Ahh, some good news. Per the Phillies website, the Phillies acquired Francisco Rosario for cash considerations. Baseball America ranked Rosario, now 26, the Blue Jays #5 prospect, which more an indictment of the lack of talent in Toronto’s system than Rosario’s prowess. That said, he throws hard, he pitched well in AAA last year after being converted to the pen, and he’s a cheap option to chew up some innings in what already looks like a suspect bullpen. He’s out of options, so we won’t see him in AAA I don’t believe, but since he is still a “prospect”, I felt I’d pass this along to those that haven’t seen it. Last week, I did a write-up on Rosario, you can check that out here if you missed it.

If you check the roster links to the left, you’ll see that I’ve updated Lakewood through Ottawa, based on the info given on the official websites of the affiliates. Some surprises;

CJ Henry starting at 3B in Lakewood. I knew he was being moved to third, but I thought he’d start at Clearwater. Welinson Baez was bumped to Clearwater, a move that doesn’t appear to be based on merit. Pat Overholt has been moved back into the starting rotation, and will begin in Clearwater. I knew the Phillies had given thought to this, and felt he had the stuff to start, but I thought they’d still fast track him in a bullpen role. The Clearwater rotation has the potential to be one of the best in the minors, with Brauer, Carpenter, Carrasco, Overholt and Outman you’re five starters. I’m also surprised to see Slayden starting in Clearwater, he seemed like an obvious double jump candidate based on his age.

Sam Walls is also missing from all of the minor league rosters, which leads me to believe he’ll stay in extended spring training and might join a full season team when he’s ready. D’Arby Myers is also absent from the Lakewood roster, which is a huge disappointment to me. From glancing at the minor league ST games, it looked like he was doing well enough to warrant the jump. Now it looks like he’ll remain in extended ST and then either join Williamsport or join Lakewood later in the season. This will definitely diminish his prospect status though. And finally, no sign of 2006 draft picks Jacob Dempsey and Charlie Yarbrough at Lakewood, no idea what their situation is.

Once the season starts, we’ll have a better idea of where the outfielders will line up and what role the relievers will play, and the roster pages will be further updated.

UPDATE —> Tim Moss has been released. Moss has to go down as one of the bigger busts of the last 5 years, just plain awful. Also, congrats to Joe Bisenius for making the 25 man roster.

UPDATE 2 –> Dempsey was in fact axed, along with Zac Cline, Matt Olson, and Max De La Cruz

Busy day today, huh?

Buried at the bottom of this article, it mentions Michael Dubee will open at Lakewood. I’m not sure whether this is an oversight or whether it’s true. Back in January, I guessed on the Lakewood roster (which you can see by clicking on the left side of the page) and predicted Dubee would get a spot. I had my doubts, but felt he might get a slot in the rotation based on his pedigree and his last name, and it appears he could.

Also, an MLB.com article released an hour ago talks about Condrey and Warden battling for a shot at the big league pen. Condrey has been good except for one awful outing, Warden has been up and down. They also mention that either Segovia or Happ could be needed as a 5th starter if both Lieber and Garcia aren’t able to make their normal turns. Segovia will pitch on Saturday and be stretched out so he could pitch on Thursday if needed, Happ will start this Thursday and could be stretched out as well. Dennis Deitch waxes poetic on Happ in this article, comparing him to Randy Wolf. Should be quite an interesting final week of spring training.

Though it apparently hasn’t been confirmed yet by Phillies.com, Justin Germano was placed on waivers and claimed by the Padres, according to beerleaguer. This move, if true, is disappointing on two fronts. First, Germano was acquired for Rheal Cormier last summer. Cormier, at the time, had to have at least some value, and getting a guy who was out of MLB options, if you didn’t plan on keeping him around, probably wasn’t the smartest move. Second, Germano is younger than some of the other options (Condrey and Warden) and though he isn’t a prime prospect, was still in the 20-30 range, and still could have helped down the road in some capacity, whether it be as a reliever or an emergency starter.

