Happy Holidays folks. Just two quick notes. Matt Spencer has finally signed, and it appears Joe Savery is very close to signing. Good news all around. Now, we need to get Julian Sampson and Brandon Workman signed and we can call it a draft.
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D’Arby Myers update
Thanks to a loyal reader of this here blog, I’ve been fortunate enough to have been put in contact with D’Arby and just spoke to him for a few minutes. My cell phone reception is awful in my new apartment, but I’ll be getting in touch with him again soon to do a Q/A for the blog. He mentioned that he’s enjoying hitting leadoff, getting to see lots of pitches and work counts in his favor, and that the whole pro experience has been great so far. So, if you have a question you’d like me to include in the Q/A for D’Arby, send me an e-mail and put “QUESTION FOR D’ARBY” in the title of the e-mail, and I’ll try to touch on as many points as I can. He really seems to have his head on straight when it comes to playing the game, and he’s loving every minute of it. Couple that attitude with his baseball tools, and I think he’s going to turn into a pretty special player.
As of this writing, he’s hitting .362/.413/.431 with 14 runs scored.
Pitching prospects…
After Carlos Carrasco, who do you feel are our top 3 pitching prospects? Exclude Kendrick from your list, because barring an injury, he’ll lose his rookie eligibility this year. You can include Happ, because I’m less certain he’ll lose his status. Give your answer in the comments, you can leave it as anonymous if you want, and feel free to give your thoughts on why you chose who you did. I’ll give my answer on Thursday.
Draft pick signings; crunch time approaching
It’s been an eventful month or so since the draft. The Phillies have done some nice work in signing their college guys taken early in a rather quick fashion, and they wrapped up their two top prep guys in d’Arnaud and Mattair quickly. They’ve also nabbed Jiwan James, one of their best flier prospects taken after the 20th round. But, we’re now only 6 weeks from the deadline, and a few important guys are yet to sign.
Continue reading Draft pick signings; crunch time approaching
Mailbag
Got a few questions, so here are the answers, as best as I can do..
From Dan
With Adrian Cardenas as our top position prospect at a position where we already have a superstar in Chase Utley, where do you see Cardenas ending up position-wise, if he ever makes it to the big leagues? BaseballAmerica intimated that he could move to Right Field, do you agree?
I think they will keep him at 2B up through AA, at which point they will evaluate what is happening at the big league level. He might not have the arm strength to play 3B or RF, and he won’t have the range for CF, which means LF might be the final stopping point. For now, though, I think he’ll remain at 2B.
From Avery
Do you have any info on crosscutters pitcher drew naylor? Whats his stuff like? What are his pitches? Whats his makeup like? Also, why did he only start 2 of his 12 games last year. Basically what im asking
is: is he a legit prospect for the phils?
and similarly, from tua36564
Just wanted to know your thoughts on Drew Naylor a RHP at Williamsport. Pitched his third game today and has three wins. He also has let up only one ER in 22 innings pitched. He’s averaging almost a strikeout per inning and has walked only three while sporting a 1.14 Ground/Fly ratio. Is he the real deal, or will he come back down to Earth?
Drew Naylor seems to be springing to everyone’s mind with his quick start. Naylor, for those who don’t know, is one of our Australian signings, and made his US debut in 2006. Just turning 21, Naylor has a solid pitcher’s build, at 6’4, 210 lbs, but did not dominate in his first pro action, posting a 4.66 ERA in 36.2 IP, allowing 43 H, 9 BB and only 22 K. Lack of strikeouts is of course a red flag, as is the hittability, though his walk rate was solid. Well, Naylor has gotten off to a much better start this season;
22 IP, 0.41 ERA, 9 H, 3 BB, 21 K
Obviously that’s a huge improvement. The strikeouts are the most encouraging thing, and he’s been much less hittable. Is he a legit prospect? Yeah, because this is only his second season in pro ball, and he moved up a level, he’s not just repeating the GCL. What does he throw? I’ve never seen him pitch in person, and he was not on anyone’s radar, so there isn’t a lot of info there. I think I remember reading somewhere that he throws a typical fastball/changeup/slider combination. From the looks of his numbers, he must have sharpened his secondary pitches, because the strikeouts are way up and the walks are still way down. He’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on, but he needs to keep steadily moving if we’re to consider him a legit prospect.
