69 thoughts on “Clearwater Threshers Recap – 8/9/2018”

1. LHV has a 9 game lead in their division. CLW has a .5 game lead (29 – 17) in the 2nd half. LKW has a 2.5 game lead in the 2nd half. They also won the 1st half. The GCL Phils East have a 1.5 game lead in their division. Of course, wins and losses are not the main thing in the minor leagues but there is a lot to say about playoff experience and figuring out how to win games. Plus it creates a lot of excitement for fans.

2. Between the young players on the major league team and the depth throughtout the system, they’ve unearthed a large number of players that will be contributing players at the major league level
   I guess my major concern is other than Hoskins, nola and maybe sixto, do they have the type of A level talent ( like the Astros have produced) to be real world series contenders without hitting a home run ,( machado, harper) in free agency?

   1. srussell….concerning the Astros, excluding the pitchers,…it appears the heart, and their core, of their position players are Altuve, Correa, Springer and now Bregman. Three of the four were high draft picks…and Altuve was a very fortunate Latin low cost signing.
      If the Phillies can sign Manny…all the rest of their lineup falls into place.
      Further players like JPC, Franco, Alf and Kingery were rated high, at points, during their minor league careers. So you cannot give up on them from ever developing into impact players.

      “do they have the type of A level talent “….I still think within a short time frame, Haseley, Moniak and Bohm, along with Ortiz will develop into those players.

      1. it is amazing how perfect manny fits into this team to take it to another level

   2. Phillies already have Nola, Hoskins, Seranthony and Doobie as potential perennials All-Start candidates so if Bohm (22 yo), Haseley (22 yo), Medina (21 yo) and Sixto (20 yo) project are expected, the Phillies will have a strong young core similar to any winning teams in the past.

   3. Agree. My similar concern. I equated it to a system that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Would love to see a position player (maybe Haseley) that could hit for average, have a little pop and field. A good baseball IQ wouldn’t hurt.

3. Eshelman seems to have settled in again nicely after a horrific June. His ERA at this point is not going to recover but he had a 3.35 in July and has a 3.46 ERA in 2 August starts.

4. Mickey Mo!!

5. No longer a SSS (IMO).
   Mickey Moniak’s last 53 games (193 AB’s): .295/.349/.472, 16 BB, 46 K. Still just 20 YO until next May. He’s shown tremendous resilience. Great work by him !

   1. I have to give this kid (MM) some credit – the gains are definitely beginning to look real and permanent. And he’s improving in the two areas I care about most for him at this stage of his development – plate discipline and hit tool.

      Haseley’s growth is also encouraging. I’m not worried about the tepid power with him or Moniak, at least not yet. They have plenty of time to improve their power games.

      1. plus so much about power hitting for these type players is having a game plan to attack the ball in certain situations which they will learn with experience

   2. He has really turned the corner! Unfortunately some people will still look at his current OBP and say well he’s not doing that great but if you break it out like you have, Hinkie, you can see a remarkable improvement. He’s found his spot in the lineup where he can thrive.

   3. Other than Jim, you seem to have a great insight into the Phillies prospects, No matter how this season pans out, I see Klentak making some major moves this offseason. First off, is the signing of Machado. I can’t imagine a scenario where Middleton will allow himself to be outbid for him. If he goes somewhere else for less money, so be it. I’d really like to see the Phillies add another number one, or two pitcher. I expect Arrieta to slip to a number four starter next year, and Velasquez to be our number three.
      This is always an unpopular decision, but I’d make Herrera, Hernandez, and Eflin available. I don’t hate them, but you have to give up something to get something, and another top notch starter would help.
      My opening day lineup for next year is:
      Quinn-CF
      Hoskins-LF
      Machado-SS
      Franco-3b
      Williams-RF
      Santana-1B
      Alfaro-C
      Kingery-2B

      1. Wawa….Herrera alone would and should bring back a sizable return.
         Though his metrics have fallen a little this season, he till has those abundant raw skills belwow his shoulders, youth and more important, a very team-friendly contract, all as pluses.
         Adam Eaton’s return from the Nats to the White Sox was substantial. Though Giolito has not progressed as expected, he was a top 100 prospect, at the time of the trade and the headliner in the trade’s return.. But there are still plenty of ChiSox optimism for both Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning.
         I would not trade Eflin and Cesar may be a player that could be kept for awhile….depends on the long term contract that he is going to pursue.

