Lehigh Valley Weekly Report

Other Stuff

A 4-3 week for Lehigh Valley, who now stand at 20-25 and in 4th place of the Northern Division of the International League, 6.5 games behind division leading Buffalo.  After an off day on Wednesday, the ‘Pigs play four at home against Norfolk, before hitting the road for four games in Rochester.

‘Pigs Leaders (Hitting): Cesar Hernandez is 9th in AB’s (169), 7th in SB (12), 4th in hits (54), leads the league in triples (6); Jermaine Mitchell is 2nd in triples (4); Cody Asche is 3rd in triples (3) and 8th in RBI’s (29); COdy Overbeck in 5th in HR (9); Darin Ruf is 6th in strikeouts (48). Continue reading Lehigh Valley Weekly Report →

Box Score Recap – 5/21/2013

Box Score Recap

Another really nice outing from Jesse Biddle – 3H 4BB and 9K over 7 2/3 scoreless IP. Not bad by any stretch, but I could do without 4 walks. Seem like I’m nit picking, really. Shane Watson with 1H 2BB and 4K over 5 scoreless IP – nice effort there as well. He’s been kind of a mixed bag this year. The BB rate is fair, the K rate is low, and he’s giving up too many HR.

Roman Quinn gets to 20 steals, but commits his 16th and 17th errors. Those two numbers shouldn’t be that close. He is OPSing .857 in May, though, and 1.069 in his last ten games, (with 7BB and just 7K in those ten), so that’s helpful.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/21/2013 →

Phillies Sign Julsan Kamara (Old News but more information)

Other Stuff

On May 13th the Phillies signed Julsan Kamara out of Germany, not much was know at the time but some more has come out since.

Before proceeding read Crashburn Alley’s Eric Longenhagen’s article that includes a quote from Phillies Director of International Scouting, Sal Agostinelli http://crashburnalley.com/2013/05/21/lass-uns-verstecken-spielen-brief-findings-on-julsan-kamara/

Continue reading Phillies Sign Julsan Kamara (Old News but more information) →

Prospect Spotlight: Seth Rosin

Rosin, Seth

Let me start off by saying I was wrong about Rosin.  I thought that he was a bullpen piece all the way and so far he has gone a long way to proving other wise.

How We Got Here:

Rosin was a 2010 4th round pick by the San Francisco Giants out of the University of Minnesota.  In college his fastball worked 91-92 touching 94, though the summer before he touched 96 on the Cape.  His secondary offering were fringy and most scouts thought he belonged in the bullpen possibly in a high leverage role.  The Giants moved him to the bullpen part time after drafting him, but after acquiring him in the Hunter Pence trade the Phillies moved him back to the rotation. Continue reading Prospect Spotlight: Seth Rosin →

Box Score Recap – 5-15-2013

Box Score Recap

Not a good line from Seth Rosin – made me take a closer look at his numbers. If he can’t strike as many guys out from the rotation, he’d better be getting a ton of groundballs. So far this year his GB%, according to First Inning, is only 40%. That’s not good for a guy with just a 16% K Rate. He may be headed ultimately to the pen where his stuff played more for strikeouts in 2011-2012, (25% and 27% respectively).

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5-15-2013 →

Box Score Recap – 5/20/2013

Box Score Recap

Clearly inspired by my post after his last start, where I said that he needs to throw more groundballs or strike more guys out, Seth Rosin did both last night – 8K and 9GB outs in 8 strong IP. With that in mind, here’s a short list of other things our young prospects should do:

Darin Ruf should run faster.

Sebastian Valle should take some walks.

Larry Greene should only hit homeruns from now on – no more striking out.

Shane Watson should send me a couple hundred bucks out of his signing bonus. Same for Mitch Gueller.

Dylan Cozens should help me out with yardwork. He seems like a big strong guy who could easily toss an old birdbath over the brushline and into the woods across the road.

All of the R-Phils guys should come to my house next week when the team’s in Bowie and we’ll all hang out and maybe do a little BBQ or something, you know, real casual like. Then  we’ll all become best buddies and they can take me on the road with them and we’ll play guitar on the bus together and sing happy songs and chill by the hotel pools in the summer and it’ll be super sweet.

Cameron Perkins should hit for a little more power.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/20/2013 →

General Discussion – Week of 5-20-2013 – Old Bodies Collapsing Edition

Other Stuff
Lots of injury news the last week. Mike Adams just placed on the DL, Quintero up but Chooch stays on the active roster, as does Howard, after both had MRIs on Sunday. Halladay had surgery last week and could optimistically begin throwing before the end of June, (6-8 weeks was the timetable). Also my arm hurts. I blame holding an iPhone for too many hours a day, and I blame Ruben Amaro.

