Yearly Archives: 2014

The Phillies Select Aaron Nola with the 7th Overall Pick

2014 Draft

The Phillies didn’t buck the mock drafts and took LSU RHP Aaron Nola with the #7 pick.  I am not a huge fan of the pick, but do not confuse that with Nola being a bad pick.  Most experts thought that #7 was the lowest that Nola would fall, and that he would return value equal to that level of pick.

Nola does not have a prototype  starting pitcher build at 6’1″ 170 lbs and the delivery is very low for a RHP.  Nola’s calling card is plus control and a good feel for pitching.  Don’t confuse this with a lack of stuff, as Nola can get the fastball up to 96, though he is more 92-95.  The changeup is a current plus pitch, and there could be more given his feel for pitching.  The slider is still a work in progress, and given his low slow will likely be a pitch that sees heavy platoon splits. Continue reading The Phillies Select Aaron Nola with the 7th Overall Pick →

2014 MLB Draft: Round 1 (Aaron Nola) and 2 (Matt Imhof)

2014 Draft

The draft is here.  The Phillies pick at #7 and #47 tonight.  The team here will update this post as the night goes on, but let the fun begin.

MLB.com Live Draft Stream

Phillies select LSU RHP Aaron Nola with the #7 overall pick

Phillies select Cal Poly LHP Matt Imhof with the #47 overall pick

Draft Talk & Guessing On Phils Second Round Targets

2014 Draft

There will be 74 picks tonight, through the end of the Competitive Balance B round after Round 2, and The Phils will select seventh tomorrow at the front of round three. We know The Phils will have a bunch of very talented options at #7, and that is in constant flux, at least to the people who are out there writing about it. Tyler Kolek seems to be falling on many boards, and as sure a Top 5 pick as he was a week ago, I’m that sure today that I wouldn’t put very much money at all on him being popped in the Top 10. He probably still, will, but it’s seemingly less of a lock than it was.

No matter who they get at 1.7, the Phils do have another pick today, it’s 2.6 (Seattle lost their second round pick when they signed Robinson Cano), or pick #47. I’m not going to write up much for each guy, and this may be a good place for some crowd sourced opinion on what the Phils might do with this second rounder, but here are a handful of guys who might be available and attractive to the Phillies, or are at least attractive to me for the team to take, and a couple names ranked around that pick who I think the Phils would not or could not take. I’ve included their BA Top 500 rankings so those casual draft fans among you can easily read something about them if you’re a subscriber, though remember that BA’s rankings are just one (well-researched) opinion of many.

Continue reading Draft Talk & Guessing On Phils Second Round Targets →

Was Domingo Santana On The Pence PTBNL List By Mistake?

Other Stuff

Were I a reputable reporter with sources within the Phillies organization, I would try to get a quote from someone in the Phils’ Front Office and add it here, whether confirmation, denial, or obfuscation. As I’m not, I will just put this out there with the caveat that this is an unnamed/unknown source and hasn’t been, as far as I can tell, corroborated by anyone. It sounds like it was mentioned in passing on 97.5 the other day as well, (as mentioned by Steve in the comments yesterday), though I can’t find it on their website. Anyone who has a link to that, please share it. Either way, click through to this Monday report from Houston Chronicle beat writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz:

http://blog.chron.com/ultimateastros/2014/06/02/singleton-move-a-reminder-how-the-astros-won-the-pence-trade/#22102103=0&23907101=0

This is the relevant quote: “In spring training, a Phillies official admitted that Santana wasn’t actually supposed to be on the list that was given to the Astros to pick from to satisfy the final piece on Aug. 15, 2011.”

If true, I don’t know that it’s a damning indictment of anyone in particular, so much as it is a huge foul-up. Not sure how you add a player you don’t intend to add to a list except by sheer negligence in creating and proofreading the list. They should have sent the list over to PP so we could tell them not to include Domingo Santana. They should probably just do that from now on. Someone with a F.O. contact let Ruben know I said we’re here for him, ok?

And thanks to Steve for pointing this out to us. I had missed it completely. Perhaps many of you had not and I’m just too deep in the draft this week.

Hot or Not

Other Stuff

Just a very poor week in the organization(5/29–6/4), especially with the bat…JP Crawford has been struggling as of late but deserves leeway based on a year of continued production…Hoby Milner was outstanding in a rain shortened start in Harrisburg…Very inopportune time for Kenny GIles to land on the Not Hot list…What the heck is up with Cameron Rupp? Brutal Week and down to .163 on the year…still injured? Cedeno continues very hot with an average approaching .290…still remember its Ronnie Cedeno. Maikel Franco is back down to .223 on the year with an OBP well under .300.

Hot Hitters(Min 13 AB’s):Ronnie Cedeno (.409, 5R 4RBI); Leandro Castro (.370); Steve Susdorf (.350); Carlos Alonso (.364, 5R 2HR 4RBI); Tyler Henson (.333)

Not Hot Hitters: Cameron Rupp (.050); Chris Serritella (.077); Art Charles (.091); JP Crawford (.111); Wilmer Oberto (.118); Andrew Pullin (.136); Deivi Gruillon (.143); Anthony Phillips (.150); Angelo Mora (.150); Maikel Franco (.167); (Dis)Honorable mention: Stassi, Hiciano Continue reading Hot or Not →

Box Score Recap – 6/4/2014

Box Score Recap

Perci Garner gave up 3R on 8H, 1BB and 8K over 6 innings – he threw 65/100 for strikes. Good effort, and the first time he’s managed to allow just one walk since April 22. Dylan Cozens was 1-2 with a BB. Twice. He had an identical line in both games of the morning/afternoon double header. Impressive, I guess. Willians Astudillo‘s hit streak ended at 18 in a seven inning game which totally doesn’t count, IMO. He did pick up a hit in the “afternooncap”, as it were. Andrew Knapp was 2-3 in that game.

