A look at the time period of July 4-10….Plenty of good hitting around the organization this week…I am getting disproportionately excited over JP Crawford considering he has less than 75 professional AB’s…I will “bite”, Steve Susdorf should be given a shot to be a left handed bat off the Phils bench…Maikel Franco just keeps plugging along…Good to  to see Nic Hanson back from his injury and performing well…Brody Colvin is pretty much an unmitigated disaster at this stage… Mario Hollands needs to be promoted to Reading.

Hot Hitters: Steve Susdorf (.500); JP Crawford (.500, 4rs, 2SB); Michael Martinez (.455, 6R); Jon Roof (.450, 8R 2HR 11RBI); Andrew Pullin (.440, 7RBI); Maikel Franco (.438); Derrick Mitchell (.429); Jia Tromp (.429); Willie Carmona (.424, 4RBI); Brock Stassi (.350); Cody Asche (.343, 6R 5RBI 3SB); Honorable Mention: Murphy, Gillies, Lerud, Overbeck, Sandberg, Greene, Galvis, Mora, Hernandez Continue reading Hot or Not →

A look at where we are at up the middle throughout the organization.  Plenty to talk about at the top level…

Lehigh Valley

Freddy Galvis, 23, Signed as a free agent in 2006; Hitting .265 in 49 AB’s since being sent down to AAA; 1HR 6RBI; 10 games at SS with 1 error (.979); 2 games at 2B without an error; 1 game at 3B without an error.

Cesar Hernandez, 23, SIgned as a free agent in 2006; .313/.379/.418 in 297 AB’s; 2HR 27RBI; 27/33 SB; .315 vs. LH, .312 vs. RH, .274 with RISP; .327 since June 1; 10%bb/18% k rates; 74 games at 2B with 9 errors (.974); 4.50 R/F; 2 games in the OF without an error; Hernandez has been outstanding this year and extremely consistent as well. He is among the league leaders in several offensive categories and his defense has been well above average as well. Continue reading Around the System–Middle Infield →

Lehigh Valley went 4-5 this week, which ended with a  6-1 victory on Tuesday evening and now stand at 49-45, 4 games behind division leading Pawtucket in the Northern Division of the International League and one game behind Norfolk in the wildcard race.  The ‘Pigs play three more at home this week, before traveling to Syracuse for a short two game series over the weekend prior to the all star break.

‘Pigs Prospects: Cesar Hernandez has been outstanding as of late, hitting over .400 during the past two weeks and continuing to steal bases with a very high success rate.  Notably, Hernandez played a game in CF and has been regularly taking fly balls in the outfield. On the year, Hernandez is hitting .313/.379/.418 with 2HR 27RBI to go along with 27SB.  Hernandez has been extremely solid in the field as well.

Tyson Gillies has hit in 7 of his 8 games since his promotion (7-28) and 16 of his last 19 games if you combine the success he was having in Reading.  Still too early to tell how well the new swing and new maturity? will translate to Lehigh Valley, but there is a glimmer of hope.  On the year, Gillies is hitting a combined .238/.299/.405 between Reading and Lehigh Valley. He has 9HR 26RBI and is 9/14 stealing bases. Continue reading Lehigh Valley Weekly Report →

The always insightful NYPhilsManiac19 has been kind enough to once again give us a guest post after attending a recent Threshers game. 

Around the quarter point mark of the season I did a mailbag soliciting questions from here, email, and Twitter.  I thought it brought out some interesting question and discussions, so I am going to repeat it here.  Feel free to leave questions here or on Twitter (my email is in the writer’s tab at top) for me or any of the writers here.

We will run your questions and our answers later in the week.

Next trip around starts with a look at the corner infield…

Lehigh Valley

Cody Asche, 23, Phils 4th round pick in 2011; .281/.342/.444 in 324 AB’s; 8HR 49RBI; 7SB; .256 vs. LH, .291 vs. RH, .243 with RISP; .304 since June 1; 8%bb/23%k rates. 83 games at 3B with 9 errors (.960); 2.59 R/F. Asche is progressing exactly as you would hope and is ready to take over the Phils 3B position in 2014 if not sooner.

Josh Fields, 30, Signed as a free agent in 2013; .314/.370/462 in 223 AB ‘s; 4HR 32 RBI; 6SB; .382 vs. LH, .279 vs. RH, .358 with RISP; .292 since June 1; 8%bb/28% k rates. 21 games at 1B with 3 errors (.982); 5 games at 3B without an error; 8 games in the OF without an error; Fields has done everything Lehigh Valley has asked and done it well.  The numbers against lefties make me think a Howard/Fields platoon would work much better than Howard alone.

Cody Overbeck, 27, Phils 9th round pick in 2008; .251/.308/.498 in 263 AB’s; 15HR 42RBI; 1SB; .329 vs. LH; .223 vs. RH, .176 with RISP; .299 since June 1; 7%bb/28% k rates; 53 games at 1B with 3 errors (.993); 8.34 R/F. Overbeck has picked it up as of late and may be the best pure power hitter on the team, but the high “k” rate, and low avg. with RISP kill him. Continue reading Around the System–Corner Infield →