Today I was thinking I’d share my biggest surprise of the young season, and ask you for your biggest surprise, whether its a player playing really well or a guy struggling. I know which guy most people are going to talk about, so instead I’ll go for a guy who has kind of flown under the radar, despite getting off to an excellent start. The Phillies jumped Matt Spencer over Lakewood, despite him not having the greatest of debuts, and so far, he’s responded.

Continue reading Tuesday thoughts… →

I heard there were riots in the streets of Allentown last night after the first win of the season. I should probably not mention anything else in this post, for fear of detracting attention away from win #1 in franchise history. But because the Iron Pigs stink like, well, pigs, we’ll turn our attention to something a tad more important. Is something wrong with Andrew Carpenter? Something might be, and it might be something I’ve discussed at length in other places; the Rule of 30.

Continue reading The Iron Pigs win →

Rather than do a bunch of box score recaps, I wanted to instead talk about a few theoretical practices and things I’ve seen in comments over the last few days, as I think they are very important issues and have a direct impact on our farm system. Along those same lines, I wanted to kindly ask that we try and stay on topic within each post, as theres really no reason to be discussing whether the Phillies should re-sign Ryan Howard in a Clearwater Threshers related post. To combat this, I’ll make a post each day, even if its brief, to just quickly recap the action from the previous day, and then you can feel free to discuss any of the games from the current day in said post. So, if you want to discuss what happens in tonights games, you can do it here. Now, onto my musings

Continue reading Monday musings →

Just a few brief discussion points

* Michael Durant is on fire. Durant just turned 21 in January, and while his pro career has been a disappointment to date, you gotta at least feel some sense of excitement over his 9/19, 2 HR start. Of course he’s also struck out 6 times and hasn’t walked. But yeah, 2 HR is nice.

* Jason Donald hasn’t played since being hit on the hand with a pitch. I’ve searched, I haven’t found an official diagnosis, I can only assume the Phillies are going to be cautious with him.

* Dan Brauer is back on the mound again, which is a good sign. I was really high on him heading into 2007, but his season was derailed because of injuries. He has labrum surgery in his past, which is always a worry, but hopefully he can remain healthy. If he does, and if the team moves him to relief, he could be on the very fast track. He’s already 24, so time is of the essence.

* Out of the shackles of pitcher friendly Lakewood, Adrian Cardenas is lighting the FSL up, going 13/29 with 3 2B to open the season. I pointed out last year that his home/road splits indicated he would see a bump in Clearwater, so far so good.

Hat tip to Squire for this in yesterday’s post.

Lehigh Valley – LHP James Happ
Reading – RHP Andrew Carpenter
Clearwater – LHP Joe Savery
Lakewood – RHP Drew Naylor

If that proves to be true, you have 4 prospects starting 4 games. That won’t happen every night, but its certainly a welcomed sight. I’ll do full recaps of the games tomorrow, and we’ll be under way.

Just a heads up, for those of you who are ready to start following box scores. Opening day is tomorrow for Lakewood, Clearwater, Reading, and Lehigh Valley. We’ll get an idea what the lineups and rotations are going to look like after the first few games. This season, unlike last, there should be plenty of guys worth following at AA and AAA, and plenty of new faces in the lower levels as well. Next week we’ll start with our affiliate reports, with Lakewood on Tuesday, Clearwater on Wednesday, Reading on Thursday and Lehigh Valley on Friday. Here’s to a great minor league season.

If you look at the top of the site, you’ll now see a link called “ML Rosters”, which will basically be a simple place to keep track of who is playing at what level. I’ll work on filling them in, but any of our contributors can also edit their respective team’s roster once the season starts. Eventually, I’ll try and spruce it up a bit, but for now, it should get the job done.