A ton of great questions coming in this week so without anything further here are the answers to your questions

Mitch_Rupert says: If you were forced to pick one team throughout minor league baseball to watch every game they played this year, which team would you have picked at the beginning of the season?

I love this question.  The first thing I did was look up where top talent was playing to start the year and the teams that jumped out were Hickory Crawdads (TEX, SAL), Quad City Bandits (HOU, MWL), Ceder Rapids Kernals (MIN, MWL), Memphis Redbirds (STL, PCL), and Portland Seadogs (BOS, EAS).  In the end I love low minors talent and I would take the Quad city Bandits because going into the year you knew you were going to get Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers, Rio Ruiz, and eventually the #1 pick in the draft (which ended up being Mark Appel).  Additionally coming into the year the Midwest League was really strong on talent and it would be good to have caught Buxton, Seager, Urias, Ynoa, Fried, and Almora.  I live in the middle of the MWL right now (Madison, WI) and my job has brought me to Cedar Rapids multiple times, but I never did get to a game while Buxton was there, but nonetheless there is a ton of talent and a great baseball atmosphere.

If I were to pick a Phillies affiliate it would have been the GCL Phillies. Continue reading End of the Minor League Season Mailbag →

On July 2, 2012 the Phillies spend just over a million combined on a pair of Dominican 16 year olds. They were both consensus Top 20 J2 prospects and the latest in a line of increased Latin American budget for signings. The Phillies brought both stateside in 2012 for the Florida Instructional League before they started their professional careers in the GCL for 2013. Both have had struggles at times but the arrow is point upwards for both of them. Continue reading Prospect Spotlight: Deivi Grullon and Jose Pujols →

Only a week or so left in the minor league regular season, so it is time for another set of questions and answers. Like always I will take questions here, on Twitter, and by email. I also encourage you to direct questions at gregg (who has seen many more games than me this year) or at Brad (who is much funnier than I am and headline writer extradornaire).

Questions don’t have to be limited to the Phillies minor league system (majors, minors, life, beer, etc), but keep them tasteful.

With three weeks left in the season the Phillies send JP Crawford north to New Jersey.  The move allows them to showcase the new star in the system while freeing up some GCL ABs.  This could mean Quinn won’t be back for the regular season or that they would like to work him back at the GCL complex.  Either way a nice chance for Crawford to get his feet wet.

I haven’t had a chance to really write anything recently (though there is a Zach Green piece in the works), and I likely won’t do another mailbag for a week or so, so I thought it might be nice to have an informal thread to ask specific questions you are looking for answers from me (though anyone with a good response feel free to jump in).  If there is anything that does not fit into a quick response I reserve the right to add it to the next mailbag or write a full response column to it.

My only request is that you start a new post for each new question and make sure that your replies are in reply to the original question so that it keeps this as clean as possible.

Luis Encarnacion turned 16 today and the Philllies immediately signed him to an amateur contract with a $1 million signing bonus.  Rather than have me paraphrase it, here is Baseball America’s report on the signing http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/phillies-sign-no-4-international-prospect-luis-encarnacion/.

Encarnacion will be limited in his defensive profile, but if he develops at least a plus hit tool and plus power, the position will not matter.  BA comps him to Allen Craig and Billy Butler.  It is tough to rank Encarnacion on any Phillies prospect lists until people see him outside of the showcase events.  If the Phillies follow past precedent they will bring him stateside for Florida Instructional League before starting him in the GCL in 2014.

The Phillies have sent Tommy Joseph home due to lingering concussion symptoms.  Joe Jordan has said that they may move him to another position in spring training.  First base seems to be the only option and Joseph’s bat is not special at first and makes him a borderline non-prospect.  There will likely be more coming out on this over the next few days.

The important thing here is Joseph’s health.  Concussions are very serious and it is Joseph’s best long term interest to not be put in a situation that good cause another one, the long term risks are too great.

I had these grand plans of a full re-ranking and write-up to fit on all the new prospects from the deadline, but that didn’t happen.  Instead I am going to highlight some guys I think are trending up and guys I think are trending down.  That will be followed be a list of 30 names and numbers that you are free to pick apart but please realize was rendered obsolete at 4pm central time on August 7 when I stopped tinkering with it.  For reference here is the original mid-season list https://phuturephillies.com/2013/06/18/midseason-top-20/

Trending Down:

Maikel  France/Jesse Biddle: Yes Franco went on a tear in AA, yes they are both still in the exact same spots on the rankings, but I think the gap between them and the rest of the system has closed for a variety of reasons.  For Biddle the command is a real worry because the allure was always the safety in the profile, now there are some doubts in whether he does have the high floor we thought he had.  Franco started off red hot in AA but over the past 25+ games his strikeout rate has trended towards career rates while the walk rate remains low, additionally he is not hitting for a ton of power over that stretch.  I have real worries that the swing/approach will continue to limit the utility of the power until fixed. Continue reading Mid Season Ranking Supplement →

Today Mike Drago of the Reading Eagle reported that the Phillies will be converting Austin Wright to a full time reliever (Brody Colvin back to the rotation).  The move is one that I thought would come eventually but did not expect right now.  More interesting to the move is what Joe Jordan said which piqued my interest.

Mike Drago ‏@mldrago52m

Philles are converting Reading’s Austin Wright to the bullpen. He’s 5-5, 6.09 in 16 starts; pitching better lately after DL stint #phillies

Mike Drago ‏@mldrago30m

Joe Jordan on Austin Wright: “We really feel he’s got a couple pitches that have a chance to play really good out of the bullpen.” #phillies Continue reading Austin Wright to the Bullpen and Converting Starters to Relievers →