We are now more than halfway through the Dominican Summer League season and the Phillies entry has been improving as the season progressed. They are now 26-17 after going 13-3 in their past 16 games. The exciting part of this turnaround is that much of it has been based upon the play of younger prospects aged 18 or under. The DSL team in 2007 seems to be superior to the VSL at the prospect level with the results showing up in recent performances. This update will focus more on individual player performance with the top performers and likely prospects.
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VSL Update – July
The VSL Phillies are currently 26-23 and in 4th place in the league, 9 games behind the Astro’s team. This has been somewhat of a transitional year for the Phillies after last year’s championships. With a much younger roster the Phillies are still playing .500, if not a bit better. It still is a little early to tell who are the best prospects. Here is a quick update on the better performers and the younger guys who may be the better prospects.
Offense
Yonderman Rodriguez (age 20) – IF who plays 2B, SS, and 3B is hitting .370 with a .886 OPS. He is clearly a polished player with more BB than SO. Unfortunately his age is a red flag on his prospect status. He does not have enough power or speed to be special in those areas, so his ability to hit for a high average is much of his value. Continue reading VSL Update – July
Phillies Media Guide Minor League Player Info
Slow day at work today. Google can be a wonderful thing. The Phillies media guide is apparently available for free on the MLB web site. Check out the link on this page for minor league players. Media Guide Link. The interesting prospect info is on the part 2 link. There are bios of all Phillies minor leaguers, including the Latin American signings. Most interesting thing learned? The Phillies are now active scouting in Mexico. Sebastien Valle, the Phillies 17-year-old catcher in the DSL this year was signed out of Mexico last October, several months after his 16th birthday.
DSL Early Season Update
The DSL season is now a few weeks old and we are starting to get a picture of who are the top performers on the team if not the top prospects. First of all, here are links to the team roster and statistics. Box scores can also be retrieved most of the time from the daily calendar under the Phillies division link (Santo Domingo North).
Ottawa Lynx Week Eleven
Ottawa played the remaining three games of their four game series with Columbus and took on the Toledo Mud Hens, again a four game series, to finish off week eleven of the 2007 season. The Lynx took two of the remaining three games with Columbus and began to show definite signs of life, definite signs that the team was beginning to come around and start running on all cylinders. This was especially true of the offense who, up until now, were not showing much power or clutch hitting. It was also a week of several roster moves for Ottawa as the team continued to get players healthy and make adjustments, especially to the pitching staff which had been struggling with the many injuries and poor performances.
New Players from the 2006 VSL and DSL Teams
This year’s Williamsport and GCL rosters feature a number of players from last year’s Latin American rookie squads. This post will go through the new players on each team and summarize what we know about them. This is not meant to be a scouting report of these players, however, as we have very few eyewitness accounts of them playing. Hopefully we can fill in the blanks with live reports as the season goes on. These players are important to the Phillies future, however. They also tend to be slightly better prospects on average than the draft prospects because the lesser prospects do not get promoted from their home country leagues. These prospects would probably all have been selected in the top 10-15 rounds of the draft if they had been eligible.
Continue reading New Players from the 2006 VSL and DSL Teams
VSL Phillies No-Hitter
Quick update this morning from the VSL. The Phillies threw a combined no-hitter, mainly behind Juan Colmanarez. They defeated a good team in second place Seattle, winning 2-1
Colmenarez threw 8 perfect innings, striking out 12. In the 9th, Victor Diaz came on and loaded the bases with 2 BB and an error. Howard Cedeno then relieved to retire the side and get the save. Colmenarez is a 20-year-old LHP. Along with Freddy Ballesta he is anchoring the staff (45 IP, 34 H, 3 BB, 49 K). At age 20 one could argue that he should be in GCL now, especially given the K/BB ratio which suggests a very polished pitcher.
Later this week we will be back with an initial DSL update. The team is 4-6 in the early going. Catcher Sebastien Valle looks like a potential star, going 11-23 with 6 BB, 4 2B, and 1 HR in the first few weeks. He is only 16 years old.
Ottawa Lynx Report Week Ten
The Lynx began week ten of the 2007 season by doing something which had eluded them for three games-they defeated the Durham Bulls. The first three games of this series had resulted in losses to the Bulls as Ottawa couldn’t get much going, couldn’t get or prevent the big play, (see Lynx report week nine). The final game of this home stand saw the Lynx finally put one in the win column, this time in a rain shortened six innings, 3-2. Jason Jaramillo continued to slowly drag himself out of his long hitting slump, driving in two runs in the fifth inning with a triple and giving Ottawa the lead for good. Charles Weatherby III, (1-0), and just transferred from Single A, allowed four hits and two runs in five innings in his Triple A debut. Joe Ennis , although allowing a hit and a walk, picked up his first save of the season in support of Weatherby, shutting out Durham in the sixth. Ottawa finished up the home stand 2-5, their home record dropping to 15-14.
Ottawa Lynx Week Nine
Weather shortened the opening series of the Ottawa Lynx home stand from four to three games against the Southern Division leading Richmond Braves and that was probably a good thing considering how the Lynx played. Ottawa continued their trend of when they lost it was a blow out and when they won, it was a tight dramatic victory. The pitching staff continued to be beaten up and this time the defence which had been solid all season couldn’t get the job done. The frustration was beginning to show on the face of manager John Russell and if Ottawa are going anywhere this season, the team is going to have to start playing much better.
The Ottawa Lynx: Some Observations For The Month of June
Manager John Russell is steady, calm and deliberate and keeps his responses short and to the point.
“That’s Triple A baseball.” “It’s too early in the season to start checking the standings.” “We just didn’t get it done today.” “He played a good game today.” “We’ll get it going.”
You can not expect long, excited answers from the man who guided this team to first place in the Northern Division of the IL last season and won Manager of the Year honours. He sits at his desk at the end of each game, working on his computer, and with a nod of his head invites the media in for the daily question and answer session. Although his answers often seem to be standard fare, this ten year veteran, (1984-1993), major league catcher and minor league manager knows what it takes to win ball games and understands the ups and downs of a long season.
Continue reading The Ottawa Lynx: Some Observations For The Month of June
Phuture Phillies 