The Phillies bullpen is in disarray right now, and it’s hard to see how this move can be viewed as an improvement. It isn’t like losing a top prospect, but it still stings when it seems this could have been avoided. Interestingly, Germano was traded by San Diego to Cincinnati, and is now returning back to the place he got his start. Best of luck to him going forward.
UPDATE ——-> Sportingnews has the article and this quote from Germano

“I’m pretty shocked,” Germano said soon after assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. informed him of the move. “I thought I was right there. I had one bad inning. I knew they didn’t expect me to be perfect every time out.”

In the notes section today, The Inquirer mentions the Phillies have offered Rule 5 reliever Alfredo Simon back to the Rangers. No real shock here, as Simon has been downright awful, and unlike guys like Clay Condrey who can be sent back to the minors, Simon would have needed to remain on the 25 man roster all season.

Also, DelewareOnline has a nice piece on Michael Bourn, and indicates his chances of making the team are getting better each day. This part was interesting..

The Phillies are so impressed that, more than ever, they view Bourn as their next center fielder. And, under different circumstances, his spring success would make them even more inclined to deal Aaron Rowand, who will become a free agent after the season and has been the subject of trade rumors since October.

But expectations for the Phillies are sky-high. And for now, they are hesitant to have someone with just 152 Class AAA at-bats in the lineup. “He’s done nothing to make us say, ‘We need to see this or that before we can put him on the team,’ ” Arbuckle said. “But you’ve got to see it over a period of time. There’s a comfort level that needs to be established. If we were in a building stage, then you can take a young player and say, ‘If he makes some young mistakes, we can live with it and move on.’ “

The rumors about Aaron Rowand trades have been plentiful, but this makes it appear that they don’t trust Bourn in CF everyday, despite saying great things about his potential and future, and how much better he looks in camp this year. You’d think the only way anything would happen would be an injury to Rowand or Victorino, where Bourn could get every day AB’s. Either way, this will be an interesting story to watch the rest of the spring.

The Phillies have signed LHP Jake Ociesa and RHP Mike McTamney, and based on this article, could sign a few more players before the end of the camp. Ociesa is 6’5 and appears to feature a low 90’s fastball, McTamney is a 6’1 righty, but I know nothing of his stuff.

Ociesa pitched one season (2003) at Mississippi State before transferring to Murray State for his final 3 seasons. He struggled in both 2004 and 2005, and pitched only 1 inning in 2006. The Phillies must have seen something in him, or think they can fix him, but he costs next to nothing on a minor league deal, so why not? As a lefty, if he’s throwing in the low to mid 90’s with a mid 80’s breaking ball, he clearly has SOME talent, maybe they can get something out of him.

McTamney, 24,  spent three years at Wagner College, struggling in 2003 and 2004, before putting up a 3.74 ERA in 74.2 IP in 2005. He had decent control/K numbers, but allowed a ton of hits. He showed some promise in the Golden League in 2005 and 2006, but I have no idea how to translate statistics like that.

As reported here, the Phillies claimed 28 year old Greg Dobbs off waivers from the Seattle Mariners. Dobbs, drafted in 2001, was apparently a 6 year minor league free agent, and the Phillies added him, probably with hopes of filling out the Ottawa roster, but possibly to catch lightning in a bottle, ala Chris Coste in 2006. Dobbs has real good numbers, but it was probably more of a numbers game, with Adrian Beltre not going anywhere in Seattle, and a surplus of infielders already on their roster. His cumulative minor league line over the last three seasons is respectable:

1,037 AB, .307/.353/.439, 51 2B, 25 HR, 28/42 in SB

That line comes mostly at AA and AAA. But, we have a few problems

* He doesn’t draw many walks. Only 57 walks in close to 1,100 PA’s over 3 seasons

* He doesn’t have a lot of power for a corner infielder
* He’s been real old for his level

He’s also spent parts of the last three seasons in the majors, albeit for brief stays

2004: 53 AB, .226/.250/.302
2005: 142 AB, .246/.288/.331
2006: 27 AB, .370/.393/.556

Obviously, 2006 was a major outlier, and the sample size is very small.

