39 thoughts on “Box Score Recap – 8/6/2017”

1. Medina and Saurez…. wow

2. Anyone else find it strange that Fitch was promoted and Haseley is still in WPT?

   1. No, Fitch went up because each level pushed a catcher up. Haseley is doing just fine where he is. He’s recovered from his slump and is grinding his avg back to 300. He’s obviously challenged.

   2. Haseley and Moniak are both centerfielders. Phillies want to keep them both in CF and don’t want them on the same team fighting for playing time. Haseley may be more advanced, but rather than jump him to CLW or have him swap places with Moniak it will just get sorted out in spring training. The Fitch promotion was partly due to several catching injuries and partly because he was hitting over .400. He’s a keeper.

      1. Knapp is day-to-day but not on the DL. At Reading, Greg Brodzinski and Chace Numata collided and both went on the DL – extremely bad luck for Brodzinski who has been on the DL forever and a day and just got off of it for like a week. In Lakewood, Henri Lartigue went down. Placed on DL Aug 1.

         1. Why does Chace Numata keep colliding with his own players?
            Walding three/four weeks ago, now Brodzinski.

            1. My mistake Romus. I was thinking of the Numata-Walding collision that put both of them on the DL. Brodzinski’s injury was unspecified and probably just a roster move.

               1. Yes, a roster move. Brodzinski became a coach in spring training but was carried on the Reading roster on the DL (technically, I believe he is a player coach this season). He was activated as an emergency catcher when Numata collided with Walding. When Numata’s concussion was diagnosed and his absence projected to be longer than a day or two, the Phillies promoted catchers (Grullon to Reading, Cabral to Clearwater, Fitch to Lakewood )and returned Brodzinski to his coaching duties.

3. Fitch was because of Knapp’s hand injury.

   1. Nope. On August 4th, Alfaro to the Phillies, Rickles to LHV, and Bossart to Reading were due to the Knapp injury. Fitch was promoted to Lakewood 3 days before the injury on August 1st.

4. Haseley has 5 multi-hit games in last 7 games…

   1. Haseley since his freshmen year at VU in 2015, has had a total of 1006PAs and has an aggregate OBP of.397….that is something the future Phillies can look forward to seeing in red pinstripes in Philly someday soon.

5. I saw Suarez pitch earlier this year and he made a believer out of me. He’s really good and is certainly in the mix of this next group of pitchers coming soon. It’s pretty exciting to have this many arms, at least some should be able to make it.

   1. Anyone know how many 1 hitters thrown over the last month? Impressive all across system

6. I’ve gone to two Lakewood games in recent weeks, yesterday’s win over Hagerstown and the July 29 win against Hickory. A scouting report from the two games from strictly an amateur’s perspective:

   — Adonis Medina was very impressive yesterday. I saw a four-pitch assortment. FB sat 93-96 and I believe touched 97 once or twice, but I wasn’t taking any notes. What looked to me like a slider, usually around 88 mph. A breaking ball, usually around 84 mph. And a very occasional changeup that sat around 81. He didn’t use the changeup much, and used the slider/curve about equally, and was able to get a lot of swinging strikes. Fastball overpowering at times. Got into trouble in the fourth, I believe, gave up a hard-hit single on a breaking ball up in the zone and then walked someone. Bunt moved runners to 2nd and 3rd. Then reared back and just threw fastballs by guys to get out of the jam. One long HR surrendered to Jake Noll, a very impressive second baseman in the Nats system. Was rocketing balls all day.

   — Bailey Falter pitched well on the 29th, of course not as impressive as Medina but he has a game plan out there. FB usually sat around 88-90, which is nobody’s idea of overpowering but he mixed up his pitches well and had hitters flailing at secondary offerings. He is all about projectability — if he can add a tick or two to the fastball as he gets stronger, the Phillies might have something.

   — Moniak report. He DH’d on the 29th and played CF yesterday. Hit a long HR just foul on the 29th. Didn’t see much else in the way of truly hard-hit balls. Weak single on the 29th and he singled and scored yesterday. Interesting to me that he was hitting into the shift both games. Surprised to see the shift at this level though I suppose infielders have to start learning how to do it. I imagine that can be disconcerting to a young professional ballplayer. One thing I would note about Moniak is that he really does have a plan when he goes up to the plate. He works counts, fouls balls off, isn’t swinging from the heels with the first pitch like so many hitters in the SAL. He did get overpowered on fastballs a couple of times on the 29th. Of course I would like to see more production from a 1:1, but he is definitely a ballplayer. Just don’t know the ceiling yet and it probably won’t be as high as people expect from a 1:1.

   — Daniel Brito did not play on the 29th, started at 2B yesterday. Long and lean, like so many of the young international players from Central and South America. Guys like Alastre, Brito, Juan Luis are all reed thin and need to get stronger. I can see how they would be tiring at this stage in the season in their professional careers. He was also hitting into the shift yesterday and was trying very hard to go to left field on at least one at-bat. Fouled several balls down the third base line before grounding out to the 3B positioned in the SS spot.