Jesus Alastre is back on the field for the VSL, so I guess he’s been dinged up or sick or on a surfing trip or something, and is not on the way to the states for the GCL. He had a hit, of course. He’s still been on base each game of his pro career.

For those interested, I just listened through the Mike Baumann/Eric Longenhagen draft discussion from Crashburn Alley. They answered one of my questions and two of Matt’s and had a nice long discussion of many different aspects of the draft and scouting. Entertaining stuff, and a decent focus on the Phillies #7 pick and second rounder at one point. It’s pretty long, close to two hours, so maybe turn it on in the background, The video is just the two dudes talking, so if you treat it like a podcast you won’t miss much.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 6/4/2014 →

XST; June 4, 2014

Game Reports, , , , , ,

Today’s games with the Pirates began at 10:00AM. While waiting for the Williamsport squad to take the field, I saw Zach Green in uniform.  I followed him over to Roberts Field.  After determining that he wasn’t playing the field, I headed back to Ashburn Field.  Ricardo Pinto started and threw 6 great innings. While over at Roberts, I missed the first batter he faced. When I got back to Ashburn, there was a runner on second; he scored with two outs on a throwing error by Jan Hernandez. Pinto picked the runner off second to end the inning. Over the remaining 5 innings, Pinto allowed 2 walks and a hit batter. He also picked a runner off first base. So, depending on how the first batter reached base, I saw either a no or one hitter over 6 innings. He also struck out 6 batters. Continue reading XST; June 4, 2014 →

ICYMI – Roster Maneuvering

Transactions

So this week we saw a bunch of moves involving Phillies minor leaguers. I’ll try to sum them up here and list the broader highlights below the fold, but the biggest news is Cameron Perkins promotion to AAA and Ethan Martin back in MLB:

With big league implications – Aumont and Jimenez went up to the bigs and Aumont is now back at AAA, with Ethan Martin taking his MLB spot. To make room for Jimenez, they DFAed Horst, who cleared waivers and has accepted his assignment to AAA. Darin Ruf went down to AAA, and down to a wrist injury last night colliding with a wall. They’re calling it a sprain, and his ultimate status is unknown, but it did not look great.

Cam Perkins, Hector Neris and Tyler Knigge are up to AAA, Pete Lavin and Logan Moore up to AA, and Justin Parr came back to A+ from XST.  Meanwhile, Anthony Hewitt, Andrew Knapp, Delvi Francisco, Alejandro Arteaga, Jon Prosinski, Chris Serritella and Malquin Canelo were all demoted. See the list below, from the transactions page on this site, which is maintained regularly, if you’ve ever got a hankering for roster moves. Continue reading ICYMI – Roster Maneuvering →

Box Score Recap – 6/3/2014

Box Score Recap

A quick note for the comments – please try to keep the daily box comments to prospect and minor league chatter. There’s been a great deal of Amaro/big club talk lately, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but try to take it to the general discussion. It just keeps the whole thing cleaner. I get that the team and its minor league/prospect components cannot be completely extricated from one another, but the site is intended to be for prospect talk. I don’t want to be the guy going through and asking you to move on to another section every day, (especially when I am guilty of it at times, as well), so just try to think about it when you’re typing, say “Amaro” or “Revere” or “Kendrick”. Maybe it’s big league talk for the General Discussion. I welcome your feedback on this subject.

A couple notes on Tuesday’s results – Reading pitching, led by five innings from Hoby Milner (who was pulled after a rain delay), and three from Sean O’Sullivan, no-hit Harrisburg for 8.2 innings before Kyle Simon gave up a hit with two outs in the ninth. ALVIN!!!!! I mean SIMON!!!!!!!!!  Lehigh Valley managed 11 singles and no extra base hits in a losing effort against Louisville. It’s been widely reported that Darin Ruf went down with a wrist injury and needed stitches on his leg after sliding for a foul ball near the wall in left field. Not great.

Jeb Stefan couldn’t get out of the first for CLR – the bullpen did a good job in mop-up to not let the game get further out of hand – kudos to Dan Child and Lino Martinez for that. And there were a bunch of nice performances in the Lakewood game – mainly by the Andrews Brothers, Pullin, Knapp and Anderson. Ok, they’re not really brothers, nor do brothers generally all have the same first name as opposed to the same last name. Except George Foreman’s kids. (Now who’s off topic?)

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 6/3/2014 →

Threshers; June 3, 2014

Game Reports, , , , , , , , ,

There were a few more roster moves before tonight’s game.

  • Herlis Rodriguez assigned to XST.
  • Justin Parr assigned to Clearwater from XST.
  • Shawn Camp promoted to Lehigh Valley.
  • Pete Lavin promoted to Reading.
  • Anthony Hewitt assigned to Clearwater from Reading.

I don’t know what is normal for an affiliate, but the Threshers have 86 transactions.  By comparison, the Bradenton Marauders pre-game fact sheet lists 25 as of June 1st.  So, 86 seems a little high to me.  And there should be more in the next couple weeks if signed draft picks are assigned, if anyone is promoted from Lakewood, if anymore are demoted from Reading, and if anyone is released to make room for signed draft picks. Continue reading Threshers; June 3, 2014 →