So, what does this mean? Dobbs has a career OPS of .816 in the minors over 6 seasons, in just over 1,700 AB’s. He played 99 games at 3B in the minors in 2006, and in 2005 he played some at first and third, as well as DH’ing at the big league level. I can’t really see where he fits in at the big league level, unless the team plans to carry him over Coste. He doesn’t have drastic platoon splits, so I don’t see anything there, and Coste still has an advantage over him in being able to catch, if we’re considering the 25th man on the roster. Right now, the Phillies depth chart looks like this

C: Barajas
1B: Howard
2B: Utley
3B: Helms
SS: Rollins
C: Ruiz
INF: Nunez
INF: ??

LF: Burrell
CF: Rowand
RF: Victorino
OF: Werth
OF: ??

So, I suppose it’s between Dobbs and Coste for the last infield spot, unless the team decides to only carry 11 pitchers, which seems unlikely with two Rule 5 pitchers in Warden and Simon, or they decide to go with only 4 OF, which again seems unlikely given the concern for Pat Burrell’s foot. Then again, if Dobbs is going to sign a minor league deal and go to Ottawa to serve as filler/a callup in the event of an injury, this isn’t a bad move. I guess I just don’t know enough about it to determine what to make of it.

As reported by Delewareonline, the Phillies claimed 25 year old RHP Anderson Garcia off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles. Garcia was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Yankees in 2001, and since, has traveled many a road in his minor league career. He was traded to the Mets in 2003, where he pitched up until midway through this year, when he was released and claimed by Baltimore. Garcia was never a top prospect, so finding information on him hasn’t been easy. The only thing I can say for certain is that he possessed a blazing fastball, sitting in the mid 90’s and touching 97-98. However, with a fastball that good, it’s kind of surprising that he only averaged 7.07 K/9 throughout his minor league career. That would seem to indicate his secondary pitches are nothing to write home about. Since he’s been around for a while now, I’m really more interested in his recent results, not what he did in 2001 or 2002. Here are his year by year numbers since 2004

2004, (A-) : 84.0 IP, 9.86 H/9, 5.04 BB/9, 8.04 K/9, 0.75 HR/9
2005, (A+/AA): 77.1 IP, 9.34 H/9, 3.39 BB/9, 7.12 K/9, 1.17 HR/9
2006, (AA): 29.1 IP, 8.35 H/9, 1.86 BB/9, 7.73 K/9, 0.00 HR/9
2006, (AAA): 38.0 IP, 9.24 H/9, 4.03 BB/9, 4.97 K/9, 0.95 HR/9

And finally, let’s check his splits from 2006 to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary there.

vs LHB: .238/.331/.352, 7.95 H/9, 4.77 BB/9, 6.04 K/9, 0.64 HR/9
vs RHB: .259/.308/.335, 8.79 H/9, 1.93 BB/9, 6.43 K/9, 0.43 HR/9

It looks like we can rule out right handed specialist. It would honestly appear that this is more of a “let’s take a flier and see what happens” type of move. He’s on the 40 man roster, which I believe means he can be sent down to Ottawa and called up as the Phillies see fit this year, so he doesn’t have to remain on the roster all season. This move doesn’t cost the Phillies anything, so I suppose it’s worth a shot. Maybe the Phillies have scouted him and see a mechanical flaw in his delivery and think they can fix him, maybe they think he can somehow harness his velocity and flip the switch, or maybe Pat Gillick was just bored. Either way, don’t expect too much from this move, and you won’t be disappointed.

A loyal commenter brought up a good point in possibly comparing Garcia to former farmhand Carlos Silva. While it appears Garcia has more velocity than Silva had/has, Garcia did manage to generate a 2:1 groundball to flyball ratio. While I generally worry about pitchers who HOPE for contact and don’t strike guys out, there is something to be said for keeping the ball on the ground and in the park.