Box Score Recap – 5/19/2013

Box Score Recap

Cam Perkins doesn’t have a hit in 4 games, but he does have 5 walks in those 4 contests. So that’s nice. And Austin Wright came back from the DL – I’m choosing to pretend that I didn’t see the results, and so I remain content that Austin Wright came back from the DL. Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/19/2013 →

Box Score Recap – 5/18/2013

Box Score Recap

Aaron Altherr came back from the “Whatever that’s called that’s not the disabled list” List on Thursday, after recovering from what I’m guessing was a concussion related to his collision last week. He had an interesting night – 1-5 with a triple and 4Ks. He’s hit in 12 straight, wrapped around that “Listing”, but on the downside, he’s got one more K in May than he did in April, and there’s still a week and a half left. A bit of a flag to watch out for on him.

Elsewhere, Nic Hanson (I’m not the only one who thinks he omits the “k” from his first name, right?), struck out 9 of the 24 men he faced in 5 2/3 innings, though he allowed 7 hits and 4 runs. The hits and runs aren’t great, but that’s a lot of Ks, regardless.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/18/2013 →

Possible Call-ups to the Reading Fightins

Other Stuff

 Obviously, Reading isn’t much of a team to watch right now with the obvious exception of number one prospect Jesse Biddle. On the other hand, Clearwater is a very exciting team to watch right now, with a bunch of talented youngsters. While it’s only May, you have to that somebody will get a call-up to Reading from Clearwater sooner or later. I’m not sure who, but I have a few possibilities in mind.

 

Pitching

Perci Garner- Garner has had an unexpectedly great season so far. As of now, he’s 3-0 with a 2.27 ERA. Not bad. But there has been one big problem- his control. So far through 47.2 innings pitched, he’s given away 20 free passes. Thankfully, he’s been able to limit the damage by keeping the ball in the park, only giving up 2 homers.

While Garner has pitched well, the Phillies should wait a bit to see if they can sort his control problems out.

Gabriel Arias- another pitcher who has been pretty dominant so far. 5-1 with a sparkling 1.69 ERA, Arias started off the season as a reliever, but he’s recently started starting for Clearwater. All of his numbers look good right now- WHIP (1.125) HR/9 (.4) BB/9 (2.5) K/9 (7.0). Case in point- if Arias keeps pitching like he has been, a June/July call-up would definitely seem likely.

Hitters

Maikel Franco- it’s hard not to be impressed with Franco. This year, he’s overcome his usual early-season slump, notching 8 homers (25 XBH) and 32 RBI. Furthermore, Franco is hitting .291/.341/.557.

All the numbers are impressive, but the Phillies should take their time with Franco- let me remind you that he’s still only 20.

Kelly Dugan- Dugan was injured to start the season, but now that he’s playing again, he’s tearing the cover off of the baseball. In 79 PA, he’s hitting .307/.359/.500 with 3 homers and 12 RBI. However, if you look at his stats more closely, you’ll find some uglier ones. As of now, he has 3 walks compared to 20 strikeouts. To say the least, that’s not too good of a ratio. 

Dugan has missed a lot of time with injuries, so he’ll need to accelerate his way through the system faster than Franco will have to. But I’d keep Dugan in Clearwater only if tomake sure this isn’t a hot streak, as this is his first year in A+ ball.

Cameron Perkins- In a team full of hot hitters, Perkins may be the hottest of them all. The 6’5″ 195 pound outfielder has been on fire, hitting .361/.383/.561. While his lack of walks (5) has been discouraging, he’s partially made up for it with his lack of strikeouts (19). For safe measure, he’s added on 3 HR and 3 SB. 

Like many others on this team, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a mid-summer call-up.

Aaron Altherr- another 6’5″ outfielder, Altherr has been ripping as of late. Altherr is hitting .333/.393/.566 with 4 homers, 8 stolen bases, and 25 RBI. A toolsy outfielder, this seems to be the year that Altherr is pulling everything together. 

It’s unlikely that Altherr is called up this summer as the Phillies organization will want to make sure this isn’t a case of somebody catching lightning in a bottle.

For the most part, it seems as if the prevalent theme with these guys is that a mid-summer call-up is most likely, unless injuries force the organization’s hand.