All posts by giventofly41

Projected Clearwater rotation

Other Stuff

This one could be a bit tricky…

Edgar Garcia
Joe Savery*
Antonio Bastardo
Carlos Monasterios
Chance Chapman

* I hope he starts here, but I have a feeling it will be Lakewood. If that’s the case, I suppose Dan Brauer is a candidate to start back here, if he’s healthy. I’m assuming Chapman will be a candidate, seeing as he’s already 23 and will be old for his level wherever he starts out. Tyson Brummett is also a possibility I’d think. Garcia seems like a logical choice, having spent 2007 in Low A, same with Bastardo and Monasterios.

Projected Reading rotation

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Let’s give Reading a go

Carlos Carrasco
Josh Outman
Drew Carpenter
Alex Concepcion
(?)

The first three are pretty much locks, I think Concepcion has a decent shot to start there, but he could be back at Clearwater, which would leave two open spots. Fabio Castro, if he remains a starter, he could be an option here I think.

Projected Allentown rotation

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It’s always fun to kind of speculate on potential lineups and rotations, so I figured we’d start in Allentown. Things could change of course, whether it be because of a trade or an injury, but this is my guess;

Kyle Kendrick
JA Happ
Scott Mathieson
(filler)
(filler)

I don’t think the Phillies are 100% sold on Kyle Kendrick, and probably feel that he could use another half year or year in the minors to refine his stuff. I say this because they are aggressively pursuring (or apparently pursueing) a number of free agents, and they already have 4 starters on the roster in Hamels, Myers, Moyer and Eaton. Kendrick is likely to be the first callup when the need arises, and it will most certainly arise. Happ seems like the easy choice in the 2 slot, and my guess is that Mathieson will start, if anything just to get innings before competing for a bullpen slot. The last two spots will probably be minor league vets. There is really NO reason to rush Carrasco or Outman to 3A, as both struggled at Reading.

Thoughts? Did I miss someone obvious?

Congrats to J-Roll

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Don’t have time for an entry today, but Ed Wade must be smiling today, as another fruit of his labor claimed some heavy duty hardware, winning the NL MVP yesterday. Wade, for as much as we panned him as a GM, never traded away Ryan Howard, Chase Utley or Rollins, the three guys who are now the core of the team. Utley would have to be the odds on favorite to win the 2008 MVP, if you can even project things like that, as he’d have probably won in 2007 if not for the injury. Even if Wade did try and trade Howard for Ted Lilly or Zack Duke, at the end of the day he didn’t, and because of it, the Phillies are much better off. Lots of people really despise Eddie, but I find myself disliking him less and less, and at the end of the day, he does deserve a lot of credit for the current core of this team.

After the holiday here, we’ll start looking at projected rotations and lineups for the minor league affiliates, starting with Allentown.

My Top 30 Prospects

** My Top 30 Prospects, Top Prospect Lists

You’ve had your say, both individually and as a collective group, now I’ll toss you my list. Before I get into it, I want to make a few general comments. The minors are generally like kindergarten; you’re there to learn to interact with others, to learn how to listen to a teacher, and to pick up basic skills which you’ll use as you progress. Similarly, the main job of a minor leaguer is to learn how to improve different aspects of his game, whether it be hitting for contact, base running, refining a changeup, or hitting the ball to the opposite field. If you look at a generic stat line, with no context, it tells you absolutely nothing. The work that I have been doing is aimed at trying to look at a player’s statistics, consider the league he was in, his age relative to the prospects in the league, and then figure out just what his numbers mean. Generally speaking, I’m not that concerned with the traditional statistics, because they mean very little. Instead, I targeted things like walk rate and strike out rate, as I think those metrics lead to some idea in terms of prediction. After compiling the numbers, I considered everything I know about the prospect in terms of scouting reports. This point here is really important. While I tend to bristle when people only consider a player’s raw tools, it’s equally foolish to just assume a guy with good numbers in Low A will be good just because he has a good K rate. The truth is, if he has an 85 mph fastball and a good curveball, he’s likely to get clobbered as he moves up the ladder. I place more emphasis on performance to date over projection, but it’s a close split. So let’s get on with it..