Anderson Garcia gets the call
The latest minor leaguer to get the tap and head into the firestorm is Anderson Garcia, who will replace JA Happ on the 25 man roster. Garcia, acquired on waivers from Baltimore, via the Mets, will be making his Phillies debut sometime soon, and likely will be thrown into the fire that is the Phillies 2007 season. Garcia has had a nice run this year at Reading and Ottawa, and is striking out lots of guys. If he can limit the walks, he might be useful.
Geoff Geary has also been optioned to Ottawa. Let this be a reminder as to how important strikeouts are, especially to relievers. Geary does not have a putaway pitch. When balls are hit at someone, or he gets good defense behind him, he’s capable of being a useful reliever, as was evident last year. However, when those line drives fall in, and you’re still not striking anyone out, you get the 2007 version of Geoff Geary. As “unimportant” as strikeouts are for batters, they are vitally important for pitchers, especially relievers.
The Phillies are running out of minor leaguers to baptize by fire. Matt Maloney has to be next, and I’m sure they are toying with the idea of rushing Carrasco up. I pray to all things holy that it doesn’t happen, and Gillick doesn’t do something stupid, like trade the farm for a Jeff Weaver type. Ok, I removed my finger from the panic button…back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Friday morning thoughts
It’s a pretty gloomy Friday morning here, but morale is high after the Phillies top drawer win last night. I’ve kind of been slacking a bit here, but others have helped pick up the slack, and once things slow down at work, I’ll have more time to write. I’m planning a few player profiles and some other things as well, so that should be interesting. If you have any suggestions, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do. In fact, I’ll do a little mailbag type deal if you’d want to. Send me questions to the e-mail addy provided on the right, and put “Mailbag” in the title. I’ll answer as many as I can over the weekend and post them Monday. Now, on to the business…
Nice Jacob Diekman article
Here’s a nice article on our 30th round pick, Jacob Diekman. Diekman is reporting to the GCL squad, and reportedly got something “close to 7th round money”, which is probably between $50,000 and $100,000, if I had to guess. He seems like a good kid, and you can never have enough live arm lefties.
A major coup; Phillies sign Jiwan James
Less than 12 hours after deciding to pass on pro baseball for now, Jiwan James changed his mind and signed with the Phillies. The article talks about James going back and forth, including attending an orientation session at Florida, but ultimately deciding to sign. The Phillies had contacted James on draft day and offered him the money if they took him in the 6th round, but he said he wouldn’t sign for that. Within the article linked above, it mentions the Phillies visiting him and upping their offer. My guess? Between $250,000 and $350,000, around 3rd-4th round money. We’ll know eventually, as Baseball America normally gets all the bonus amounts right. This leaves Julian Sampson as our prized prep prospect, as the Phillies already came to terms with 30th round pick Jacob Diekman, a live armed JuCo lefty. Mark Adzick is 99% committed to Wake Forest, leaving Sampson as our main target. I’m not sure how the signing of James will affect the latter, time will tell, but for now, this is quite an exciting development.
Want the skinny on James? Check out the writeup on PhilliesDraft.com
Williamsport and GCL rosters updated
I updated the rosters for both short season teams today. You can find them by clicking the appropriate tag on the left side of the page. I still need to spend some time updating the rest of the rosters, but I had a request for the short season teams, so I did those. Not all of the starters might be right, I just did it quickly without looking at box scores to see how many games player X started at Y position. If there are mistakes, just leave a comment on the roster page and I’ll update it. In the next day or two, I’ll also be adding links to the legit prospects on the Prospect Tracker page at the top for our short season prospects, as well as updating all of the other roster pages. If there’s anything else that needs doing here, let me know.
Phuture Phillies 