All posts by giventofly41

Prospect Matrix

2008 Reader Top 30, Top Prospect Lists

As the season is coming to a close, I thought it would be entertaining to take a look back at predictions heading into the 2008 season. I compiled my Top 30, the consensus Top 30 done by you guys, the Top 30 from Baseball America, and Kevin Goldstein’s Top 11 plus honorable mentions (in yellow) to see who looks smart and who doesn’t look so smart. Or who got lucky. Note, I instructed everyone to ignore Mathieson and Zagurski in their rankings, I think maybe because of the amount of MLB time they had and that I didn’t consider them pure prospects or whatever. Well, that was probably dumb, but it looks like both guys have dropped off the radar, for similar/different reasons. Anyway, here is the chart.

If that image doesn’t properly fit your screen, click here.

Talk amongst yourselves. I gave you a topic.

Phillies sending 8 players to the AFL

9. Winter Leagues

Per Todd Zolecki

Arizona Fall League. The Phillies will send eight players to the Arizona Fall League to play for the Mesa Solar Sox: righthanders Joe Bisenius, Andrew Carpenter and Pat Overholt; lefthander Sergio Escalona; catcher Lou Marson; infielder Jason Donald; and outfielders Quintin Berry and Jeremy Slayden.

No real surprises, with the possible exception of sending Berry instead of Taylor as the one below AA representative. This also tells me Slayden and Overholt will be protected on the 40 man roster, as you wouldn’t really want these guys in the limelight if you didn’t plan on protecting them.

Callups, option years, service time, etc

Other Stuff

As we get close to September 1st, the issue of callups becomes a popular topic, as seen in the Lou Marson article. The rules governing the management of the 25 and 40 man rosters are somewhat confusing. I plan on putting something like this on the wiki site for future reference, but I haven’t had a whole lot of time to devote to that project of late, so I figured I’d just do a writeup here, try and cover all the bases, and I’ll add it over there at a later date. If there is anything related to roster management I don’t cover, post in the comments and I’ll try and add it, and if there are any errors in my post, let me know. I feel like I have a good handle on this, but shocking as it may seem, I’m wrong from time to time.

Continue reading Callups, option years, service time, etc →

Lou Marson article

Other Stuff

Sam Donnellon has a nice article with some quotes from Lou Marson. Lou talks about the excitement about a possible callup. Then of course we get the comments from the Phillies front office on the potential callup of Marson and Donald here.

Next up for Donald and Marson is more time in the Eastern League, then consideration for a September call-up to the Phillies, although neither is a good bet.

“They’re players we’ll talk about,” Arbuckle said. “I think it’s going to come down to need.”

Hey Mike. The big league club has gotten a combined .246/.325/.366 battling line from the C spot this year, I think there might be a need. And you know, Jason Donald’s bat might come in handy, considering the robust .214/.297/.291 line Eric Bruntlett has compiled.

But then again, what do I know?

Daily Discussion; 8/22

Daily Discussion

Before I open the floor for random banter, I wanted to point something out, because its something I’ve seen a lot here this year. There is no anti-Phillies bias in prospect circles. There simply isn’t. From an objective, outside point of view, the Phillies system hasn’t been very good over the last five years. We’ve always been a top heavy system (one or two very good prospects) and we’ve gotten the occasional ML performer on the cheap (Geary, Madson), but our system doesn’t compare with the type of guys that Boston, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and other teams have produced. The system is getting a lot better, and is as strong now as I can remember over the last 10 years. These publications are going to pick up on this and the Phillies will start to move up the rankings. Or maybe they won’t. But it really doesn’t matter. You have to remember also, Baseball America gets a lot of their info directly from the Phillies, and as we’ve chronicled, the Phillies don’t go out of their way to hype up their own guys to the degree that some teams (Mets, Yankees, Red Sox) do. But think about it from a practical standpoint. These places are trying to get more readers every day, and they are competing with other sites just like themselves. What benefit would they see in alienating an entire fanbase and being biased? Keith Law has no rooting interest in the Phillies or any other team. Why would he go out of his way to downgrade our prospects? He works for Scouts Inc/ESPN, ESPN wants as many new customers as possible. He is very consistent in his analysis, and he’s said “I was wrong on him, he’s gotten better since I last saw him” on more than one occasion.