         1. I could see the Phillies getting a return on Herrera , comparable to the return the White Sox did with Eaton

6. Hinkie, you nailed it about MM. Patience and perspective can be very helpful in evaluating prospects. MM is a classic example. Excellent analysis by you.

7. Bohm to play for the GCL east today starting rehab….

   1. Thank God – I want to see him rake for a few weeks. I’m having Nolan Gorman nightmares.

8. Bohm playing today? That’s GOOD news.
   Catch..Thank-you for sharing the success that Gorman is having ,I’ve been Very frustrated with other teams having Stud hitters breeze through the minor leagues,start their rookie years at age 20/21 and do VERY well and appear to be future stars.
   Yet we NEVER seem to have even ONE!!! (At that age)

   1. While I understand your frustration and also wish we had a Mike Trout at every position in our farm system. However, the Nats, for example, have had an amazing string of studs in their farm system this decade, which resulted in how many World Series championships? How many World Series appearances? I think that the metric that we would all want to use to judge success of our teams would be those, not the age that prospects make their MLB debut or the hype that surrounds them.

      1. There are many ways to build a ball club and the Phillies are doing more than fine, but it’s always exciting to see a team develop a wunderkind every so often. It’s easy to view the existence of such players as dumb luck and, to a limited extent, it might be, but when you see the broader picture, a handful of organizations seem to develop such players on a routine basis. To the Phillies’ credit, I think they now seem to be doing this with foreign pitching talents – Sanchez and Medina are good proof of that. But with hitters, they are not faring quite as well – which doesn’t mean they are struggling, just that they are not the ones (so far) finding and developing the Sotos, Guerreros, Albies, Ramirezes, and Acunas and I don’t think this is entirely a coincidence or bad luck.

         1. No doubt that good scouting plays a major role, but I think that we all agree that if that’s all there was to it, the success of these kids signed at 16 years old and their bonuses would have a 1:1 correlation. Many of those you mention above were not mega-bonus babies and the other 29 teams did not seem to think that it was worth outbidding the teams that eventually signed them.

            1. Right, and yet, more often than random chance would have it, there are the Braves and Nationals finding and signing those players – just as the Phillies find and sign guys like Dominguez and Sanchez. It’s NOT all random luck.

               1. Not disagreeing that some teams draft better than others … but the Braves also didn’t play by the rules on drafting that int talent 🙂 I don’t like to give the Braves much credit, any if all possible 🙂

         2. What makes me curious is – regarding the LA position players – every year we see the Yankees, Bosox, and sometimes Texas sign the top players for scads of millions. The Braves, Dodgers,Nats, Tampa ?, sign the balance of the really top position players. Question – is it always the $$$ or is there a significant connection that makes the trainers commit to a specific MLB team year in/out ?? I have a sense that the ties to the local trainers etc. is determining where these top players go – in that vein, the Phillies are competing against “familiar relationships” , major name brands (Yankees), and their own REGULAR unwilingness to pay Ortiz type $$$ to other position players ????? Phillies have stated they are after the pitching talent but maybe at the exclusion of the position players ? Even if you weren’t a scout even hearing the ball hit Acuna’s bat tells you to sign him immediately ! Frankly, it would be great to have just one of these baby superstar Atlanta and/ or Nats LA players. Let the Dodgers and Yankees sign all the Cuban players. Comments ? my ? is, is it really the scouting ?

            1. RU….”or is there a significant connection that makes the trainers commit to a specific MLB team year in/out ?? I “…..you hit the nail on the head.
               That connection is not always made when the kids are 14 and 15 year old , and with their families.
               Case in point….Venezuela….for a two/three year period the Philies and three other teams were the only ones with VSL teams in their summer league, a four team league ….the other 26 MLB orgs pulled out of there due to country unrest and strife.
               You would have thought the Phillies and the other three MLB orgs would have had the prime opportunity to sign the best Ven kids…..well they did not.
               Phillies signed Carlos Tocci in 2011 as their prime signing for that year
               And for three years the Phillies came up short in the Ven until the Gamboa/Brito/lenin Rodrguez calss of 2014.
               Marchan followed the following year.
               really none of those signings have inspired future stardom, maybe Marchan.
               In the meantime, some of the other 26 MLB orgs were able to get their reps in to build relationships with the 14/15 kids and their families.
               Sometime its more money offered, and sometimes its the teams star allure , like the Yankees.
               But IMO, the Phillies international scouting dept may be in line for adding some new faces.

   2. Relax and give Alec Bohm some time to get adjusted to his new career. Bohm has plenty of time to pass Gorman as he was a consensus top five draft pick.

