–Excellent outing today from Joe Savery in Reading, earning his eighth win of the still young season, while throwing six shutout innings, giving up just one hit.

—Jeremy Slayden has 7 RBI’s in his first 9 at bats, since being sent down from Lehigh Valley to Reading.

–The Magic Number for Lakewood for their first half championship is currently at seven.  Trevor May is making  his season debut in Game Two of the Blue Claws doubleheader tonight. May was the Phils 4th round pick in the 2008 draft out of Kelso High School in Washington, and received a $375,000 signing bonus last season.

An area that probably deserves a bit more discussion is the back end of the bullpen.  Have at it. Continue reading Daily Discussion →

Just a few quick notes to get the day started:

In Lehigh Valley, Justin Lehr was named the International League Pitcher of the Week (5/10–5/10) for the second time this year, while in Reading Vance Worley was named the Eastern League Pitcher of the Week for the same time period.

In Clearwater last night, Kyle Drabek had another solid outing in CLearwater’s extra inning win, going 5 innings and allowing one run.  He did not get a decision. Dominic Brown has been on fire as well, hitting above .325, with a 6RBI game over the weekend.

In Lakewood, Anthony Gose stole his 19th base of the very young season last night.  Impressive.

Relief Pitcher Matt German, who has been outstanding this year for Reading, was placed on the DL with a strained oblique muscle.

Great pitching from Tyler Cloyd last night in Lakewood’s 2-0 victory over Kannapolis.

SS prospect Freddy Galvis was placed on the DL along with P Julian Sampson, while Mike Cisco was activated from the DL in Clearwater.

Michael Taylor and Yohan Flande were the Phillies organizations hitter and pitcher of the month for APril.

Tonights probably pitchers: Lehigh Valley: Drew Carpenter; Reading: Tyson Brummett; Clearwater: Drew Naylor; Lakewood: Jason Knapp.

—Jason Donald started at Second Base last night for Lehigh Valley, his first start at second this season as the Phils continue in their quest to make Donald a “super utility” type player.

–Reading pitchers (Bastardo and Escalona) walk one and strike out 11 in a 2-1 win.

—Carlos Carrasco on the mound this morning (10:30) for Lehigh Valley, trying to bounce back after two rough starts.

Before I open the floor for random banter, I wanted to point something out, because its something I’ve seen a lot here this year. There is no anti-Phillies bias in prospect circles. There simply isn’t. From an objective, outside point of view, the Phillies system hasn’t been very good over the last five years. We’ve always been a top heavy system (one or two very good prospects) and we’ve gotten the occasional ML performer on the cheap (Geary, Madson), but our system doesn’t compare with the type of guys that Boston, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and other teams have produced. The system is getting a lot better, and is as strong now as I can remember over the last 10 years. These publications are going to pick up on this and the Phillies will start to move up the rankings. Or maybe they won’t. But it really doesn’t matter. You have to remember also, Baseball America gets a lot of their info directly from the Phillies, and as we’ve chronicled, the Phillies don’t go out of their way to hype up their own guys to the degree that some teams (Mets, Yankees, Red Sox) do. But think about it from a practical standpoint. These places are trying to get more readers every day, and they are competing with other sites just like themselves. What benefit would they see in alienating an entire fanbase and being biased? Keith Law has no rooting interest in the Phillies or any other team. Why would he go out of his way to downgrade our prospects? He works for Scouts Inc/ESPN, ESPN wants as many new customers as possible. He is very consistent in his analysis, and he’s said “I was wrong on him, he’s gotten better since I last saw him” on more than one occasion.

There is no bias. Sometimes players legitimately fly under the radar. It happens in every organization. Now, onto the games…

Continue reading Daily Discussion; 8/22 →

We’ll take a quick look at last night’s notables, and then get to today’s action.

* Reading wins 3-2.

Harman 1/4 with a HR, Slayden 1/4 with a HR, Golson 0/4. Carpenter was good.

* Clearwater lost 3-1.

Pitching phenom Rick Porcello got the win. Naylor posted his 2nd straight QS. Berry extended his hitting streak, Michael Taylor returned with a 2/4 night and a HR.

* Lakewood won 4-0.

Stutes again the story, taking a no hitter into the 7th inning. Now has a 0.35 ERA in 4 starts. Rizzotti was 3/3, Galvis 1/3 with a 2B.

Continue reading Daily Discussion; 8/13 →

Time is short today, I’d like to do some more work on site enhancements, so with that I’ll just give you an open avenue for random discussion again. I did make one big change last night. If you look on the left side of the page, I’ve created a new set of categories. The first one is “Player Mentions”, which is essentially any article or tidbit that I or the other authors have written about that prospect. Previously, all of the profiles were linked under the player, and while this might have been somewhat useful, I was never really happy with how it looked. So I’ve separated all of the player profiles into their own separate category, which comes underneath. It might take a bit of getting used to, but I think it looks much better. But anyway, onto today’s action…

Continue reading Daily Discussion; 8/6 →

I’m short on time today, so I just have a few real quick thoughts, and then I’ll open the floor for discussion.

* When I look at prospects and try to determine their overall worth as a prospect (I’m sure they are all fine people), I focus on very specific traits. If you don’t find these traits important, you’re likely going to disagree with my rankings/evaluations. I welcome this, I just like when you back up your beliefs with reasoning and evidence. If you do that, we all learn something. This is just a general comment based on feedback I’ve seen in recent days/weeks/months.

* I’m going to be making some big changes here over the next few months. Many of these changes will be individually small, but I hope the cumulative product is an easier to read, more informative website with even more content. I’m ALWAYS looking for suggestions on how to improve things, and if you have them, please e-mail them to me. I read each and every email I get and I try to respond, though sometimes it takes me a few days. If you see something that is wrong, if there is something you want to see here, or anything else, just drop me a line. One thing I do want to address; this site will never contain ads and it will never be sold for a profit. I enjoy going to sites and not being inundated with pop ups and various embedded ads, and I’d never subject you to that treatment here. I’ve had numbers offers made to integrate my site with larger, cookie cutter sites, and I’ve turned down all of them. I’m here for the long haul, and I hope you are too.

So, onto today’s games. Discuss anything you’d like, just keep it prospect related….

Continue reading Daily Discussion; 8/5 →