The Phillies announced JD Durbin would get the call Friday against the Mets. Talk about being thrown into the fire. Durbin is out of options, so if he bombs out as a starter, they might try to stash him in the bullpen for a while, because if he’s sent down to AAA, he has to clear waivers again, and that seems unlikely. Good luck JD, you’re going to need it.
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Midseason Review, Part 3
We’ll finish it off today, with 20 prospects left. Starting from the ground up…
B
Jarrod Freeman, RHP – Freeman was and still is a promising arm, but it didn’t work out for him in Lakewood. He got battered around, allowing a .518 slugging % in 43.1 IP. He’s still plenty young, so hope is not lost.
Jesus Sanchez, C – Short season ball.
Alex Concepcion, RHP – Concecpcion was one of my picks to have a breakthrough year, and he’s shown some positives, including his 10.3 K/9. He’s given up a few walks (3.99/9) and has averaged a hit per inning. He’s also been a flyball pitcher, which could jump up and bite him at the next level.
Drew Carpenter, RHP – Carpenter has struggled more at High A than I thought he would, but that is to be expected for a guy who skipped Low A in his first season. 6.51 K/9 and 3.55 BB/9 is not what you want to see, especially because he doesn’t have dominant groundball tendencies.
Scott Mitchinson, RHP – Recovering from surgery, short season ball.
Brett Harker, RHP – Harker was rolling along, stringing together save after save, but he’s blown up over the last few weeks, seeing his ERA rise above 8. A definite setback.
Ok, so who’s next?
Jon Lieber hit the DL, and from the way it looks, he won’t be back for a while. I have to think Gillick is scrambling to try and trade for a starter at this point, but will probably have to use an internal option for at least a start or two as to not be held over the barrel. A few weeks ago, I lobbied for Kyle Kendrick to get a shot, and in two starts so far, he’s more than held his own. Kendrick was our best option at the time, but let’s see who the best option is now…or should I say, the least damaging option.
Interview with yours truly
My blog was selected at bloginterviewer.com and I was asked to fill out some simple questions. If you’re curious what I had to say, you can check it out here.
Midseason Review, Part 2
We’ll cover another batch of prospects today, looking at how they’ve fared in the first half of 2007. Again, a few reminders. The grades listed below were the grades assigned to the player prior to the start of this season, they aren’t midseason grades. I won’t assign a grade for 2007 until after the season, this is just kind of a one sentence overview of how each guy is playing this season so far. Any and all comments are welcome, as always.
New layout
Thoughts? The old layout was really starting to bug me because the categories were all jumbled together and it was tougher to navigate. The main column here is a bit more narrow, but I think it’s more visually pleasing. I have some other options, if you think this one really bites the big one, let me know and I’ll try something new.
Cardenas and Carrasco heading to Futures Game
Nice choices, I’d say they represent our best pitching prospect and position prospect. The game is Sunday, July 8th, and will be televised on ESPN 2 at 4 Eastern. Congrats to Carlos and Adrian.
Phillies will sign Jacob Diekman
Diekman, the team’s 30th round pick, looks likely to sign.
The Phillies took him as the 18th pick in the draft’s 30th round. He was the 923rd player selected overall.
Immediately after the draft, Diekman planned to continue to play for the Bruins this summer. He said the Phillies had indicated they planned to watch his progress and could make an offer later.
At that point, Diekman also said he planned to stay in school and head to Lincoln and the University of Nebraska for the fall semester.
But “later,” became now, in a hurry.
“The Phillies made a really good offer now and I don’t want to wait the whole summer,” Diekman said.
Diekman said he decided to “take” the offer from the Phillies when it came.
“They said they want me in their organization so they can work with me,” Diekman said. “I guess they have a left-handed pitching coach and he thinks he can really improve me.
“They really want me now.”
Diekman said initially he’ll be headed to Florida and the developmental league.
Thanks to e-mailer Allan for the heads up on the link. Diekman is only 20, and has a great pitcher’s frame. He was pitching at Cloud County CC, and I don’t really have much info on him, but the Phillies must like what they see.
Mike Costanzo’s splits tell the whole story
We all know about Mike’s predominant first half v second half splits, but I think these splits tell an even bigger story;
2005 v LHP: .155/.269/.190
2006 v LHP: .191/.338/.300
2007 v LHP: .208/.266/.292
2005 v RHP: .306/.380/.550
2006 v RHP: .277/.371/.442
2007 v RHP: .270/.357/.546
2006, v LHP: 136 PA — 14.0% BB — 32.4% K
2007, v LHP: 79 PA — 6.3% BB — 34.2% K
2006, v RHP: 455 PA — 12.1% BB — 19.6% K
2007, v RHP: 199 PA — 11.1% BB — 31.2% K
He’s striking out a lot this year in general, but he’s still striking out more against LHP, and more importantly, isn’t drawing near enough walks off southpaws. We’ve already detailed his defense, so I think this makes him even more of a candidate for an outfield platoon. Couple him with a guy who can hit left handed pitching, and you might have a useful major leaguer.
Midseason Review, Part 1
Ok, so we’re putting the prospect cards on hold till the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a quick look at how the prospects in our system are fairing so far. Just a few quick notes. I won’t be looking at any of our new draftees, and I also won’t look at the new arrivals from the DSL and VSL, because we just don’t have enough data on them. Also, guys who are playing at Williamsport and the GCL now will be excluded, because a handful of games doesn’t mean a whole lot. With those qualifiers aside, let’s get started.
Phuture Phillies 