–A good night for the Phillies minor league system, going 6-1, with most top prospects performing well.

–19 year old first round draft pick Anthony Hewitt signed yesterday for a reported $1.4 million signing bonus.  Reports have him being moved to third base.

In the Gulf Coast League, Anthony Gose was 1-3 with a run and a stolen base, Zach Collier took a collar with an 0-4, and impressive reliever Jordan Ellis pitched another scoreless inning (7.2 IP, 1H, 0ER, 1BB, 7K on the season)in the 4-2 Phils loss.  Box Score

Justin DeFratus pitched well again for Williampsort getting his second win without a loss, and David Schwimmer pitched 4 shutout innings, striking out 6 in relief in the 5-2 win.  Schwimmer, although rocky in his initial outing has struck out 16 in 8 innings.  Box Score

Continue reading Morning Musings →

For the few who haven’t heard, Brett Myers has accepted an assignment to Lehigh Valley (AAA), and apparantly will start Wednesday evening against Scranton.  No annoucement has been made as to who will replace him in the Phils rotation/roster, but the speculation continued to be Happ or Carrasco.

A couple of interesting notes from the GCL Phils game yesterday.  Second Round draft pick Anthony Gose began his minor league career with an 0-2 with a strikeout, while Supplemental First Rounder, Zach Collier, was 1-1 with a double in his debut.  Former Phillie reliever Matt Smith continued his rehab with his first appearance this year and pitched a scoreless inning. 18th round pick, Tyler Cloud, had his second consecutive strong outing going 6 scoreless innings, giving up only 2 hits and striking out 8.

Continue reading Tuesdays Tidbits →

Not a great day for most of the Phils minor league system as: Kris Benson was hit around in his first rehab start at the AAA level.  He was on a pitch count and lasted 4 innings, giving up 4 runs on 5 hits in those 4 innings.  http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2008_06_29_syraaa_lhvaaa_1  While he did hit 93 on one fastball, he hovered mostly around 88-89 mph. He doesn’t look to be the answer for Brett Myers struggles at least at this point.  My vote goes to JA Happ who has pitched extremely well in June.  Gordon to the DL, in the hopes of a healthy September, Myers to the bullpen, and Happ into the rotation.  Could that be worse than what we currently have?  Interesting matchup tonight with Travis Blackley taking on Francisco Liriano.  Yes, that Francisco Liriano. Continue reading Monday Daily Discussion →

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.