Reader Top 30 #3

2015 Reader Top 30

Aaron Nola was your choice as the organization’s #2 prospect in a very tight race.  Fourteen players received votes with Nola and Maikel Franco garnering 92% of the vote.  Oddly enough, players who received votes in the poll for #1 (Carlos Tocci, 2 votes; and Mitch Gueller and Aaron Brown who received 1 vote each through the write in feature) didn’t receive a vote as the #2 prospect. Lee Ridenhour received the 1 write in vote this round.

Up next #3.

 

33 thoughts on “Reader Top 30 #3”

  1. Does Franco replace Asche at 3RD at some point this season? Or does he come up to play 1st instead? I know there are a number of factors at play, but just lookingnfor best guess. I really want Franco to stick at 3rd and think his value there could be significantly higher there than at 1st. Too bad we have 2 of our small number of position players at the same spot.

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    1. I think Asche keeps 3B for this season. Next season it’s Franco’s position and Asche is likely traded or moved to another position. If Asche were a great defensive 3B, it would be a different story, but he will need to prove in 2015 that he can be even major league average or a little better on defense. He improved through the course of 2014, but his overall body of defensive work for the season was negative. He needs to demonstrate that he can provide good defense over an entire season — if the Phillies want to trade him for value, they need to give him the chance to show that he can do that. If I’m another GM, Asche’s D at 3B is still an unanswered question and I don’t give much in trade for him until I get a positive answer to the question.

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    2. I’d like to see Franco at 1st and Asche at 3rd to see if Asche can stick or not. If we trade Howard and Franco doesn’t start the season in the majors, I’d be okay with Ruf starting there since that’s his natural position. This is the season to get answers on these guys.

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  3. shouldn’t Odubel Hererra be on the ballot? He of the 1.000+ OPS in the VWL? After Franco we have a lot of fliers. Quinn, tocci, cozins, altherr,and dugan all have potential, but are they going to hit 1.000 anywhere before age 23? Or doRle 5 guys not count because they’re not really ours yet?

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    1. They should count. They’re ours if they show enough in ST to convince Phillies that they want to keep them. I’m not going to go overly nuts about his VWL numbers. He’s a guy who looks like he will hit for average and get his share of walks, but who lacks power. That doesn’t translate into a 1.000 OPS. State-side he’s a .730 OPS for his career, although he was at .775 in most of a AA season at age 22 in 2014. That is good enough to think he has a reasonable chance to stick with the Phillies.

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  4. My thinking, and anyone feel free to correct me, is that prospects are minor leaguers. There are 4 possible scenarios –
    1.) He impresses and makes the major league roster.
    2.) He doesn’t impress, is offered back to Texas, and they accept.
    3.) He doesn’t impress, is offered back to Texas, and they say no.
    4.) He impresses, the Phillies work out a trade, and reassign him
    In scenarios 3 and 4 he could then be considered a prospect. Scenario 3 is what happened with Victorino, he was offered back to the Dodgers and they declined.

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    1. Exactly Jim. I’ve been looking for a spot for him in my top 30. There’s a pretty good chance he never plays in the Phillies Minor League system. I like the guy a lot but he’ll be all or nothing for the organization.

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    2. Sorry Jim I hit the thumbs down instead of thumbs up. Serves me right for attempting to use that feature.

      I agree with your reasoning on not including rule 5 players

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    3. I very respectfully disagree. He is the property of the Phillies at the time of this poll and has not exhausted his rookie standing, so therefore should be considered a prospect, in my opinion.

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  5. Franco is my #2 so I’ll vote for him here at #3. Eflin is next. A 20 year old who could start in Reading? Got to like that. Quinn has one big big tool (keep the snickering to a minimum) But speed will only get you so far (stop that darn giggling). He’ll need a much bigger hit tool (you’re now laughing) to get him into the top 5. But who else should be in the top 5? Biddle will be hard pressed to make the top 10. Tocci’s problems are bigger than Quinn’s. Cousin’s has a similar problem to Quinn. The one tool wonder (I can barely hear myself over the laughter). I like his better than Quinn’s (What now?).

    This post just didn’t work the way I wanted it to (great way to end the sentence with a preposition).