      1. I’m giving it plenty of time – but I reserve for myself the right to have Nolan Gorman nightmares – lol.

      2. It is the opposite. Bohm is already 22. Gorman is 18.

   3. Matty winks tweeted earlier today that Bohm had been added to the GCE league roster today

      1. Bohm was taken out in the 5th……assume not an injury, but precautions.
         His two ABs …two Ks…one looking and one swinging.

9. How many years has it been since the phillies had a stud hitter come up through their system,start playing for the big leagues at the age of 20/21 years old and started out very well and ended up being a star player for 10 to 15 years?
   I’ve been a phillies fan since 1980 before I was a teenager and I can’t think of one.

   It appears that the Nats & Braves each have TWO this year? Ok..I may as well admit it,I think that I’m jealous.

   1. i hear you- Braves also picked Drew Waters in round 2 last year (with controversial bonus that got them in some trouble), but in his first full season at age 19 they have recently moved him up to high A.
      on the pitching side, at least the Nats dealt Luzardo to Oakland (with Treinen and Neuse) for Doolittle and Madson or else we’d be dealing with him at age 21 next year.

   2. Franco, Crawford and Kingery all came up fairly young, they just haven’t produced up to expectations. Some prospects get ruined by coming up too young.

      1. Franco debuted at 21, but JP was 23 when he came up, I think. And I’m pretty sure Kingery was 24.

10. JRoll got his cup of coffee at 21.

    But your criteria doesn’t really fit the Phils’ development model. They spend big on three things internationally: power, defense, and pitching. Power and defense prospects don’t typically breeze through the minors. And as for the draft, they’ve been focusing more on college hitters in recent memory. Can’t call up a player by age 21 if he’s not in the system by then.

    1. I think if you asked them they would probably say they are focused on getting the best players and while they’ve done more than okay, their scouting is not yielding a lot of hitting stars as yet.

       Look, they’ve produced some decent LA hitters (Cesar, Maikel, Domingo Santana, Jonathan Villar) with more on the way so I’m certainly not crushing them, but it burns me up to see the same franchises producing one hitting prodigy after the next. It’s NOT all random.

       1. I think some of it is certainly missing on players (many of whom were missed by all the other orgs as well), but mostly I think it’s just that some players choose teams other than the Phils. Sometimes it’s family ties. Sometimes it’s money. Sometimes it’s just that they like a different team.

          I look at players like Vlad, Jr. and Eloy Jimenez. The Phils were in on them, they just didn’t sign them. I don’t know how much they offered, but I gotta figure they were at least competitive offers. But they signed elsewhere, and now they’re top 5 prospects in baseball. C’est la vie.

          1. No – we really must do better in the future

11. But I’ll tell you what they have done – they are getting really good at producing quality arms which is what Klentak said they would do. They are indeed producing pitchers in waves and I have to give them credit for that. Look, even a somewhat forgotten guy like Yacksel Rios, just as an example, has one hell of an arm and could turn into a big deal player in a very short amount of time (Rios often hits 98 and 99 – he can sling it).

12. So..I’ve been a phillies fan for 38 Years,and Jroll is the only name that came up? He only played 14 games in the majors when he was 21 years old,so he doesn’t really qualify.He did have a good rookie year at the age of 22.
    If Moniak & Hassley pan out it will take some of the “sting” out of it,although they’ll both be older than 20/21 years old.
    Focusing on drafting hitters in the US instead of signing the better Latin American hitters?? They have they same opportunity as the Nats/Braves & Blue Jays etc did to sign those guys.
    If they need older/better scouts down there..Find them and hire them!
    We can make excuses all day,but at the end of the day,that is what it is..Just Excuses!

    Starting pitching? Yes,they have been better at it,Sixto & Medina look promising but they are not in the bigs yet.

    1. @Barf – i think you are focusing too much on small picture (age) than the bigger picture (overall career). Chase and Howard are top hitting positional players too who became one of the best in their position. I think its unfair to just focus on the age.

       1. No, age is huge – Utley and Howard are massive outliers.

          1. Howard is a massive outlier, Utley is not. It’s pretty common for college hitters to be successful in the majors.

             1. Just to be thorough I looked up the Phils’ best hitters by wOBA since 2000 (min 800 PA) to check this stuff.

                1. Abreu (FA)
                2. Thome (FA)
                3. Werth (Scouting)
                4. Rolen (debuted at 21)
                5. Burrell (23)
                6. Utley (24)
                7. Howard (24)
                8. Jason Michaels (go figure)
                9. Rowand (FA)
                10. Victorino (Scouting)
                11. Ibanez (FA)
                12. Lieberthal (22)
                13. Herrera (and you guys want to trade him…)
                14. Ruiz (27)
                15. Travis Lee (huh)

                JRoll is 16, for what it’s worth. wRC+ is roughly the same list with some names shifting slightly (Cesar clocks in at 15 there). Cesar debuted at 23, by the way.

