Happy Friday. First, a wrap of yesterday’s action
Lakewood wins 5-4.
Clearwater loses 2-0.
Reading loses 5-2.
Lehigh Valley wins 7-2.
Today’s action below the fold…
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Daily Discussion, 5/22
I’m short on time today, so behave yourselves. Yesterday’s recap
Lakewood wins 3-2.
Clearwater wins 5-1.
Reading loses 15-5.
Today’s action
KG’s NL East notebook
phuturephillies favorite Kevin Goldstein is doing updates of all the farm systems in baseball, and today is the NL East. He has two nuggets of note
Nailing It On Naylor: Profiled in a recent Ten Pack, Australian righty Drew Naylor has a 2.59 ERA in nine starts for Low-A Lakewood, with even better peripheral numbers, including just 39 hits allowed in 59 innings to go with 65 strikeouts and 15 walks. One scout who recently watched Naylor liked what he saw on a scouting level as well. “He needs to tighten some things up, and there is still some real rawness to his stuff, and his command is average, but he has real strikeout pitchability,” said the scout. “He sat at 91-92 with good movement and has a really good put-away curve with a big bend–-almost a 12-6 bend. I liked the arm quite a bit.”
Good Bat, Questionable Glove: Double-A Reading shortstop Jason Donald has rarely given anyone reason to question his hitting, and this year is no different, as he’s hitting .296/.409/.409 in 31 games for the R-Phils. A scout who recently saw Reading fell in with most who have evaluated Donald–-loving the bat, but wondering where he fits in defensively. “I saw the bat really good; that bat will play and carry him to the big leagues and keep him there a while,” said the scout. But the defense? “He’s such a grinder at shortstop-–he makes the plays, but nothing looks easy for him, and he sits back on too many balls while trying to make up for it with his plus arm. He could play second or third, but you wouldn’t want to over-expose him at shortstop.”
Its great to hear on Naylor, obviously, and you have to like that scouts are starting to get in line on Donald’s bat. Again, finding him a home defensively will be the issue. You know, 3B is right near SS, it might not hurt to try….
First Jim Callis mock draft/impending doom
I meant to do a writeup on this before, but it slipped my mind. I just read Callis talking about it again two days ago, so I guess its time to address it, even though I’d just like to ignore it and move on. In his first mock draft, posted a few days ago, Jim Callis at BA projected Anthony Hewitt heading to the Phillies at #24. Here was his writeup
24. PHILLIES. Philadelphia GM Pat Gillick built the Blue Jays’ World Series clubs on sheer athleticism, and the best athlete in this draft is Hewitt. He’s very raw, but that never has scared Gillick. Collier and Hood are two other possibilities.
Projected Pick: ANTHONY HEWITT.
This fits the profile. The Phillies love raw athletes, and they loved them even before Gillick came aboard. Hewitt is an apparent “toolshed”, ala Greg Golson, but from what I remember before Golson was drafted, Hewitt is even more raw. Golson was a highly touted prospect, ranked the 7th best prospect in Texas, which was loaded in 2004. So, how did Hewitt make it here when he wasn’t even ranked by BA in their Top 100 high school seniors?
Daily Discussion; 5/21
Yesterday seemed to go well, so we’ll follow suit today. Quick recap of yesterday’s action
Lakewood lost 3-1.
Clearwater won 9-3.
Reading lost 3-0.
Lehigh Valley won 6-5.
Here’s a look at today’s action, as 3 of 4 teams play with Lehigh Valley having the day off
Some draft tidbits
Baseball America has an article today talking about the choices for pick 1.1, and while that doesn’t really pertain to the Phillies, near the bottom of the article there were two interesting tidbits.
Front-office executives contacted for this story said MLB had yet to inform clubs about the 2008 slot recommendations. However, the enforcer of MLB’s slot system last season, former MLB vice president Frank Coonelly, has taken over as president of the Pirates. Pittsburgh picks second overall, and Coonelly said in his introductory press conference that the Pirates wouldn’t be beholden to a slot bonus and would do what they needed to improve the club. He has reiterated the point since.
One NL scouting director commented, “Everyone will be waiting to see on Pittsburgh. Is (Coonelly) going to step out of the system?” If the Pirates do, the director predicted, other teams could follow suit, though those decisions will be driven more by ownership than scouting directors.
MLB officials already have informed clubs of several small changes to the slotting program. Last year, teams were told to not give any player selected after the fifth round bonuses higher than $123,300, the slot for the last pick of the fifth round. This year, clubs have been informed they can go up to $250,000 for bonuses for two players without having to run those bonuses through the commissioner’s office.
