Happy Friday. Its an especially happy Friday for me, as I leave later today for my first true vacation in years. I’ll be out of town until July 7th, and in addition to relaxing and unwinding, I’ll get to see at least one or two Cape Cod League baseball games. I haven’t been to Cape Cod since I was a kid, so I’m looking forward to that part of the trip quite a bit. Gregg, our faithful Lehigh Valley correspondent, is going to start a daily thread while I’m gone. Feel free to discuss anything you’d like, but please do be civil in my absence. This place has really taken off over the last 6 months, its due in large part to you, the daily reader, so just be nice to each other while I’m gone. With all of that said, a few parting thoughts…

Continue reading Friday thoughts; vacation →

Its Team USA v Team World again. The Phillies representatives, per Baseball America

LOU MARSON C
Double-A Reading/Phillies
After a slow start to his pro career offensively, Marson has improved markedly the last two seasons, showing improved power and a better ability to make consistent contact.

JASON DONALD SS
Double-A Reading/Phillies
Donald’s production as a pro has mirrored his college career at Arizona, only now he’s using wood bats. His steady approach and defensive versatility stand out.

GREG GOLSON OF
Double-A Reading/Phillies
Packed with offensive potential, Golson was having his best minor league season before a sprained left wrist sidelined him in June.

CARLOS CARRASCO RHP
Double-A Reading/Phillies
The Phillies’ top prospect since Cole Hamels graduated to the majors, Carrasco has flashed an improved curveball to complement his fastball and changeup this season

Golson likely won’t play, and its not a rule that he’ll be replaced by another Phillie.

In his latest Rumblings column, under a tidbit about the Phillies interest in Erik Bedard

• The Carlos Carrasco Watch: Carlos Carrasco is no household name to most fans. But among the scouting community, he’s the most-watched pitcher in the entire Phillies system — a 21-year-old right-handed rocket-launcher the Phillies would have to agonize over seriously before trading. One scout’s review: “Why is this guy still in Double-A? He’s a big-time arm with quality stuff who could eventually be a top-of-the-rotation guy. I don’t see them trading him. I really don’t.”

Its good to see that scouts are still very high on Carrasco. Obviously.

As I talked about last week, my newest obsession is the Pitch Count estimator I built in Microsoft Excel, as well as the Game Score calculator I built into the same file. My goal is to have people post the pitch counts of games when they find them, so we can try to figure out if this method has validity, and how accurate it is. It was then pointed out to me that milb gives pitch counts for all AAA games. While we don’t have many pitching prospects in AAA, we do have JA Happ, so I decided to plug all of his starts into the formula and get the estimates, and then compare the estimates to his actual pitch counts, which I hoped would give me an idea of how accurate the model is. So, lets get to it…

Continue reading Pitch Count Estimator v Reality, vol 1 →

Just a few random tidbits today

* JA Happ had one of the best starts of his professional career last night, going 6 shutout innings allowing only 1 hit, walking 2 and striking out 9. Its been a somewhat inconsistent season for Happ, and despite the Phillies hinting Carrasco would be the first callup, I think its still Happ. Unlike Carrasco, he’s on the 40 man roster, and he’s pitched very well over the last month or so, sporting a 2.92 ERA in 24.2 June innings, walking only 6 while striking out 28.

* Brad Harman has HR in back to back games. Is it time for his annual second half surge? He has 7 HR this season after hitting 13 all of last year in Clearwater. If he can get into the 15-18 range with a big second half, it would help his cause to become a future big league utility guy. At this point there’s nowhere for him to start, but if his bat continues to develop he could find a role on the team at some point next season.

* Vance Worley got his big league career off on the right foot, going 4 innings and allowing only 1 hit and 0 walks to go along with 4 K. As a college guy, Worley should do well in the NYPL, which also generally favors pitchers in a big way. While he seems like a guy who could probably move very quickly if converted to a late inning reliever, he’s always had good raw stuff, he just hasn’t unlocked it. So far so good.

* After getting lit up on June 8th, Edgar Garcia has thrown back to back solid outings, the latest being last night’s 7 innings of 2 run ball, allowing 5 hits and a walk to go with 8 strikeouts. The knock on Garcia at this point is inconsistency, but he’s only 20 and pitching well in the FSL. If you remove his nightmarish 1.2 IP, 6 ER outing 3 starts ago, his overall line is 71.2 IP — 3.41 ERA — 70 H — 19 BB — 68 K….nothing wrong with that. Consistency will be key for him as he continues to climb.

Just a quick note here. I’m looking for someone to take care of the Reading duties. You’ve seen the great work that Dan, Jeff and Gregg do here for Lakewood, Clearwater, and Lehigh Valley, I’m looking for someone to do similar work with Reading. You don’t have to attend games, though I will give some preference to someone who can get to games if I have a lot of interest. You only need to have good writing skills and the ability to publish one report a week on Thursdays. If you’re interested, send me an email with “Reading Correspondent” in the title.