                So yeah, 2 generational talents in Rolen and Rollins debuted at 21. Burrell, Utley, Howard, Lieberthal, and Ruiz all debuted at later ages. And our scouting department picked up three all stars for us. I’m fine with that list.

    2. Scott Rolen.

13. Moniak with another good game..line drive base hit to left And right field, plus a ground single up the middle.
    Nice to see that he is using all fields, showing gap power lately.

    1. OBP up to .299. Let’s just hope he can keep this up for the rest of the season. If so he probably starts next season in AA with renewed expectations.

       1. Agreed. On this pace he will be promoted and right on track again.

    2. Is Moniak showing gap power? His improvement that last couple months after a dismal start has been welcome, but last I checked his XBH total was still pretty light.

       1. He’s THIRD in entire FSL in doubles. So has quite a few XBH

          1. 30 of his 96 hits are for extra bases (24 doubles, 2 triples, 4 HR)

14. Luis Garcia went 3-4 to raise his average to .375. He has a .940 OPS, nearly as many walks as strikeouts, and by all accounts has a big arm and good instincts at SS. Oh, and he’s only 17.

    (My latest ‘you know you’re getting old moment’: Garcia was born on Oct. 1, 2000, one day before Radiohead released their masterpiece Kid A).

    He seems to hit better than advertised … and that’s saying a lot for a kid who got a seven-figure bonus. Any first-hand reports to help me get even more excited?

    1. Here’s my getting old moment – I can’t even name one Radiohead song – although now you have me intrigued.

       1. I was raising 5 kids during that time period and working my ass off – I barely know what happened in the workd between about 1991-2006

          1. Anyway – Luis Garcia is our most exciting new prospect since Sixto

          2. They’re incredible, and their body of work is so diverse you’ll definitely find something you like. Start with The Bends and OK Computer, both of which are pretty guitar heavy and accessible. Think Pink Floyd with distortion pedals. Kid A began a huge departure in which they went very electronic, which is awesome, but so different from their previous stuff that it’s probably off-putting as a first listen. Since then, they’ve found a groove with a quasi-guitar-orchestral-electronic sound.

             Here’s a good spotify playlist for an introduction:

             1. Thanks!

15. Kudos to MM. He has a a terrific stretch, and I am happy for him. Garcia may turn out to be our “elite” hitter. Early but doing extraordinary for such a young player. Haesely doing great at Reading and I would like a good month for Bohm heading into the off season.

16. Mickey Mo still WHITE HOT!! Goes 3-4 and raises BA to .264 in a CLW win…

    C hits a pinch hit 3 run HR in the 9th inning for a walk off win…

    1. Great stuff!
       Bye bye Mills

    2. Here’s Corn-Dog’s walk off HR:

       Because y’all know. And Cornelius Randolph knows…sometimes you have to hit it and quit it. #Fightins pic.twitter.com/bXlzuuuVcx

       — Marshall Harris (@mharrisonair) August 11, 2018

       … and Mickey Moniak now .305/.357/.477 over his last 54 games (197 AB’s).

17. Has anyone noticed MM is THIRD in the FSL in 2b!!! I love it, skeptics find another kid to bash and a different draft to bash….at least for now

    1. Hitting .342 last ten games…

       He’ll grow into his power in a couple years when he gets bigger and stronger , up around 205-210 lbs….

    2. We are watching the prospects with a magnifying glass… need to keep it into perspective. I said I’d give him till the end of the year and sure enough he has shown enough to be high on the kid. I believe his power will come as he ages, he seems like he will pack it on slowly.

       Remember back to the Hamels trade rumor days … when many thought he might go to Boston… now look at how fans treated those prospects betts, bogerats, and Xavier something … time has been on their side, so I caution those who want to poo on Crawford .. and Kingery, Williams, and Alfaro. They all need time, trouble with the Phillies are… they have a lot of players who need time, so I hope the pick the best from there litter

18. Good news:
    @ToddZolecki
    1h1 hour ago

    C Wilson Ramos is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment today with Clearwater (A).

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