Dan, who joined us for the first part of 2009 as the Lakewood correspondent is back this season to cover Lakewood. Jeff is also rejoining us for Threshers coverage, while Zac and Gregg will take care of Reading and Lehigh Valley. Thanks to those of you who expressed interest.
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Looking for a Lakewood correspondant
Updating this, since Jeff has come back aboard. I’m looking for someone to write the weekly Lakewood report this year, with the report coming on either Monday or Thursday. If you’d be interested, drop an email to phuturephillies at gmail dot com. Thanks.
Off the grid, version 4.0
Or whatever version we’re on. I have to have my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow. So I plan on ingesting quite a few pills and sleeping for 3-4 days, hence my absence here. If any of the contributors here want to put a post up discussing spring training info or anything else, feel free, but I probably won’t be checking in until sometime next week. Thanks.
My top 30 prospects for 2009
I was going to do a really long writeup, I started to, I started to really dig into it, and then for some reason, I kind of lost the drive to do it. That might be a bad sign going forward, but I still wanted to put out my top 30 list. I’m going to still write up brief blurbs, but I’m not going to put lots of bells and whistles with it. I basically just want to give my list and some brief reasoning, and if anyone has problems/issues/questions, I’ll try to follow the comments for a few days and respond. So….
Random thought……
John Mayberry Jr’s setup at the plate, and his profile, reminds me a bit of Mike Cameron with a bit less speed. Am I off base there?
Modest OB%, good power, decent speed. In his career, Cameron has hit lefties much better than righties, the same thing I’m expecting out of Mayberry.
Spring training games start today
I was planning on rolling out some college baseball related info today, but its taking longer than I expected, and I want to devote the next few days to working on my Top 30. So instead, I’m going to push the college baseball stuff back. I’m sure some prospects will see game action today, so we’ll have something to talk about. You can talk about it here until my Top 30 hits the site.
PECOTA and Phillies prospects, 2009 edition
Last year I took a look at how PECOTA, the Baseball Prospectus forecasting system, felt about Phillies prospects. The two metrics I used were UPSIDE and Beta, and I’ll use the same numbers again this year. For a full explanation of these metrics, check last year’s post here. Basically, the higher the UPSIDE the better, and the lower the beta, the more reliable the forecast is. PECOTA is unique, in that it takes many more factors into account than your typical projection system. If you’re unfamiliar with PECOTA, here is a good primer. For reasons that I don’t know, only three of our position player prospects have PECOTA’s, in Marson, Mayberry and Harman. My guess is that has to do with them being on the 40 man roster. But there are 13 pitching prospects with PECOTA’s, many of whom aren’t on the 40 man, so I have no idea. I’m going to try and get ahold of someone at BP and find out what the story is there. When/if Donald and others have forecasts, I’ll write up a supplemental post. But for now…
Continue reading PECOTA and Phillies prospects, 2009 edition
Schedule
Just wanted to give a quick heads up. This is subject to change, but right now here is my plan
Tuesday: PECOTA and the Phillies prospects
Wednesday: A look at some college baseball related things
Friday: My personal Top 30
So stay tuned.
Interesting tidbit from Keith Law on the draft
ESPN has added a draft blog, and Keith Law will be adding tons of stuff there leading up to the draft. Law had this to say
Based on my own evaluations and conversations with many scouts and scouting directors, the pool of first-round talent seems to run only about 20 players deep; since the first round has 32 selections this year, we could see some teams calling audibles at the end of the round, overdrafting players who’ll sign at discounts or taking players they like but whom the industry views as second- or third-round talents.
While I’m still bitter we tossed away a first round pick on Ibanez, this draft class, at least at first glance, doesn’t appear to be especially stacked, especially in the range where we’d have picked. If the Phillies can employ a strategy of grabbing 2-3 premium talents that slip a bit, they could still end up with an above average haul in 2009.
First thoughts on the 2009 draft
Everyone here knows how much I love the draft. Part of the luster from this year’s draft is gone because we won’t have a first round pick and will pick near the end of the second round, but as always, I’m excited about the draft nonetheless. Steven Strasburg is the clear #1 pick, Grant Green is likely the 2nd best player in the draft, and the Phillies will be looking much further down the board. While we need to target the best player available with our first few picks, what areas of the system do we really need to strengthen? My first glance, when looking at our current prospects, is that we need to focus on corner infielders, as well as middle infielders. We have a glut (relatively speaking) in the outfield, as well as at catcher. I suppose we could also use a few more prospects with plus raw power, as Taylor is really our only legit power prospect. And I suppose it never hurts to have a few more arms, particularly lefties.
I’m getting close to unveiling my new prospect evaluation toy I’ve been building, and I will also crank out my Top 30 list, hopefully by the end of next week. And once spring training games start, we can monitor the progress of Jason Donald, Carlos Carrasco, Lou Marson, and others. Should be fun to watch, so stay tuned.
Phuture Phillies 