385); Willians Astudillo (.385); Carlos Alonso (.375, 4RS, 4RBI, SB); JP Crawford(.368, 4RS, HR, SB); Cameron Perkins (.333); Dylan Cozens (.321, 4RBI, 2SB)

Not Hot Hitters: ALbert Cartwright (.000, 0-13); Willie Carmona (.050); Justin Parr (.067); Leandro Castro (.091); Maikel Franco (.111); Steve Susdorf (.111); Tommy Joseph (.118); Carlos Tocci (.143); Matt Tolbert (.154); Zach Green (.160) Continue reading Hot or Not →

Box Score Recap – 4/8/2014

Box Score Recap

Cameron Rupp did it again. Four HR in 4 games. Can I call him “Babe Rupp” without you all booing me off the site and into a shame spiral that ends with me face down in a ditch somewhere with an empty gallon of vodka?  No? Ok, then, I won’t call him that.

Jesse Biddle had a good night, earned runs not withstanding. Tommy Joseph went deep and ditto Art Charles. Phillippe Aumont walked four batters, which led me to assert on Twitter that Aumont is French for self-parody. And hey, look, I just did it again.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 4/8/2014 →

Lehigh Valley Weekly Report

7. Lehigh Valley

Welcome back to another year of the IronPigs report. This report will put out weekly most likely Wednesday mornings throughout the course of the year.  Feel free to leave any suggestions for weekly coverage in the comment area of anything that would be of interest to you.  As time permits, I expect to post a variety of interviews with members of the team as the year progresses.  Lehigh Valley began their season with a four game split in Pawtucket, and then came home for a washout Monday, followed by a 4-2 loss to Buffalo on Tuesday.  The ‘Pigs homestand continues through the weekend with two more against Buffalo followed by four games with Rochester.

‘Pigs Prospects–Without getting into a huge debate on the definition of a “prospect”, I am going to list the following players on the Lehigh Valley current roster as prospects: Cameron Rupp, Maikel Franco, David Buchanan, Michael Nesseth, Jon Pettibone and Kyle Simon.  They are listed as prospects based on expectations for them and their age.  Others will join the list during the course of the year.  For this group of players, there will be bi-weekly statistical updates on their progress.  I will cover several one week and then those that weren’t covered the following week. For the first week:

Maikel Franco: has gotten off to a very rough start, currently hitting .100 (2-20) going without a HR and just one RBI.  He has struck out four times in his 20 AB’s and hit the ball hard just a handful of times.  Franco got his first start of the year at 1B on Tuesday and played well, making a couple of tough plays and looked fairly comfortable. Continue reading Lehigh Valley Weekly Report →

Box Score Recap – 4/7/2014

Box Score Recap

With two rain-outs and a scheduled off-day, only Lakewood was in action Monday. The bullpen couldn’t hold two leads, as Cody Forsythe gave up three runs in the ninth, and Tyler Buckley gave up two in his second inning of work in the 11th. All of this couldn’t obscure J.P. Crawford‘s 4-6, 2B, HR, 4R, or Dylan Cozens’ 4-6, 2B, 3 RBI. We’re going to be talking about that Lakewood lineup all year.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 4/7/2014 →

Submit Your Questions And Reports

Announcements

So if you have been paying close attention to the site, you may have noticed some new links on the side bar.  One is for you to submit your mailbag questions.  I don’t know how often we will answer them, it depends on how many you ask, but the team here will do our best to provide you the best (not always most informative) answer to your questions.  The link to the question submission is here, you can also ask us via email or on Twitter.

The other link is for you to submit your own scouting reports for games you attend.  We are looking to build a data base of trends in stats and opens that aren’t captured by other sites.  The most simple measurement are pitcher velocity readings, but hitters you can give home to first times and pop times.  However there is plenty of room to add your opinion to the assessments.  You can find the link here.  You can also email us full game reports and we will work to fit them in as guest pieces among our regular contributors.

As always, check the pages at the top, I will be working on getting all of the player pages updated.  The draft page for 2014 already has some links and I will populating it with more reports, mocks, and draft boards as we start to kick off our draft coverage.

General Discussion – Week of 4-7-2014 – Fifth Starter Edition

Weekly Discussion

With today’s rain-out in Philadelphia, the big club will need its fifth starter on Saturday, a day earlier than anticipated. Someone other than the current four starters was going to have to make a start this coming Sunday anyway, and with David Buchanan scheduled to pitch tomorrow, what looked to be a fairly simple decision has a new wrinkle. Buchanan would either need to take this MLB start on Saturday on short rest, whether by pitching just a couple innings Tuesday (or Wednesday/Thursday perhaps, in lieu of what might otherwise be his pre-start bullpen session), or they will need to use someone else.

Speculation in the beat/blog world is that Jonathan Pettibone could be used on long rest, (he pitched yesterday). That’s not a bad plan, as it also negates the need for a 40-man move. Alternately, you could see a bullpen game started by Jeff Manship, or least likely, IMO, someone like LVH’s Greg Smith, who is scheduled to be on the hill today, could be used for a spot start. Smith is unlikely to be claimed off of waivers, so getting him back to Lehigh Valley should not be an issue, though you would need to waive someone like Tyson Gillies or 60-day DL Ethan Martin to make it happen.

Don’t discount the possibility that they choose to use Kyle Kendrick on short rest and Buchanan on Sunday as planned. Seems unlikely, but if they don’t believe Pettibone is ready to come back from his shoulder issue, and don’t want to mess with Buchanan’s routine prior to his big league debut, it could make sense. Kendrick’s been a fungible arm in the past, operating as a swingman for most of 2011-2012. Again, unlikely, but I could see it.

Discuss.