There ya go.

First baseman Andy Tracy’s stay with the Phillies was short-lived.

The Phillies designated him for assignment today and purchased the contract of pitcher Andrew Carpenter from Double A Reading.

Carpenter is being called up largely because the length of last night’s game leaves the bullpen thin. It seems unlikely that Clay Condrey would be available and the Phillies used everyone else. Tonight’s starter, Kyle Kendrick, ended up warming up in the 13th inning and threw about 40 pitches in the bullpen.

Carpenter is 6-8, with a 5.67 ERA in 16 games for Reading.

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 →

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?

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.

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.

It is a bit sad to write about the Reading Phillies these days.  Many of the prospects who started the year at Reading have moved on, either through promotions, trades, or the Olympics.  However, we are left with a few nice prospects at Reading, mostly arms, who might be able to help the big league club in the near future.  Which is nice, because they aren’t helping the Reading Phillies at the moment, as the club lost 5 of 7 games on the week, mostly because of a putrid offense which scored only 24 runs in the 7 games.  Let’s highlight some of the prospects and take a look at what they have done…

Continue reading Reading Phillies Weekly Report (8/6-8/12) →

I’ve searched the interwebs high and low, no official word on Michael Taylor, but the unofficial word I’ve heard is a minor elbow tweak. I expect he’ll be back in a few days. I’ve gotten at least 10 emails asking about him, sorry I haven’t replied, I figured I’d just address it here. Kyle Drabek has now pitched 3 times since returning from TJ surgery, 9 IP – 0.00 ERA – 4 H – 3 BB – 4 K. 2.14 Groundouts to Air Outs. And he’s healthy. This news can only be considered great. And finally, it appears JA Happ isn’t sulking about no longer being in the bigs. He tossed a 6 inning gem two nights ago, striking out 10 and walking only 1 while not allowing a run. He has a 3.05 ERA in his last 59 minor league innings and looks poised to step into the rotation should a need arise. Carlos Carrasco is also loving life in AAA, not allowing an ER in his first two starts, striking out 14 and walking only 2 in 12.2 IP. Today is a good news Tuesday for sure.

Check it. Its pretty standard, but he does give some thoughtful replies. I liked this answer though;

BA: What kind of approach do you like to take to the plate for every at-bat?

MT: I try to have a plan for every single at-bat for every single pitch. I’m not saying it always works out, but I feel like the less at-bats I give away over the course of a 500 AB season, if I give away 50, I may not scrape out 15, 20 more hits, and that’s the difference between hitting .275 and .300. For me, I try to go up there, take every pitch, have my plan—and I know we’re not supposed to be stepping out—but just to clear my head, take what happened and just get my new plan for that next pitch. If I do that, I feel that I have a chance to be successful with my approach.

for Scott Eyre, per Todd Zolecki. Schlitter was drafted last year, he’s a fringe guy, but having a nice run at Clearwater. Eyre is, of course, a “proven veteran” and will give Manuel someone else to choose from instead of having to use Romero, Durbin and Lidge in 5 run games.

Baseball America ran an article today talking about some of the better performers on Team USA thus far, and Marson made the short (well, 10) list.

5. Lou Marson, c, Phillies

Marson defended well behind the plate, though he lacked the sub-2.0 pop times and well above-average arm of teammate Taylor Teagarden. But Marson, 22, was impressive at the plate in BP and in games, showing an easy, balanced swing. Though he only had 10 plate appearances while splitting catching duties with Teagarden, Marson showed an easy, balanced swing in BP and in games. He squared up balls with authority, and his outs were generally well-hit balls in play. Marson also has likely the best batting eye on the team, as he drew nearly as many walks (65) as strikeouts (69) this year with Double-A Reading and leads the Eastern League with a .434 on-base percentage.

Even though Mike Arbuckle thinks he stinks, its nice to see BA hyping him up.