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.
Yearly Archives: 2014
Peter Lavin Deserves Some Love
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
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:
Hot or Not
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
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.
Lehigh Valley Weekly Report
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
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.
Submit Your Questions And Reports
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
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.
Box Score Recap – 4/6/2014
Cameron Rupp is raking right now. Just absolutely mashing. He’s OPSing 2.381 over his three games, and today he hit his third home run. Crushing it. My goodness.
Perci Garner had a fine outing, picking up the victory via a six inning, six strikeout performance. Ken Giles struck out the side in order for his second consecutive save. He’s recorded six outs thus far in 2014, all Ks.
And in Clearwater, Cole Hamels gave up two homers to Dwight Smith Jr. and little else in a four inning rehab start. Smith retired after the game, citing that one Seinfeld where George leaves a meeting after making a successful joke. “I’m not topping that one,” said Smith. When asked about it, Hamels said, “I don’t know that one. I stopped watching after season six.”
Phuture Phillies 