Also, MLB sent a memo to clubs telling them in effect to take the player they want and not to worry about signability—though this should not be seen as a signal to spend heavily. It’s more likely a case of the commissioner’s office providing more flexibility to scouting directors who are disgruntled about the effect of slotting on the draft, though it’s uncertain whether owners will actually open their wallets. Agents are certainly still trying to steer their players toward more free-spending clubs, according to area scouts.
This is pretty interesting. Then again, the Phillies took a pick last year they thought they could sign (Workman), then didn’t when they realized what it would take to sign him. Hopefully the Phillies have a plan with regard to what they can spend and they draft accordingly. Oh, and lets not draft any 4th/5th year seniors in the first 8 rounds just so we can give them well under slot bonuses. Thanks.
New feature; Daily Discussion
As I’ve watched site readership grow, the thing that I’m most excited about is the number of active commenters we have, as discussion is really what makes this site tick. With this also comes unintended consequences, namely specific posts getting taken off topic with discussions not really relevant to that post. Because I try to give his place a “website” feel, as opposed to just a run of the mill blog, I try to keep everything on track. But I think I’ve figured out how to do that, and how to also promote plenty of discussion as well. Every morning I’m going to start a new thread called the daily discussion. In that, I’ll post the games for the Phillies affiliates that day. You can use that post every day to discuss the day’s relevant games, or any other random topic related to Phillies prospects. If you want to ponder trading Savery, Cardenas and Carrasco for Joe Blanton, you can ponder it in the daily discussion. My goal is to try and keep the other topics on topic. I don’t want to talk about the major league team in Jeff’s weekly Clearwater post, because he spends time working on it, and we should be discussing the things he touches on, and the Clearwater team, not lots of other random stuff. So now we’ll have an outlet for the random discussion, and hopefully it promotes even more discussion. So, check below the fold for today’s games…
Josh Outman talks about his old motion
Here’s a real nice interview with Josh Outman at Baseball Prospectus, with Josh focusing on his old delivery, the difficulties of changing (both mental and physical), and the challenges he’s had to overcome. This was my favorite question/answer
DL: Phillies assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle was quoted as saying that you probably would have been drafted much lower had you not changed your motion, because people would have been afraid of the injury factor. What are your thoughts on that?
JO: I think that was an assumption made under faulty information. What I was taught actually took stress off of my arm, so there wasn’t full comprehension on how my motion worked. Using a vertical arm position freed up my rotator cuff and enabled the use of the larger pectoral and abdominal muscle groups rather than the smaller deltoids and various other shoulder muscles. It used my lats to slow my arm down rather than just the posterior deltoids, and because those are larger, stronger muscles that can withstand more force it took a large workload off of my shoulder muscles. And eliminating the leg kick in lieu of a normal walking step, I was expending less energy to get the same production from my body, while sparing my throwing arm much of the wear and tear associated with pitching.
This is just another in the long line of instances where because something “doesn’t look right”, a guy is downgraded or given less attention, even though what he is doing might be working just fine. It’s good to see Josh has been able to climb the ladder and progress as a prospect while basically learning how to pitch again from scratch.
Mathieson has 2nd TJ surgery
Found at the bottom of this article. At this point, just cross your fingers, hope for the best, and cast all expectations for Mathieson, including time tables, right out the window. All you can hope for is that the surgery is successful and he can recover. The Phillies will surely be as conservative as possible with his recovery this time, which they should done last time. Lets just hope for the best.
Door open to land Tanner Scheppers
Baseball America has the update today;
Jonathan Mayo has reported in his blog and Baseball America has confirmed with two scouts that Fresno State junior righthander Tanner Scheppers has a stress fracture in his shoulder and will not be able to throw for six weeks. This is obviously a significant blow to the draft stock of a player who had a strong chance to go in the top 10 picks in June, not to mention a crippling blow to Fresno State’s postseason aspirations.
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There are just five college starting pitchers who are regarded as sure-fire first-round picks, so Scheppers going down figures to boost Tulane righthander Shooter Hunt’s chances to go in the top 10 and help Eastern Kentucky lefthander Christian Friedrich sneak up close to the top 10. It also could impact the back half of the first round, where clubs might reach for a college pitcher like California’s Tyson Ross if they don’t feel comfortable taking a risk on Scheppers. Whoever does land Scheppers will get a high-upside talent at a spot in the draft that would have seemed very unlikely up until this week.
So, how does this immediately impact the Phillies? Well, the Phillies were only able to land Cole Hamels because he was coming off an arm injury, and they turned the same trick last season, taking an injury risk in Joe Savery who slid down draft boards because of the uncertainty surrounding his labrum. Scheppers was being pegged as a potential Top 10 guy, I had him at 13 in yesterday’s mock draft, and this should slide him down lots of boards. The Phillies are picking lower in the first round than they have in a long time, and Scheppers will likely be the most talented guy available. Clearly they’d have to really make sure his arm is sound and he’s fully healed, but this could really work in the Phillies favor.
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