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    1. U guess this was suppose to be funny. I think Quinn have more than one tool if u look at his report in the afl and what he done in Clearwater I think this speak for itself

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      1. I guess puns are no longer acceptable here. That is, until Fangraphs deems them a proper player value metric. 🙂

        Happy Holidays, everybody.

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    2. Yeah, defense and arm strength are tools- Quinn has a possible plus arm in CF and reports on his defense after moving back to the OF were encouraging.

      I think you sell his hit tool short. It’s not great at this point but he’s shown the ability to draw walks and most of his strikeouts come from his unnatural left side. It might seem like a million years ago but he only started switch hitting after he was drafted. To me it’s not really surprising that he still needs to improve in that area.

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    3. I don’t see what is so awful about Quinn’s hit tool. The kid missed most of 2013, changed back to his original CF position last season, and is still learning to switch hit. That would be ample excuse for not showing a lot of on-the-field hit tool. Yet, the kid moves up to high A, with less than half a year of low-A in 2013, and improves both his BA and his OPS. He does this, despite a faster than expected return from two serious injuries. What’s the evidence of poor hit tool. Close to 25% K rate is only a yellow flag, given the circumstance. An ample walk rate and .343 obp are perfectly respectable for 21-year old at CLW, even not crediting for the injuries and missed time. The little guy has 7 HR in about half a season, and most weren’t inside-the-park jobs so he is putting some solid wood on the ball. He obviously needs to work more on the switch hitting, but if that doesn’t work out, he can always simply go back to his dominant side.

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      1. On Quinn, oddly now…..most scouts ‘prefer his left side’ over his original dominant right side. Which I find strange.
        Happy Holidays to all.

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        1. the left side almost always becomes better because most of his ab’s are off right handed pitchers, plus a speed guy will also try and slap ball on ground / usually to the oppo field. Also the bunt from the left side becomes a weapon as well.

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  6. Jim:
    Do you know why Joely Rodriguez, pitcher Phillies recd in the Bastardo trade from the Bucs…is not on the 40?

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    1. None that I know of. I think it’s just to drive us crazy. Pittsburgh has already added Bastardo to their 40. I almost forgot to include Rodriguez in the Winter Ball Update. I had to look him up as a Pirate. Even though the trade has been reported on the Phillies’ Transaction page and in MLBTR, he still shows up as a Pirate in BR.

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  8. After #3 is where this poll should get interesting. I am going to vote for Quinn in the #4 slot, although there are compelling arguments to be made for Biddle.

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    1. I saw a poll the other day that had Eflin #3 (Nola #4) and Windle #5. I have Eflin #4 because of his age, the fact he’ll probably start in AA, his stats for this year and all years, the fact he was a 1st round draft pick out of HS and who else was I going to put there. Maybe one more thing, Rollins deserves to be traded for at least one stud.

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  10. I’m actually happy with the top 3 on the pharm. There’s better out there, but I truly feel that Crawford has potential to be a regular all-star, Nola should be a solid 3, perhaps just a little bit more, and Franco has 30 hr capability despite what I feel will likely be a .260ish type hitter. But with that power profile and at a premium position, that’s a very relevant prospect in anyone’s system. Then I thought, well Franco will likely lose prospect status next season, and there’s at least a chance that Nola loses his as well (I should add, I hope Nola doesn’t make a single start with the big club in 2015 aside from September). Take Franco and Nola out and the system get’s scary again. We could really use a few of our fringers to break out next as Top 100 prospects. I could propose more than a few names, but I’ll go with Cozens

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    1. June 2015 draft should produce a top ten org prospect.
      And any Hamel’s trade will produce perhaps a few more.

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      1. Must be Crawford. No one else will ever be ready. Are you serious, Tocci, Biddle, Quinn are never going to be major leaguers. We have the worst minor league system and lack of talent across the board.

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        1. Is this why you are anonymous seem to me u know nothing about athletic we will see who make it to the big league and by the way r u a baseball player

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  11. Merry Christmas let’s not forget family, friends , and all mighty one who made all sports .although I can’t figure out why he made golf.

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  12. Let’s give a yr free of injuries before we judge him Quinn . Seem like the more he plays he better he’s getting .

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