Winter Ball Round Up: Dec. 7 – Dec. 20.

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I was on the road last weekend and couldn’t provide an update. So, here’s a two-week update today.

Position Players

  • In the VWL
  • Willians Astudillo played in 8 games and went 10 for 31, no XBH, 1 RBI, and his first 2 VWL Ks. His overall slash is .314/.351/.400/.751. He has been splitting time in Left and center fields, has one outfield assist from LF, and has committed no errors.
  • Andres Blanco played in 12 games and went 13 for 41, 5 XBH, 6 RBI, 6 BB, 5 K. His overall slash is .306/.444/.472/.917. His BB rate is 11.4% and his K rate is 18.3%.
  • Freddy Galvis played in 13 games and went 16 for 53, 5 XBH, 8 BB, 7 K. Overall, he is .259/.326/.345/.671 with 12 doubles. His BB rate is 8.4% and his K rate is 21.9%. Surprisingly, he has been caught stealing in 4 of 5 attempts.
  • Cesar Hernandez played in 11 games and went 9 for 38, 3 XBH, 9 BB, 7 K, 3 SB. Overall he is .315/.393/.371/.764 with 7 doubles. His BB rate is 11.4% and his K rate is 17.7%.
  • Obudel Herrera played in 12 games and went 18 for 47, 2 HR, 6 BB, 6 K, 3 SB. Overall he’s .378/.434/.567/.1.001 with 5 HR, 13 doubles, 3 triples, 7 SB in 7 attempts. His BB rate is 8.6% and his K rate is 14.2%.
  • Gabriel Lino played in 9 games and went 6 for 24, 8 K. Overall he’s  .247/.345/.329/.674 with 6 doubles. His BB rate is 13.1% and his K rate is 31.5%.
  • Wilmer Oberto saw time in 4 games and went 0 for 5. Overall he has 39 at bats in 19 games. His slash is .179/.273/.179/.452. He has 15 Ks in those 39 ABs.

Continue reading Winter Ball Round Up: Dec. 7 – Dec. 20. →

Upcoming Reader Top 30 Poll

2015 Reader Top 30

Get ready for the 2015 Reader Top 30 Prospect Survey.  An overwhelming number of readers expressed interest in having a top 30.  Of 274 respondents, 246 were in favor  (89.8%).

I will start next week and try to post a poll every day.  I would encourage each participant to submit her or his own Top 30 to prospectpoll@yahoo.com using the Subject – My Prospect List. I am curious how the day-by-day voting would affect the outcome when compared to a one-time submission along the lines of an MVP ballot.  (This is not a requirement.)

I suggest we continue to follow Baseball America’s standards for prospects by considering any player eligible for rookie status as eligible for this poll.

As a quick refresher, the following players exceeded Rookie Status during the 2014 status – David Buchanan, Ken Giles, Miguel Gonzalez (he has 122 playing days at the major league level according to Baseball Reference), Cesar Hernandez, Mario Hollands, Ethan Martin, and Cameron Rupp. Continue reading Upcoming Reader Top 30 Poll →

Phillies trade Jimmy Rollins to the Dodgers, receive 2 prospects

Other Stuff

Its finally official now. The Phillies send Jimmy Rollins to the Dodgers and get back RHP Zach Eflin and LHP Tom Windle.

Here is video of Eflin.

Here is video of Windle.

My analysis: Eflin looks like a #4 starter in the majors. He is durable, none of his pitches are truly plus or better, but his overall package is solid. He looks like he’ll pitch at 90-93, so his command will need to be sharp, but he has done well since turning pro and he looks pretty durable. Windle looks like a reliever to me, but I’d give him every chance possible to stick as a starter. He has good raw stuff, but hes not a finished product and has a bit more to do. Given the Phillies struggles with player development, I’m at the point where I will take the low end of the probability scale on most guys, but Eflin at least seems pretty low risk.

Rollins had 1 year left on his deal, and I’m sure he’s happy he gets another shot at a ring, which he wasn’t going to get here.