I’m short on time today, so just a few general thoughts for you, and you can use this as an avenue to discuss today’s games.

* I jinxed Lou Marson by devoting an entire section of the site to him. Clearly the baseball gods saw this and punished Lou. I’ve removed it, so I expect that after a brief waiting period, he will resume raking.

* Sabastian Valle, who doesn’t turn 18 for another month, already has 4 extra base hits in 2 games. Not bad eh? With Marson, Jaramillo, d’Arnaud and Valle, we have four prospects that could make a case for our top 30. Can anyone remember a time when our minor league system had better catching depth?

* After another poor outing for Josh Outman, my belief that he should have been left a starter and Carpenter converted to relief has only strengthened. Outman’s arm is too good to languish in the bullpen, and he hasn’t proven he can’t start. Carpenter, on the other hand, has fringy stuff, and seems like the type of guy who’s stuff would actually play up a tick as a reliever. Sure, he’s not lefthanded, but it doesn’t really matter at this point if Outman can’t get guys out either. Carpenter is back in Clearwater, and while he’s shown some positive results since coming off the DL, it really doesn’t tell us anything, as he did the same thing there last year. He needs to get back to Reading and prove he can get out AA hitters, or he needs to be converted to a reliever where he can help the big league club.

Any other random thoughts are welcome, sorry for the briefness of this. Happy Monday.

This is a quick call for help. As I mentioned in the comments section of a previous entry, I’m going to start keeping track/estimating pitch counts for our starting pitchers across all levels. I’ve developed a spreadsheet to easily calculate these formulas using tangotiger’s equation he developed. Its not 100%, no estimate can be 100%, but its very accurate, and my margin of error is probably 1-3 pitches on either side. What I need from you, my devoted and loyal readers, is help with finding actual pitch counts. As I’ve detailed, minorleaguebaseball.com does not give pitch counts in box scores, so we’ll have to rely on people listening to games, seeing it in newspaper articles, or any other place you can find it. I’m creating a page at the top of the site simply called “Pitch Count Log”. If you are listening to a game, or watching a game, or attending a game and you can get the official pitch count, please post it there as a comment. Just use this format

Date — Pitcher — # of pitches

So for last night, you’d do

6/19/08 — Brummett — 122 pitches

I’m focusing on starters at this point, but I may dig into reliever usage later as well.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. I plan on using this data in a number of ways, and I’ll begin to incorporate it into the profile pages this winter.

Hot off the presses at BA, the Phillies appear to be one of the front runners for Adis Portillo, a Venezuelan ranked right behind highly touted Michel Inoa. BA says this

As the international signing period approaches on July 2, the biggest name among pitchers in Latin America after Michel Inoa is Adis Portillo.

Portillo, a 16-year-old righthander from Maricaibo, Venezuela, is a hard-thrower with a fastball that has ranged from 88-92 mph, touching 93. International scouts love Portillo’s size—a wiry 6-foot-3 frame—and arm strength, though his present control leaves something to be desired.

“I saw him and we liked him,” said one international scouting director. “He’s got a good arm and he’s a big kid with a great body and a good feel for a breaking ball.”

The Royals apparently have strong interest, but the Padres and Phillies appear to be the top contenders for Portillo, who has been linked to both teams in potential deals of at least $1.5 million. One international scout said Portillo has been asking for $2 million, although it’s questionable whether any team will meet that price.

Continue reading Phillies in for Adis Portillo? →

Just a few random musings today

* I’ve added a few more player profiles in Carlos Monasterios and Jeremy Slayden. If you look on the left side and see a player’s name, but no profile link, it means I’ve got him on the list of players to do. But as you can tell, I have a lot more guys to add. If you see someone who isn’t listed that you think needs a profile, please list it here. I can figure it out too, but it will help when I’m creating them if I can just look somewhere and see a list of guys I need to add.

* The Lou Marson watch has been added!

* As you may have read, Michael Taylor and Drew Naylor have been promoted to Clearwater along with personal favorite Ben Pfinsgraff. Probably overdue. As I’ve mentioned on Taylor, I’m still going to wait until the end of the year to judge, but at this point he’s looking like a solid prospect and this is more than a fluky 2 months. We’ll wait and see.

* Had Taylor not been promoted, the Phillies may have had a realistic chance of winning 3 batting titles in one season. Taylor was comfortably leading the SAL with a .361 average, 17 points better than his closest competitor. Adrian Cardenas is hitting .316 and is 20 points behind the league leader in the FSL, and Lou Marson is 3rd in the EL at .348. Its sure nice to see non-mercenary Phillies at the top of these leaderboards, isn’t it?