Baseball America is doing their midseason reports, and with it comes their Top 25 still in the minors, 25 more in alphabetical order, and then a chat. Some Phillies content here.

1. Domonic Brown, of, Phillies (Triple-A Lehigh Valley): The power has come through as the Phillies predicted, as Brown has started to fill out at age 22 and surpassed his career home runs total in his first 65 games at Double-A Reading. Then he went out and hit four in his first 13 games after a promotion to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He ranks 10th in the minors in OPS, and he’s doing it with big tools at upper levels. His still-raw defensive skills (his defensive tools are fine) are his only major flaw.

Brown is a beast, and I think the qualms over his defense might be a bit overstated. He’ll be fine defensively.

Cosart and Singleton were both listed in the 26-50 range.

Check below for the comments given by John Manuel in the chat

Continue reading BA’s midseason Top 25 + more tidbits →

Sweeping the nation. Kevin Goldstein at BP gives Singleton a little love in his daily posting.

An 8th-round pick last year out of a Southern California high school, Singleton had classic first base tools, including plenty of raw power, but also enough hitting mechanics to project as a high-average hitter, but he was also seen as extremely raw. A surprisingly good debut last year excited the Phillies, and after spending the first part of the year in extended spring training, the team opted to test him at Low-A instead of the New York-Penn League, and he’s responded by going 19-for-44 (.432) with 34 total bases in his first 13 games. There’s explosive potential here.

To balance out this love, he gives a pessimistic assessment of the 3 guys we received for Cliff Lee. To sum up his points, basically none of the 3 have gotten off to awesome starts. Aumont’s velo is down with his new mechanics, Gillies has been hurt, and Ramirez still hasn’t shown much progress with his secondary pitches. All are valid concerns, but in the case of all three, I’m going to give them the rest of the year before drawing conclusions, for various reasons.

It’s not technically the BP Ten Pack or the BA Hotsheet, but Kevin Goldstein has started giving daily minor league updates over at Baseball Prospectus.  It hasn’t fallen under the guise of premium content (at least not yet), so it’s certainly worth the daily read for all of you minor league aficionados.  Anyhoo, Goldstein has Michael Taylor in today’s update:

Michael Taylor, OF, Phillies (Double-A Reading)
Thursday’s stats: 3-for-5, 2 2B, HR (3), 5 RBI
After three disappointing years at Stanford, Taylor got away from the single-plane “Stanford swing” in 2008 and suddenly delivered a .346/.412/.557 season while suddenly looking like the player who in high school was one of the best tools guys in the country. A monster athlete at six-foot-six and 250 pounds, Taylor is batting .424 during a current seven game hitting streak and .338/.389/.569 overall. The scary part? Some think he’s just starting to tap into his potential.

Just to add a few tidbits: there was some concern last year that Taylor’s strikeout-to-walk ratio in Clearwater indicated that he would have some difficulty adjusting to Double-A, but his 10:6 ratio so far this year is more than manageable.  His .231 ISO, 6 walks, and 5 stolen bases (in 5 attempts) add up to a .400 SecA.  We’re just a few weeks into the season, but the early returns are certainly promising.

Now I guess Goldstein is full of crap too because he doesn’t view Carrasco’s season as an overwhelming success….

Carlos Carrasco, RHP, Triple-A Lehigh Valley (Phillies)
Carrasco entered the year as the Phillies’ top prospect, but his performance had been disappointing right up until the end of the season when he finished with a flourish. The 21-year-old Venezuelan put up a 4.32 ERA at Double-A Reading in 20 appearances, and while his ratios had been solid, he was hit hard far too often for a top prospect. Sent to Triple-A at the beginning of August, he made six starts for the Iron Pigs, and pitched very well in five of them, including 6 2/3 shutout innings with nine strikeouts in his final outing of the year—giving him a 1.72 ERA in the International League with 46 strikeouts in 36 2/3 innings. The fact that he’s not on the 40-man roster yet makes his chances for a big-league debut this month dicey, but he’s lined up to compete for a job in the rotation next spring.