   — Saw both of the young shortstops, Gamboa on the 29th and Raul Rivas yesterday. Gamboa very slick in the field, but Rivas had several real Wow! plays yesterday, including a tremendous play where he ranged far to his right to field a shot — I think off the bat of Jake Noll again — and then threw a strike with all of his body weight sending him into short left field. A fantastic play. Rivas handled the bat very nicely as well yesterday, hit the walk-off game winning single where Jesus Alastre scored from first base. Alastre was off with the pitch and the left fielder had to go hard to his left to keep the ball from going to the wall, but it was still a very impressive piece of baserunning by the young outfielder.

   Not too much else caught my eye. I’m not sure Darick Hall has a big future though I suppose he could start mashing some more. His college teammate, Listi, looked pretty good at the plate yesterday. Lucas Williams, though a relatively high pick, doesn’t bring much to the table at this stage. I would think that only a lack of 3B in the system got him this far. The closer, Will Hibbs, is a large man at 6-7, but he threw mostly off-speed pitches in yesterday’s game. Not sure if that’s his thing or if he was just working on stuff. Ismael Cabrera got into both games and had nice life on his FB.

7. Lucas Williams is romus pick. he loved him. I remember.

   1. rocco…..he played HS football as a WR.
      So he split time thru HS.. maybe one reason for his .rather pedestrian 315 BA in HS…which you found disturbing to select such a player that high in the draft, if I recall.

   2. Lucas Williams is the next Mike Trout — yeah, I still remember this line….

8. All I can say about Williams is seems to be a tremendous base stealer and good glove at 3B. I remember having doubts when he was drafted in 3rd round and people could not find ANYTHING out about him on-line.

9. Oh boy, Lehigh is starting Hoskins at LF. This will be interesting.

   1. Is he slower than Pat Burrell ?
      I know Hoskins is slow but never seen him in real life
      The Phillies should get Tojo to start in left field as he is faster and has a decent arm from what I remember

      1. The Phillies already tried Tommy in LF. That experiment did not last long.

      2. Every pub has him rated at a 40 run…..I do not think I have ever seen them go lower than a 40 rating. I would like to see a foot race between TJ, Rhys Hoskins, Cam Rupp, Maikel Franco and the Phanatic.

   2. with altherr out, no reason to try it. it’s time to get his bat in the big league lineup, who cares if he’s horrible out in the field.

      1. Exactly. We’re not trying to figure out if he can play left field – we all know he probably can’t. We’re trying to see how he adjusts to major league pitching. If he’s horrible in left – who cares this year?

         1. I’ll need to preface my statement with Darin Ruf probably wasn’t the hitter that Hoskins is but that said this same experiment probably had a profound negative effect on Darin’s offensive development.

            I believe the better solution is to bring him up and let him and TJ split the remaining 53 games at 1B and in the games they are not starting be the primary PH off the bench.

            It’s roughly 200 PA’s remaining with TJ already sitting with 400. I’m pretty sure they are both grown men and understand the situation.

            1. Well, TJ sat for Nava yesterday so that has to be a sign that the Phillies are not quite happy with TJ lately.

            2. DMAR….Hoskins has played LF before…..Ruf never did in colllege or the pros until they started that experiment in 2014/15. I cannot see any ill-effetcs that could befall Hoskins at the plate.

      2. If he’s a butcher in the field, he’s not helping the pitchers. Imagine if his range is so bad that he can’t get to a ball or he completely misplays a ball and then Aaron Nola has to throw 20 more pitches? I wouldn’t be happy about that.

         1. The Bull played LF ,ever see the bad news Bears . Herrera , Galvis , will cover more area . There going to be looking at Hoskins bat not his D .

            1. You are right Tim, and there was nothing spectacular about Burrell out there.

               1. I remember Bowa said, ” that he liked playing SS with the Bull out there, whenever he got close the ground began to shake and he knew it was time to give way”.

            2. If the Phillies didn’t care about defence, then TJ would be in LF and Hoskins would have been up at the all-star break. So clearly there’s some level of defensive expectations.

10. Ben Pelletier – after today, his line is now .324/.355/.495/.850. He doesn’t get much talk here. Has anyone seen him live that can share some info?

    1. Baseball Betsy shot him on Saturday:

       1. He’s only 18 I’ve been watching him he’s really improved easy power .

11. Bossart looked comfortable in Reading today. 1-4 at the plate and 2-3 caught stealing.

    1. I was always impressed with Bossart. I’d really like to see him get regular playing time, which he has never had.

12. Williamsport postponed. They used a heckuva lot of Turf Dry on the infield and it was still too soggy. Even MLB quality drainage can’t overcome all the rain we got.

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