Thanks for all of the memories, Young James.

next steps for phuturephillies.com

Other Stuff

hello, its me. i wanted to quickly say a few words about what i plan to do moving forward and what has happened since i left. a few weeks ago, i wrote a quick post saying that the site would not die, and that i was debating making a return. so, now that ive had some time to think about things, i wanted to update you. as some of you know, brevity was never my specialty, so the rest of this entry is below the fold

Continue reading next steps for phuturephillies.com →

Baseball America’s Phillies Top 10 list

Prospect Rankings

BA released their Phillies Top 10 today. You can find it here.

The top 10 is:

01. JP Crawford
02. Aaron Nola
03. Maikel Franco
04. Roman Quinn
05. Carlos Tocci
06. Aaron Brown
07. Matt Imhof
08. Jesmuel Valentin
09. Yoel Mecias
10. Franklyn Kilome

Please do not post the scouting reports from behind BA’s paywall. They will be pissed if you do. Here is a summary

The good:

* JP Crawford is awesome, and one of the best all around prospects in baseball
* Aaron Nola has elite command, he’s more than a soft tosser, but he has to refine his secondary stuff
* Franco has legit power and a great arm, but he’s really aggressive and has holes in his game
* Roman Quinn is one of the fastest players in baseball

The bad:

* After the top 4, it gets really bad# in a hurry
* Jesse Biddle couldn’t make the top 10, in what will be a system BA ranks in the 20-30 range. That is really troubling.
* The Phillies drafts over the last 4-5 years have been brutal. We’re feeling the effects right now.

If you’re a believer in divine intervention, say a few prayers for the bottom half of our top 10 so that things look a little better at this time next year. Also, a few people have asked me about putting out a top 30 list this winter, since I may start writing again. I’m going to decline to do that, simply because I have not paid as much attention to the system (or baseball as a whole) over the last 2 years. If I get back into it again, I will write a top 30 next winter. I will say, from what I know, that I’d rank Quinn above Franco right now, and even with his struggles, I’d have kept Biddle at #10, as I don’t think hes lost all hope, and I think hes a better bet to contribute in the majors on some level over a guy who hasn’t gotten out of A ball yet. But there isn’t much else for me to add.

Now, please discuss.

Report: Phillies Move Rollins, Bastardo in Separate Deals

Transactions

So, while travelling north to PA on Interstate 95, my text and Twitter exploded.  First, with news of a ¨completed¨ trade of Jimmy Rollins to the Los Angeles Dodgers and then with another trade where Antonio Bastardo was reportedly sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In the Bastardo deal, the Phillies will receive Joely Rodriguez, a 6’1, 200 lb, left-handed pitcher who started in 2/3 of his 30 appearances for the Double-A Altoona Curve, and posted a 4.84 ERA.  He participated in the Arizona Fall League as a member of the Scottsdale Scorpions, which included seven Phillies’ players as well as Lehigh Valley pitching coach Ray Burris.  Rodriguez rebounded from a difficjult regular season to post a 3-0 record in 7 starts against the higher level competition of the AFL.  He posted a 2.38 ERA, struck out 22, and walked 6 in 22.2 innings.

Although the Rollins trade ¨broke”first, the players involved haven’t been announced.  There has been speculation that the Phillies will receive a pair of minor league pitching prospects, that some money will change hands (this requires approval by the commissioner), and that a third team is involved (the Marlins?) and that player(s) from that trade are involved.

So until we learn more, here’s a place to talk about these moves.

Open Discussion: Week of December 8, 2014; Winter Meetings Edition

Weekly Discussion

MLB began their coverage of baseball’s winter meetings at 8:00PM Sunday evening.  Early in the show, Greg Amsinger, Harold Reynolds, and Dan Plesac offered their opinions on the level of activity we could expect from the Phillies at the 2014 Winter Meetings.  Their preview suggested that the Phillies –

  1. might be as inactive this year as they were last year because of the big contracts.
  2. had missed their window of opportunity for unloading their big contracts.
  3. had a new window and their big contracts didn’t look so bad.
  4. had an opportunity to move their big contracts, even Howard’s “if he’s able to turn it around” (Huh? What does that even mean?)

