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.
Category Archives: 01. Site Features
Monday quick hits
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.
Looking for help gathering information
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.
Phillies in for Adis Portillo?
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.
Kevin Goldstein’s Top 100 Update
Over the next few days Kevin Goldstein is going to do brief blurbs on his Top 100 guys. Here are the udpates on Carrasco and Savery
68. Carlos Carrasco, RHP, Phillies
Eligible Next Year? Yes
Production: 3.78 ERA at Double-A (88-85-32-85)
Stock Report: He’s missed more bats at Double-A this time around, but remains a bit more hittable than one would like. Still, it’s a slight step forward.
96. Joe Savery, LHP, Phillies
Eligible Next Year? Yes
Production: 4.69 ERA at High-A (78.2-99-33-64)
Stock Report: Down. After a good start to the season, Savery has been getting hammered of late, giving up 57 hits in his last 35 2/3 innings. Some scouts are worried that something else is wrong, as his stuff has been way off as well.
An injury might explain Savery’s very mixed results. Hmm.
EDIT –> This is an update of his 2008 preseason Top 100, not a current Top 100 or a projected Top 100 next year. “Eligible Next Year” has to do with projected prospect eligibility for next season.
Thursday quick hits
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?
BlueClaws players shine in SALLY All-Star game
In a game featuring the best of the best, Lakewood clearly demonstrated that it has players that can clearly play with the best of them. Michael Taylor, who began the game batting cleanup went 2-5, with an RBI double. Any doubt about Michael Durant‘s ability to come back from injury? Forget it – as the North’s DH, Durant went 2-5, scoring twice and hitting a two-run homerun in the 8th inning. Joel Naughton came in for the North in the 7th inning, to go 1-2 while scoring a run. From a defensive standpoint, it is worth noting that four of the six hitters to come to the plate while Naughton was catching struck out. The performance only helped to cement Naughton’s place as the top defensive catcher in the SAL. On the year, Naughton has caught twenty-seven would-be stealers, at a 46.6% rate, ranking hiim first among all catchers in the SAL.
Drew Naylor was named the game’s Most Outstanding Pitcher. On a night where no pitcher threw more than one inning, Naylor made his count, throwing a perfect inning in the 6th. After inducing a ground-out for the first out, Naylor struck out the rest of the side in earning the award.
Encouraging signs from Julian Sampson
I was very high on Julian Sampson coming into this season, ranking him #18 on my top 30 prospects list entering the season despite him only making one pro appearance prior to 2008. The Phillies got aggressive with Sampson, assigning him to Lakewood. I suspected he might struggle early on, as he was still a raw product out of the Pacific Northwest, but I figured he’d slowly turn the corner and adjust well once he got going. It looks like my suspicions may have been correct. Lets take a look at some splits
Monday’s random musings
Just some random Monday notes…
* According to the Reading Eagle, Greg Golson has a wrist problem, and Antonio Bastardo has some shoulder inflammation. I wonder if the wrist injury might explain Golson’s recent run of bad form.
* Lou Marson’s stat line, as of right now; .356/.459/.454 How about the best stat lines for some of today’s elite catchers in their minor league career
Mauer, age 20 (A+/AA): .338/.396/.434
Martin, age 22 (AA): .311/.430/.423
McCann, age 20 (A+): .278/.332/.494
Martinez, age 23 (AA): .336/.413/.576
Sweet Lou’s OB% obliterates the competition, as does his batting average. Last Friday, during the BA Hotsheet Chat, Ben Badler made this comment about Marson;
Do you think Lou Marson is a true .353 hitter, or do you think there might be a bit of noise and good fortune in those numbers? I like Marson’s line-drive approach and his knowledge of the strike zone. So when Marson is back to hitting .280 (or maybe .260, his career minor league average) and slugging in the high 300s, how valuable is that? I think his power has the potential for some moderate growth, but 220 or so good PAs aren’t going to turn a guy into a star prospect. That’s not to say I don’t think he can be a big league regular… let’s just not get carried away.
While I understand the skepticism, to a degree, I think we’re past the point where you can call this fluky. Sure, Marson isn’t gonna hit .360 for the entire season, and he’s not a .350+ hitter, but the plate discipline is for real, as he’s shown that ability in prior seasons. The only thing left is the power, but power is often late to develop for catchers, and Marson still has some projection left in terms of growth, as he doesn’t turn 22 for another couple weeks.
Do we have any “untouchable” prospects?
As you may know, I try to keep this site geared towards prospects and resist the temptation to complain about the big league club (or praise them, for that matter), and try to stick to just talking about minor league action/the draft and stuff like that. But this is a very relevant topic, and it broke out in the Clearwater Report, so I figured I’d give it its own service here. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this, so here is your chance to weigh in. Depending on how the Phillies play over the next 6 weeks, they could be looking to make a trade for a starting pitcher, though right now the rotation looks solid. So that begs the question, who would you trade and who would you not trade in our current minor league setup, and for who would you trade them? Let’s take a look at our most tradeable assets.
Phuture Phillies 