Last posting of 2009, and before I get to #7, I wanted to dish out a bunch of thank yous. First off, thanks to everyone who has contributed to the site this year. Without the work of the contributors, whether it be the weekly affiliate reports, the direct contributions from Mr Schwimer, analysis pieces, or helping me add info to the site, this place would be much less interesting and informative, so thank you to everyone involved on that front. Second, thanks to all of the readers here, and those of you who actively participate in the discussions. If you’ve just found the site, or you’ve been here since the beginning, I thank you for continuing to come back and making this all the more worth my while. 2009 was a record setting year for the site, with over 1.5 million hits this calendar year, surpassing the 1.1 million hits last year. August 2009 was the busiest month in the site’s history, with over 240,000 visitors, including the busiest day ever, draftee signing deadline day on August 17th, with 25,000 visitors. However you found this place, I’m glad you did, and I hope you continue to come back. I have a number of projects in the pipeline for 2010, and I hope the site continues to grow. I never imagined the site becoming what it has when I started it on a whim 3 years ago, but I’m proud of where we are, and excited about where we’re going. Now, on to the voting for #7…
Category Archives: 01. Site Features
Reader Top 30; #6
Anthony Gose, who had a solid full season debut in 2009, took the voting for #5 with 46% of the vote. Domingo Santana took 22% of the vote, and it was a mish mash behind those two. Gose now rounds out the top 5, which is Domonic Brown, Trevor May, Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies and Gose. The voting in the next 5 should be interesting, and will be really wide open once we get past the top 10. Without giving away all of my secrets, I had Brown, Gillies and May as my #1, 2 and 3 on my upcoming Top 30. We’ll get to the voting for #6 now…
Reader Top 30; #5
I hope everyone’s holiday went well. Things will be slow from now until after the New Year, so I’ll leave each voting slot open for a few days, but again, we’re in no rush. I’ve been spending some of my down time working on putting some of the SONAR scores up for other teams, and you can find them at the top of the page under the SONAR scores link. I’m doing them as I have time, as well as some other general work on the site. If you notice something is out of place, I’m probably just tweaking things under the hood, no reason to panic. Let’s roll on with the Top 30…
Reader Top 30; #4
The voting for #3 was one of the closest votes we’ve had over the last 2 seasons, with newly acquired Phillippe Aumont edging out his teammate Tyson Gillies for #3. Final vote totals were
Aumont 192
Gillies 164
Gose 85
Santana 60
Valle 23
Cosart 17
Singleton 2
Other 8
Just a reminder. If you vote OTHER, you have to actually post who your vote was for, I don’t see the write-ins for other. Check below the fold for #4
Roster Juggling
Time to take a look at the latest of the Winter Roster moves as the minor league rosters continue to take shape. A number of players were released by the Phils organization, including: Robert Roth, Dan Brauer, Esmelvin Jiminez, Brandan Akashian, Phil Aviola, Francisco Murillo, Cory Wine, Vlad De Los Santos, David Hissey and TJ Warren. I am mildly surprised at Roth, otherwise no big surprises for me here.
A number of minor leaguers were re-signed. Next to their names is where I project them to be next year. P John Ennis (Lehigh Valley), P Jake Woods (Lehigh Valley), P Jason Mackintosh (Reading), C Kevin Nelson (Reading), OF Mike Spidale (Reading), OF/!B Brian Stavisky (Reading), OF Kevin Mahar (Reading/Lehigh Valley), OF Javis Diaz (Clearwater), 2B Fidel Hernandez (Reading) and P Santos Hernandez (Clearwater). Continue reading Roster Juggling
Reader Top 30; #3
The voting for #2 wasn’t quite as close as I thought it would be, but Trevor May comes out on top, collecting 252 of the 683 votes, good for 38%. He was followed by Phillippe Aumont with 142 and Tyson Gillies with 108. I’m really interested to see how the next 5 or 6 play out in the voting. I completed my Top 30 for the upcoming Phillies Annual 2010, which will be released in a few weeks. I’m going to keep my list top secret as to not influence the voting here. Check below the fold for more.
Reader Top 30; #2
Of course there was very little drama in yesterday’s voting, as Domonic Brown is the team’s obvious #1 prospect. The voting from here on out will get more and more interesting, as there is no clear cut obvious guy after Brown. Last year the top 5 or 6 was pretty well defined, this year its much more wide open. I’m not sure how many guys I can add in each day, but I’ll try to get at least 7 names on the poll each time. Remember, you’re free to argue for your guy in the comments section, but please do so in a respectful manner. Check below the fold for the voting on #2
Reader Top 30; #1
As I mentioned in the Halladay analysis, we have to re-start the voting since we just lost 3 of our 4 best prospects and also added 3 more prospects in the deal. So, you know the drill. Vote for 1 prospect per day, highest vote total moves on, and we go till we get to #30. Check below the fold for the first vote…
Taking a step back, our Top 10 now
I just had a brief thought, and I don’t want to add it to my earlier opus, so I’m going to put it here. After losing the prospects we lost, these are the 10 names I put down as our Top 10 of whats left
Domonic Brown, Trevor May, Anthony Gose, Juan Ramirez, Tyson Gillies, Phillippe Aumont, Brody Colvin, Jarred Cosart, Jon Singleton, Sebastian Valle. Arrange them any way you want.
Now compare them to our Top 10 prospects, per Baseball America in their 2006 handbook, which was published before the 2006 season. So in essence, 4 seasons ago.
Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez, Greg Golson, Michael Bourn, Scott Mathieson, Dan Haigwood, Welinson Baez, Mike Costanzo, Brad Harman, Jason Jaramillo
Amaro traded away 7 prospects. And what we have left is still miles better than what we had four years ago without anything resembling the Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay deal in terms of a prospect exodus. I think when you look at it through this lens, and you remember that there are still at least 15 legitimate prospects in the system, it helps take some of the sting out of this. And our system is certainly not empty, we just lost a lot off the top.
Analysis of the Roy Halladay trade
Wow. I think that was probably everyone’s first reaction when the news broke yesterday. The Halladay rumors have been buzzing for over a year, and it finally came to fruition. This deal, as I mentioned in the comments of the other post, is very complex on a number of levels, and is going to require a lot of different angles to be addressed. So I’m going to attempt to do that, looking at it from both the player and salary standpoint, and why it does or doesn’t make sense. I’m sure everyone already has their mind made up, so you can probably skip over my analysis and just post your “We got Halladay, who cares what we gave up” or “This is the worst trade ever” comments and then sit back and watch the reaction. But if you’re bored, give my take a read and see what you think. Check below the fold for more…
Phuture Phillies 