Continue reading My Top 30 Prospects →

Thinking about the Rule 5 Draft

Rule 5 Draft

Yours truly got his question on the Rule 5 Draft answered by Jim Callis at BA, and hopefully it clears up some questions we had here on who is eligible and who isn’t. I haven’t even looked who the Phillies will have to make decisions on yet, let alone looking for possible targets. But, here is what Jim said on the issue.

    Under the new collective bargaining agreement, college players have four years and high school players have five years before they have to be protected on a 40-man roster, correct? Is this from when they sign, or from when they first play? For example, Brad Harman of the Phillies signed out of Australia in 2003, when he was 17, but he didn't make his debut until 2004. So he wouldn't have to be protected until after 2008, right? Jason Jaramillo, who was drafted out of Oklahoma State in 2004 and then played that summer, he has to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason, correct?

    James Moyer
    Washington D.C.

James is correct on the status or Harman and Jaramillo, but the recent change to rule is a little more involved. First, it’s based purely on the player’s age at the time of his signing, with those 18 or younger in one group and those 19 or older in another. Under the previous CBA, a player’s 40-man clock started ticking when he began playing, so a club could postdate his contract to the following year and buy an extra season before it had to protect him. Teams had to place a 19-and-older signee on the 40-man roster after three years, and an 18-and-younger signee after four years, or risk losing him in the major league Rule 5 draft at the Winter Meetings.

Now the rule gives clubs an additional year before they have protected players, though it no longer allows teams to postdate the contracts to buy extra time. Teams get the best of both worlds for players signed before the new CBA went into effect after the 2006 offseason, as they can take advantage of not only the added year, but also a postdated contract if one applies.

Link

Savery ranked 16th among AFL prospects

Savery, Joe, Top Prospect Lists

Just saw this, had to get it up here. BA is doing a chat at 1PM if you have the means, check it out.

16. Joe Savery, lhp, Peoria Saguaros (Phillies)

Like a lot of Rice pitchers, Savery comes with some medical baggage. The 2007 first-rounder had minor surgery last year to shave down a bone growth in the back of his shoulder that was causing some fraying in his labrum. That didn’t affect his reputation too badly, as the Dodgers were ready to take him if the Phillies didn’t in the first round. In the AFL, Savery showed much better stuff than his pro debut. He clearly benefited from the short break between instructional league and the Fall League, finishing 1-1, 0.64 in 14 innings. Savery’s fastball velocity was 87-92, but still struggled to command it at times. His secondary pitches—a slurvy breaking ball and changeup—still need more polish, and his 5-11 strikeout-walk ratio is indicative of that.

Swamped

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I’m under the kosh here at work today. My goal is to put up my Top 30 prospect list on Monday. I’ve decided I’m not going to bother posting every team’s Top 30 here, enough people expressed they wouldn’t want to see that, so I can just give my Phillies list, my thoughts on each spot, and then maybe at some point I’ll compare our system to the other four teams in our division, and also do positional rankings. So, check back Monday for that.

Top 30 lists submitted by you

2008 Reader Top 30

Here is a graphic depicting the individual lists sent to me, compared with the Community List we cranked out. In the next few weeks I’m going to organize a new page at the top of the site to keep track of all of the Phillies prospect lists from this offseason, as well as our community list, and can compare as the season progresses. It should be interesting. I’m still working on my list, and hopefully I’ll have it done over the next few weeks, but time will be short over the holidays, so we’ll see. Anyway, here’s the graphic. If the image is too large or too small to properly see on your monitor, click here.

top30.jpg

Keith Law’s Top 60 amateurs for 2008

2008 Draft

Just a quick note, Keith gave his listing of the Top 6o players heading into the spring, and highlighted a number of guys to watch for who could be improving their stock. You can see the list here, though it’s Insider content, so you cheapskates (I kid, I kid) can only get the first few paragraphs. With the impending loss of Aaron Rowand, it could mean an additional 1st rounder, or more likely, a 2nd rounder plus a compensation round pick. This year’s draft, according to Keith, has more corner guys, both in the infield and outfield, and fewer up the middle players, while the collection of prep arms will pale in comparison to last year’s haul. How much money the Phillies are willing to spend on the draft will again be an issue. We’ll definitely have our first round pick (unless we sign a Type A free agent), then the comp pick for Rowand, plus an extra pick in either the 1st or 2nd round (possibly 3rd, if the signing team signs a player better than Rowand), plus the extra pick after the 3rd round because we didn’t sign Workman.