There is no bias. Sometimes players legitimately fly under the radar. It happens in every organization. Now, onto the games…

Continue reading Daily Discussion; 8/22 →

Wednesday Discussion; Top 10 hitting prospects

Other Stuff

Yesterday we tackled our 10 best pitching prospects, so today we’ll open the floor for the hitting side. If you posted your Top 10 hitters in another post (shame on you!) then repost it in the comments here. Again, consider the following 4 conditions;

1. Performance
2. Projection
3. Health
4. Proximity to the majors

Place as much emphasis on each individual aspect as you’d like, then rank them from 1 to 10. I don’t think we’ll have any eligibility issues on this one, so go for it.

Tuesday discussion; Top 10 pitching prospects

Other Stuff

I’m running kind of short on time today. I’m in the middle of working on something interesting to include in my draft recap type post, so today I’m going to just throw out a topic and allow everyone to weigh in and discuss. Today’s topic is simple; list (and rank if you can) the Phillies 10 best pitching prospects. Factor in the following criteria:

1. Performance
2. Projection
3. Health
4. Proximity to the majors

Take these into account in whatever order you feel is most important. You don’t have to take the time to rank them from best to least if you don’t want, but the more people who do, the more interesting the results will be. This also will serve as a tool for me as I want to see what the perception of our guys is. For now, JA Happ is eligible, as he won’t pass the innings mark to disqualify him from ROY voting, so we’ll use that criteria.

D’Arnaud and Taylor make the Ten Pack

Ten Pack/Hot Sheet

Busy day today; Travis D’Arnaud and Michael Taylor show up in Kevin Goldstein’s latest Monday Morning Ten Pack at Baseball Prospectus.

Travis D’Arnaud, C, Low-A Lakewood (Phillies)
During the first half of the season, I felt a little foolish for ranking D’Arnaud ahead of Lou Marson going into the season. While Marson has had a breakout year and is now catching for the Olympic squad, D’Arnaud has certainly kept up his end of the bargain. After batting .309/.371/.463 in the New York-Penn League, the 19-year-old spent his first weekend of full-season baseball over the last three days by going 6-for-13 with a pair of doubles. Athletic and projectable, D’Arnaud has plus defensive tools and above-average power potential. While plenty of teams don’t have a single decent catching prospect, the Phillies have two very good ones.

Michael Taylor, OF, High-A Clearwater (Phillies)
Taylor began the year with a .361/.441/.554 line at Low-A Lakewood which created a mixed reaction. At six-foot-six and 250 pounds, Taylor looks like a potential monster, but at the same time he’s 22 years old and coming of of a highly disappointing three-year career at Stanford that left scouts scratching their heads. Moved up to the Florida State League in mid-June, Taylor continues to bump up his stock by mashing in a much tougher offensive environment, most recently by delivering multi-hit games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to raise his batting line for the Threshers to .342/.392/.546 in 53 contests. There are still questions about what it all means, since both his age and the three-year hole he dug himself in Palo Alto are a lot to make up for in some people’s minds, but the further this goes, the more his doubters fall by the wayside.

Cosart gets $550K

2008 Draft

According to Baseball America, Cosart’s bonus was $550K, or essentially the recommended slot for the 73rd overall pick. I was going to just make a note of this in the bottom of today’s musings post, but this warrants its own mention. I can’t even begin to express how important this is. Add this to the Shreve, Pettibone and May signings, and the Phillies have made a clear statement.

Monday musings

2008 Draft, Savery, Joe

I have a few random (and a few not so random) thoughts today, and then I’ll open the floor for discussion. So lets just get right to it.

* I wanted to make a remark about the recent direction the site has been heading. This is NOT a website for discussing the major league team. If you want to discuss the Phillies, the major league team, there are TONS of websites out there, including a really well written blog here. If you just have to talk about the latest Carlos Ruiz AB, you can find tons of message boards and blogs where that would be appropriate. My sole intention for starting this site was to discuss the minor leagues and the amateur side relating to the Phillies, because I felt that was an area that was lacking. Its my intention to keep it that way. I’ve generally been lenient with regard to moderating these types of discussions, and I’ve allowed lots of non-related talk. Well, from this point on, I’m just going to remove comments that are off topic. Its that simple. If your post disappears, its either because you posted tons of links in one reply (those get caught in moderation momentarily, they’ll show up once approved) or because you posted something that has nothing to do with the minor leagues. Its really disrespectful to my volunteers here who put in a lot of time writing a weekly report to have people discussing Jimmy Rollins or Carlos Ruiz in their weekly post. Its not going to happen anymore.

Continue reading Monday musings →