Busy day today; Travis D’Arnaud and Michael Taylor show up in Kevin Goldstein’s latest Monday Morning Ten Pack at Baseball Prospectus.

Travis D’Arnaud, C, Low-A Lakewood (Phillies)
During the first half of the season, I felt a little foolish for ranking D’Arnaud ahead of Lou Marson going into the season. While Marson has had a breakout year and is now catching for the Olympic squad, D’Arnaud has certainly kept up his end of the bargain. After batting .309/.371/.463 in the New York-Penn League, the 19-year-old spent his first weekend of full-season baseball over the last three days by going 6-for-13 with a pair of doubles. Athletic and projectable, D’Arnaud has plus defensive tools and above-average power potential. While plenty of teams don’t have a single decent catching prospect, the Phillies have two very good ones.

Michael Taylor, OF, High-A Clearwater (Phillies)
Taylor began the year with a .361/.441/.554 line at Low-A Lakewood which created a mixed reaction. At six-foot-six and 250 pounds, Taylor looks like a potential monster, but at the same time he’s 22 years old and coming of of a highly disappointing three-year career at Stanford that left scouts scratching their heads. Moved up to the Florida State League in mid-June, Taylor continues to bump up his stock by mashing in a much tougher offensive environment, most recently by delivering multi-hit games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to raise his batting line for the Threshers to .342/.392/.546 in 53 contests. There are still questions about what it all means, since both his age and the three-year hole he dug himself in Palo Alto are a lot to make up for in some people’s minds, but the further this goes, the more his doubters fall by the wayside.

We now interrupt draft bickering to congratulate C-Squared on his re-appearance on the weekly hot sheet at BA.

Team: Triple-A Lehigh Valley (International)
Age: 21
Why he’s here: 1-1, 0.75, 12 IP, 13 H, 5 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 18 SO
The Scoop: After a solid Triple-A debut (6 2/3 innings, two runs, four strikeouts, two walks, six hits), Carrasco flat-out dominated both Buffalo and Scranton this week, striking out 10 and then eight batters—though he was undermined last night by a balk and then a wild pitch, costing him a chance for a win. Nevertheless, Carrasco pitched at 93-96 mph for much of the outing and effectively mixed in his curveball.

Michael Taylor also appeared in the honorable mentions section.

Very nice.

Anthony Hewitt, 3B, Rookie-level GCL Phillies
Hewitt’s entry into the game was well-publicized; he was the best athlete in this year’s draft, a player that some scouts scored as a perfect 80 on raw power, speed, and arm. The only problem was that nobody really thought he was a very good baseball player yet. Nevertheless, the Phillies love athletes, so they took him with their first-round selection, and so far he’s exceeded expectations. After a two-hit game on Friday, Hewett went 4-for-7 with two doubles and his first professional home run in a Saturday doubleheader, raising his debut-season averages to .333/.385/.583. He also drew his first walk of the year (it took him ten games) and made a couple of errorless starts at third base, a ‘read and react’ position that might work better for him than those requiring game instincts.

Baseball America did a midseason update of sorts today, giving their Top 25 prospects at the midseason point. Cardenas “just missed the cut” for the Top 25

Just missing the cut: Lars Anderson, 1b, Red Sox; Adrian Cardenas, 2b, Phillies; Alcides Escobar, ss, Brewers; Michael Saunders, of, Mariners; Max Scherzer, rhp, Diamondbacks.

This is obviously excellent news. Cardenas was ranked 76th overall heading into this season.

Marson Mania is kicking into full gear. Lou made this week’s Ten Pack;

Marson was one of the Phillies’ breakout players last year, batting .288/.373/.407 at High-A Clearwater while featuring plenty of athleticism behind the plate. All of that has led to another step forward this year, as Marson is currently riding a nine-game hitting streak is which he’s reached base 22 times and driven in 15 runs. Now batting .345/.462/.460 for the R-Phils, Marson has turned into an absolute on-base machine, reaching safely at an even .500 pace in 21 May games, and he’s doing his part defensively as well by nailing 39 percent of opposing basestealers. From nice catching prospect to very good one, Marson could fill one of the Phillies few lineup weaknesses by mid-2009.