Trade deadline is tomorrow. I won’t even bother trying to steer the discussion in any direction for the next 2 days. You guys will talk trades anyway, so do it. I’ll just post the schedule for today. Ill do the same tomorrow. If trades are made and our system gets emptied out, I’ll talk about it. Otherwise, just discuss whatever it is you’d like to discuss. Heres the schedule…
Tuesday Tidbits
Some general thoughts this morning…
* One of the more intriguing arms to me on the GCL team is Reginal Simon. Generally speaking, the 19 and 20 year old guys making the jump to the GCL from the Latin American based teams are non-prospects or fringe guys, but the younger guys are more likely to turn into legit prospects. Simon is 18 and put up decent numbers in the Dominican Summer League last year. In his first taste of pro ball, its been a mixed bag, but there have been positive signs. His most promising peripheral is the 24 to 7 strikeout to walk ratio. He has been home run prone, allowing 4 in only 31.2 innings, but I think he does have a promising arm, and will be a guy worth watching. He’s going to probably be a one level at a time guy but I think he’s got a chance to be a useful arm at some point.
Lakewood BlueClaws Report (6/22-6/28)
After allowing a combined twenty runs in losing the first three games of the week, the BlueClaws needed to step it up a notch and get strong performances from their starting pitchers if they wanted to keep up with the West Virginia Power in the second-half SAL standings. Behind two extremely strong debuts from rookie pitchers Michael Stutes and Michael Cisco, Lakewood evened the week’s record out to 3-3 and stayed in the hunt for the SAL Northern lead, at 24-13 two games behind the Power.
Anthony Hewitt makes the Ten Pack
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.
Williamsport and GCL Weekly Report (7/19-7/27)
Williamsport
The Crosscutters started the week out strong by going 5-1, but they dropped all three games over the weekend to end up at 5-4. They now sit at 20-17 overall, good for 4th place in the Pinckney division and 5.5 GB of first place Jamestown.
Continue reading Williamsport and GCL Weekly Report (7/19-7/27)
JA Happ removed from his start today
Rumors swirling. Happ was removed in the 3rd inning, and according to 1 report, was being congratulated in the dugout, or at least it didn’t appear he was injured. If he was being recalled by the big league team, it seems odd to remove him mid inning. The more likely scenario is a trade in the works. Stay tuned.
Daily Discussion, 7/25
Happy Friday. Just a few quick notes from me today. First, I wanted to again thank those of you who have been here from the beginning, and those of you who might have just found the site last week during Blanton-Fest. Traffic has really surged over the last 2 months, starting a few weeks before the draft, and the momentum has continued. Seeing new opinions is always something I enjoy, and even with the huge influx of new visitors, everyone has behaved reasonably well. I did want to make a quick point though. The people who volunteer there time here writing reports (we now have a correspondent for every affiliate, which is awesome to me), are just that, volunteers, and I think its disrespectful to these people to get off topic in the comments section of their respective weekly reports. I purged a bunch of comments from the Reading post yesterday for that reason. I’m going to be more attentive in creating a daily discussion thread like this one every day for people to discuss there general thoughts. Around trade deadline time, I don’t mind discussions delving into the big league team, we’re all Phillies fans, but I’m trying to keep this site focused on the minors, since there are tons of sites and blogs devoted to discussing the major league team. We’ve kind of cornered the market here on intelligent (I think) minor league discussion, and I kind of want to keep it that way.
Also a quick update on the Wiki Project. A few of us have been working on adding info to the site, but I’m always looking for more people to help out. I haven’t posted much about the specifics of the Wiki site yet, but my goal is to have all of the information, or at least a good chunk of it, added to the site by October, and then spending the rest of the winter touching it up and making it look nice. When the Wiki site is “ready”, I’m going to be making some changes here, nothing radical, but just touching things up, moving a few things, and generally making it more visually appealing. There will be more on that in the coming days/weeks/months, and again, if you’d like to help out, send an email and I’ll give you the details. And now onto today’s games…
Iron Pigs Report
Lehigh Valley had a rough week going 3-4 , and now stand at 43-63, in last place in the Northern Division of the International League, 21.5 games behind Pawtucket. Updating ‘Pigs among league leaders, Mike Cervenak is 8th in at bats (368), 3rd in hits (116), and 3rd in the league in average (.313). Andy Tracy is 9th in slugging % (.520), 7th in on base % (.384), 4th in walks (52), 4th in RBI’s (68), and 4th in doubles (25). Brandon Watson, who has been playing extremely well lately is 5th in the league in hits (107). JA Happ is 9th in the league in ERA (3.37), 10th in the league in innings (114.2), leads the league in strikeouts (124), and is 6th in the league in WHIP (1.18). Brian Mazone is 9th in WHIP (1.19), 5th in homers allowed (17), and 5th in innings (121.2). Les Walrond is now 3rd in the league in ERA (2.83) and Matt Childers is 2nd in the league in saves (16).
Reading Phillies Weekly Report (7/16-7-22)
Another bad week for the Reading Phillies. The team not only lost 5 out of 7 games on the week, but also lost an excellent prospect in Josh Outman. I wish Outman the best of luck in what looks to be a very promising MLB career. Even though Outman is gone, the Reading Phillies still have plenty of prospects that look to help the big league club in the near future. Lets take a look at the game recaps…
Tuesday tidbits
So, time for me to stop slacking and get in gear. I have some general thoughts. Before I get to that, if you want to make a redundant comment about the Joe Blanton trade, or even a fresh comment with fresh ideas, go to the Joe Blanton post, make it there, and do it before the end of the day, because I’m going to lock the comments on the post and freeze it in the time capsule for all of us to look at later. But I want to move on, and I feel like Blanton-Mania has cast a general malaise over the rest of the site. With that said, lets get to the tidbits.