After these four earth shattering pronouncements, with which all three announcers agreed, I decided to mute the volume by 8:14PM and prep the Open Discussion for  Monday. Continue reading Open Discussion: Week of December 8, 2014; Winter Meetings Edition →

Winter Ball Round Up: Nov. 30 – Dec. 6

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Updates on Phillies’ minor league players from around winter ball  during the last week –

  • Aaron Altherr hasn’t played since November 18th.
  • Willians Astudillo hasn’t played since November 23rd, his only appearance where he hit a 3-run HR in a 1-4 outing.
  • Emmanuel Marrero hasn’t played since November 26th.
  • Cameron Perkins hasn’t played since October 29th.
  • Darin Ruf hasn’t played since October 31st.  I read that he suffered a muscle strain, returned to the US for a second opinion, and was sent home for the winter.
  • Wilber Oberto hasn’t played since November 4th.
  • Jesse Biddle hasn’t pitched since November 8th when he was shut down for the winter after an injury.
  • Ethan Martin hasn’t pitched since November 29th.
  • Lino Martinez hasn’t pitched since November 6th.
  • Yacksel Rios hasn’t pitched since November 18th.
  • Alexis Rivero hasn’t pitched since October 20th.

Position players – Continue reading Winter Ball Round Up: Nov. 30 – Dec. 6 →

What’s next? Here is what is next

Other Stuff

I wanted to make a quick post here, just so everyone is clear. Gregg reached out to me a few days ago and mentioned he may be ready to move on. When I started this site more than 7 years ago, I never intended to move on to anything else. 2 years ago, I had lost the desire to write on a regular basis, at least with regard to minor league prospects. I’m still not sure that I’m cut out to do it anymore, but the site won’t go away and the site won’t die. I’ll continue to renew the domain name and will keep everything here as an archive, at the very least.

I have a very demanding job and that limits my ability to write. I don’t know if my next post will be tomorrow, next week, or next month. I’ve had the urge to write on occasion the last few years, but I never acted on it. Now that the site is in flux, I may get that urge again. For now, I hope that everyone who comes to and uses the site decides to stick around. I can’t promise the level of content here over the next few weeks/months/years, but all of the hard work that went into the site for the last 7+ years won’t be discarded or deleted.

Until the next one…

What Next?

Announcements

Well, if you are reading this I can still post. And, if I can still post, I will continue to post.

I was as shocked as you when I read on Twitter that Phuture Phillies was “shutting down“. I read Gregg’s goodbye post and eventually saw the e-mail he sent me shortly before he posted his goodbye.

Vic Filoromo contacted me last night about keeping the site up and running. I am not adverse to the idea, but Gregg was the last person to have admin privileges. In a later contact with him, I got the impression that they are not his to pass along.

So, while I can still post, I can’t maintain some of the site’s features. I can’t update Transactions. I can’t add new Categories, like adding a new menu option for the 2015 Reader Top 30. I can’t update any file that I didn’t create. I can’t add new writers.

But I can continue to post until some outside force takes down the site. So, I’ll start the Reader Top 30 next week. I’ll continue to post a Weekly Discussion feed. I’ll continue to post transactions.

I have been approached by other sites and asked to consider joining them. This surprised me since I don’t so much write articles as report what I see. Then I realized that my best asset isn’t how or what I write, but more that I’m actually on site during spring training, extended spring training, FSL, GCL, and FIL.

I’ve grown attached to Phuture Phillies and all the readers and commenters here. I like the format and enjoy the interaction in the comment section. I chose Phuture Phillies because of the quality of comments posted here. So, while carefully considering these offers to join other sites, I will continue working here.  Hopefully, Vic will continue to contribute as well.

(BTW, if you rely on Twitter to notify you of new posts here, that account belongs to Gregg.  He’ll probably be taking that with him, so you may want to follow us to receive notices of new posts at @jimpeyton19 and @victorfiloromo.  My account has the extra added bonus of in-game tweets during the season.)